Pehli Posting

15 Seconds of Fame!

Lives of Bollywood Extras: Junior Artistes in Popular Hindi films



My project aims to explore the world of extras, to uncover their space in
films. Though this goes against the whole concept of an extra, a faceless,
nameless entity that merely fills the celluloid space without imposing its
identity, it would be interesting to explore how some have unknowingly
broken the boundaries of being restricted to the non-entity status of an
extra and through their quantity as well as quality of work taken that leap
into the world of recognition though still far away from fame. I would like
to examine the "faceless" world of the extras by focusing on a number of
themes. How does gender inflect the extras' relations to the film industry?
How are women treated differently from men? How different are their
expectations and responsibilities and how that affects the choices they
make? My concern is also issues such as prejudices and biases against the
extras, their treatment on the sets. There are also class and linguistic
hierarchies at work – the stars are middle and upper class and English
speaking while the extras are lower middle class and non-anglicized. We have
very little understanding of how these factors play into the experiences of
the extras on the set.

I would like to be able to combine historical and biographical study with
ethnography and textual analysis of a select body of films and will study
junior artistes as "subaltern" stars that provide a counter narrative to the
dominant figurations in Indian Cinema.

I would appreciate any comments, suggestions, contacts or references that
could help my work.

Vasundhara Prakash