03236nam 22005173 450 991087453930332120240812084530.0978052039746010.1525/9780520397460(CKB)32775563300041(MiAaPQ)EBC31594276(Au-PeEL)EBL31594276(DE-B1597)690547(DE-B1597)9780520397460(Perlego)4387922(EXLCZ)993277556330004120240812d2024 uy 0engur|||||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierRated A Soft-Porn Cinema and Mediations of Desire in India1st ed.Berkeley :University of California Press,2024.©2024.1 online resource (238 pages)Feminist Media Histories Series ;v.89780520397453 Cover -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Soft-Porn 101 -- 1. Madakarani -- 2. Waiting for Kodambakkam -- 3. Embodied Vulnerabilities -- 4. The Alternative Transnational -- 5. (Dis)Appearances -- Conclusion: In Praise of Bad Women -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In the 1990s, India's mediascape saw the efflorescence of edgy soft-porn films in the Malayalam-speaking state of Kerala. In Rated A, Darshana Sreedhar Mini examines the local and transnational influences that shaped Malayalam soft-porn cinema--such as vernacular pulp fiction, illustrated erotic tales, and American exploitation cinema--and maps the genre's circulation among blue-collar workers of the Indian diaspora in the Middle East, where pirated versions circulate alongside low-budget Bangladeshi films and Pakistani mujra dance films as South Asian pornography. Through a mix of archival and ethnographic research, Mini also explores the soft-porn industry's utilization of gendered labor and trust-based arrangements, as well as how actresses and production personnel who are marked by their involvement with a taboo form negotiate their social lives. By locating the tense negotiations between sexuality, import policy, and censorship in contemporary India, this study offers a model for understanding film genres outside of screen space, emphasizing that they constitute not just industrial formations but entire fields of social relations and gendered imaginaries.Feminist Media Histories SeriesPornographic film industryIndiaKerala20th centuryPornographic filmsIndiaKerala20th centuryPERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / GeneralbisacshPornographic film industryPornographic filmsPERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / General.791.43/6538Mini Darshana Sreedhar1764775MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQ9910874539303321Rated A4205912UNINA