Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South IndiaA free open access ebook is available upon publication. Learn more at www.luminosoa.org. To produce the song sequences that are central to Indian popular cinema, singers' voices are first recorded in the studio and then played back on the set to be lip-synced and danced to by actors and actresses as the visuals are filmed. Since the 1950s, playback singers have become revered celebrities in their own right. Brought to Life by the Voice explores the distinctive aesthetics and affective power generated by this division of labor between onscreen body and offscreen voice in South Indian Tamil cinema. In Amanda Weidman's historical and ethnographic account, playback is not just a cinematic technique, but a powerful and ubiquitous element of aural public culture that has shaped the complex dynamics of postcolonial gendered subjectivity, politicized ethnolinguistic identity, and neoliberal transformation in South India. |
Contents
Theorizing Playback PART I PREHISTORIES 1 Trading Voices The Gendered Beginnings of Playback | 1 |
Making a Dravidian Voice | 2 |
On Being Just the Voice | 3 |
Economies of the Illicit | 104 |
AFTERLIVES | 129 |
On Timbral Qualia and Ethnolinguistic Belonging | 131 |
Liveness and Deadness in the New Dispensation | 158 |
Antiplayback ix xi χν 1 | 201 |
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acting actors actress aesthetics animation associated audience Avvaiyyar became Bhagavatar Bombay breathy chapter Chennai classical context contrast cultural dance described devadasi early effects embodied Eswari Eswari's voice ethnolinguistic female characters female playback singers female singers female voice film industry film music film songs gendered girl hero heroine Hindi husky Illayaraja Indian iraval kural item number Janaki Karnatic music kind L. R. Eswari Lata Mangeshkar licit light music M. G. Ramachandran M. L. Vasanthakumari M. S. Subbulakshmi M. S. Viswanathan male singers male voice masculinity music director musicians Nakassis norms onscreen onstage performance persona pitch play playback singers playback voices political post-liberalization produced qualia radio recording role S. P. Balasubrahmanyam sang semiotic sexual singing actress singing voice Sivaji Sivaji Ganesan social song sequence South India space speaking stage star studio style sung Susheela Tamil cinema Tamil film TMS's troupe Vamanan visual vocal sound women young