Spicing up the Austen Cult: Negotiating Bollywood, Hollywood, and Heritage Aesthetics in Bride and Prejudice

This article positions Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice (2004) as part of the 'Jane Austen cult' phenomenon of the 1990s and later. While superficially adhering to the conventions of Bollywood films, Chadha additionally works with the visuals of both Hollywood romances and the British heritage film in her appropriation of the Austen classic. Her film, this article argues, can therefore be seen as truly trans-national in negotiating the common ground of established conventions and fruitfully merging them in order to create something new. As it contrasts and combines the aesthetic and narrative conventions of three seemingly distinct genres of film-making, Bride and Prejudice asserts its status as a hybrid product of ever-shifting trans-national identities, while at the same time celebrating the potential of Austen's classic to accommodate an ever-growing body of (post)modem appropriations.