Article summary
Abstract
South Asian cinema occupies a unique cultural and aesthetic space within the global audiovisual landscape, defined by its ability to blend diverse narrative traditions into hybrid forms often described as “masala.” While the term typically refers to Indian mainstream cinema, its influence extends across South Asia, shaping the cinematic identity of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. This research paper examines how genre cinema in South Asia has evolved historically, persisted through political transitions, and adapted to the pressures of globalisation, technological change, and shifting audience sensibilities. Drawing from cultural theory, film historiography, and media industry studies, the paper argues that the “global masala” phenomenon represents more than a stylistic trope; it is an adaptive storytelling ecology that absorbs local mythologies, transnational influences, and popular cultural rhythms. The study situates South Asian genre cinema within debates on cultural hybridity, national identity, and global media convergence. It highlights how melodrama, action, romance, horror, and political thrillers have been reshaped by regional aesthetics, including folk performance, oral storytelling, devotional art, and postcolonial anxieties. The persistence of genre conventions across decades—despite censorship regimes, neoliberal restructuring, and the rise of OTT platforms—signals a deeper cultural continuity that resists homogenisation. At the same time, the export of South Asian films and the rising diasporic audience have reconfigured genre expectations, resulting in new hybrid forms such as diaspora musicals, urban realist thrillers, feminist horror, and digitally enhanced spectacles. The paper also explores how contemporary filmmakers deploy genre cinema as a site for negotiating identity, class politics, gender norms, and communal narratives. In doing so, it reveals the tensions between formula-driven commercial imperatives and experimentation at the margins of independent cinema. Through a multidisciplinary review of scholarship and a critical synthesis of filmic trends, the study demonstrates that the “global masala” is not merely a commercial strategy but a cultural mode of survival that enables South Asian cinema to maintain visibility in an increasingly competitive global media economy. Ultimately, the research underscores how genre cinema’s fluidity, resilience, and capacity for reinvention have allowed it to persist as a defining feature of South Asia’s cinematic imagination.