ABSTRACT
Masood (1982) states that the films of 1981–82 had a new rootless hero, self-parody, and success as a reward for being smart (but perhaps not too smart): “Exactly the mixture that the doctor prescribed for the huge uprooted urban ‘proles’ which will also keep them in the lumpen state they are in” (p. 11). In the 1980s the old family dramas, which had an easygoing spontaneous charm, gave way to aggressively conservative and frantic worship of divinities. Hindi films showed individual violence which however never endangered the social status quo.
