Afghanistan in Bollywood Films

Abstract

Hollywood films have long been known to Orientalize Arabs and Muslims. Afghanistan popularly known as “the graveyard of empires” being a site of war for centuries has received much of this oriental gaze through Hollywood films among other forms of media. Many of these films have been supervised by the US government which has made concerted efforts to present Arabs and Muslims as antagonists by conflating Islam with terrorism. Bollywood films representing Afghanistan seems to have shown no exception in partaking to an oriental gaze. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the oriental gaze of Bollywood films and the implications of such representations.