Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Shah Rukh Khan is arguably Bollywood’s most planetary superstar. Beginning in the 1990s, SRK’s film scirculates as a global commodity, earning profits and consolidating his celebrity outside India, even as his stardom in India continues to grow across industries and media platforms. This paper, however, looks at Khan’s recent film “Fan” (2016) as a pivotal moment when this narrative of global becoming comes to be interrupted by a different modality altogether. Arguing that the film deploys the trope of the double in a unique way, I suggest that the queer utopia envisaged by the film jostles uneasily alongside many of the discourses that constitute SRK’s local and global stardom. Beyond the question of box-office returns, I explore “Fan” as a film that is foundationally shot through with certain generic and ideological impossibilities, making it an especially rich text in the star’s oeuvre.