Celluloid Empire: Hollywood, American Hegemony, and the Postcolonial Gaze

Celluloid Empire: Hollywood, American Hegemony, and the Postcolonial Gaze

Cinema is often understood as entertainment, but popular cinema can also become a powerful instrument through which political ideas, national identities, and geopolitical assumptions are circulated. Hollywood's global reach makes it particularly significant in shaping how audiences understand America and its position in the world. Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad's article “Heroes or Hegemons? The Celluloid Empire of Rambo and Bond in America's Geopolitical Narrative” examines how the Rambo and James Bond franchises participate in the construction of Western geopolitical narratives. The article argues that these films operate as forms of cultural soft power by presenting American or Western power as heroic, necessary, and morally legitimate. 

The idea of hegemony, associated particularly with Antonio Gramsci, is useful for understanding this phenomenon. Hegemony does not operate only through direct force; it also works by making particular values appear natural and common-sense. Cinema can therefore make military intervention, political dominance, and Western leadership appear desirable rather than controversial. From a postcolonial perspective, this raises an important question: Who gets to represent the world, and whose perspective becomes the universal one?

The Rambo films provide a striking example. In Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), the Vietnam War is revisited through the experience of an American soldier. Rather than encouraging sustained reflection on the historical violence of American intervention, the narrative centres Rambo's individual heroism and presents him as a figure who can symbolically recover American honour. Barad observes that the film transforms the Vietnam War into a narrative in which the United States seeks redemption while Vietnamese characters are largely positioned as antagonists. 

This is significant from a postcolonial perspective because history is not simply represented; it is reconstructed through narrative selection. The suffering and political complexity of Vietnam can become secondary to the emotional journey of an American protagonist. The colonised or politically marginalised subject consequently becomes part of the background against which the Western hero defines himself.

Rambo III (1988) moves this geopolitical imagination to Afghanistan. Rambo assists Afghan fighters against the Soviet Union, reflecting the Cold War context in which the United States supported Afghan resistance against Soviet forces. The film transforms a complicated geopolitical conflict into a relatively simple opposition between freedom and oppression. 

James Bond similarly functions within a broader Western geopolitical imagination. Although Bond is British rather than American, the franchise frequently positions Western intelligence, technology, masculinity, and political authority against supposedly dangerous foreign forces. Barad discusses The Living Daylights (1987), in which Bond becomes involved with Afghan rebels, and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), which engages with questions of media manipulation and control of information. 

The postcolonial problem is therefore not simply that these films contain political messages. It is that their spectacular storytelling can make particular political assumptions emotionally persuasive. The Western protagonist becomes the centre of knowledge, morality, and action, while other societies are frequently represented through stereotypes such as the violent enemy, the unstable foreign state, or the population waiting to be rescued.

Edward Said's concept of Orientalism is particularly relevant here. Orientalism explains how Western representations have historically constructed the “East” as exotic, irrational, dangerous, or inferior in relation to the supposedly rational and modern West. Hollywood does not always reproduce classical Orientalism in exactly the same form, but many geopolitical narratives continue to organise the world through similar binaries: civilisation/barbarism, freedom/tyranny, modernity/backwardness, and hero/villain.

At the same time, it would be too simplistic to claim that every Hollywood film is propaganda. Popular cinema is produced through complex relationships between entertainment, commerce, ideology, audience expectations, and political history. Nevertheless, its enormous global circulation gives it considerable cultural influence. Barad describes this as a form of “celluloid empire”, where cinematic power contributes to America's global image and soft power. 

This framework can also be extended beyond Rambo and Bond. Films such as Top Gun demonstrate how military institutions can be associated with courage, discipline, technology, and national pride. Such narratives can influence how audiences imagine military power even when the films are primarily designed as entertainment.

The postcolonial response, however, should not simply be to replace American cultural dominance with another nationalist cinema. Barad's discussion is especially valuable because it suggests that Indian cinema should not merely imitate Hollywood's strategies of narrative dominance. Instead, cinema can become a space for questioning hegemonic narratives and recovering marginalised perspectives. 

In today's globalised world, therefore, cinema remains a significant political space. The postcolonial gaze asks us to look beyond the spectacular hero and examine the histories, peoples, and political interests that remain outside the frame. Rambo and Bond may be presented as heroes, but their stories also reveal how popular cinema can make geopolitical power appear natural and morally justified. The challenge for contemporary audiences is not to reject popular cinema but to watch it critically—to ask whose history is being told, whose voice is absent, and whose interests are being transformed into common sense.

References

Barad, Dilip. “Heroes or Hegemons? The Celluloid Empire of Rambo and Bond in America's Geopolitical Narrative.” 2024. [ResearchGate article](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383415195_Heroes_or_Hegemons_The_Celluloid_Empire_of_Rambo_and_Bond_in_America%27s_Geopolitical_Narrative?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

Reimagining Resistance: RRR, Tribal Identity, and the Politics of Representation

Popular cinema frequently transforms history into emotionally powerful stories. This transformation can make forgotten histories visible, but it can also change the meaning of the struggles being represented. S. S. Rajamouli's RRR (2022) is an important example. The film brings together two historical figures, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, and imaginatively transforms them into companions fighting British colonial rule. Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad's article “Reimagining Resistance: The Appropriation of Tribal Heroes in Rajamouli's RRR” argues that although RRR creates an inspiring narrative of unity and anti-colonial resistance, it also moves the historical struggles of Raju and Bheem away from their specific contexts of land, forest, and tribal rights toward a broader nationalist narrative. 

The historical backgrounds of these two figures are important. Alluri Sitarama Raju led the Rampa or Manyam rebellion against British colonial policies that interfered with tribal forest rights and traditional cultivation. The Forest Act and colonial restrictions affected the relationship between Adivasi communities and their forests. Komaram Bheem, meanwhile, is associated with resistance among Gond communities and with the principle of “Jal, Jangal, Zameen”—water, forest, and land. Barad argues that RRR appropriates these figures and relocates their resistance primarily into a fictional nationalist struggle against the British. 

This cinematic transformation has both strengths and limitations. On the positive side, RRR brings tribal heroes into mainstream popular culture. The film's enormous emotional and visual appeal can encourage audiences who may not know these historical figures to become interested in their stories. Cinema therefore becomes a means of recovering marginalised figures from historical memory.

However, the postcolonial question is: What happens when a specific tribal struggle is transformed into a national myth?

In RRR, Bheem and Raju eventually become symbols of Indian unity against British colonialism. This is powerful, but their specific histories can become less visible. The film's nationalist framework risks suggesting that the central meaning of their resistance was simply the achievement of Indian independence. Barad points out that this overlooks the continuing importance of land, water, forest rights, displacement, and environmental degradation. 

Here, the postcolonial concept of subalternity becomes relevant. Subaltern voices are often represented by dominant institutions rather than speaking on their own terms. When a tribal hero is transformed into a national icon, there is a possibility that the distinctive political demands of the community associated with that hero may disappear behind a larger national story.

This issue becomes particularly relevant when we consider contemporary struggles over development and land. The Ken–Betwa River Linking Project offers an important contemporary parallel. The project is designed to transfer water from the Ken basin to the Betwa basin and is presented by the government as a major development project for irrigation, drinking water, and hydropower. At the same time, questions have been raised about displacement, rehabilitation, forest rights, and the project's ecological consequences. In August 2026, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs acknowledged receiving representations concerning displacement linked to the project; government information states that Phase I involves 1,913 project-affected families, including 648 Scheduled Tribe families. 

There are therefore competing narratives. The official narrative emphasises development and rehabilitation, while affected communities and civil-society groups have raised concerns about displacement and environmental justice. This tension resembles the central problem in RRR: Who defines what counts as progress, and whose loss becomes invisible within the larger national story?

The connection can also be extended to Ladakh. The protests surrounding demands for statehood and Sixth Schedule protections have raised questions about political representation, cultural identity, local autonomy, and the protection of community interests. In 2025, protests intensified around these demands, while negotiations between the government and Ladakh representatives continued. The Ladakh example demonstrates that resistance is not necessarily limited to colonial rule. Questions of autonomy, identity, resources, and political participation remain relevant in the postcolonial nation-state.

Manipur offers another difficult example of how questions of identity, land, displacement, and indigenous belonging can intersect with political conflict. Since 2023, ethnic violence has displaced tens of thousands of people, and human-rights organisations have continued to raise concerns about rehabilitation, security, and the protection of affected communities. The environmental dimension is also significant: commentary on Manipur has highlighted how displacement and weakened governance can contribute to ecological degradation, affecting forests, water systems, livelihoods, and places such as Loktak Lake. 

These examples do not mean that RRR directly represents the Ken–Betwa, Ladakh, or Manipur struggles. Rather, they help us understand the larger question raised by Barad's article: resistance should not be reduced to a spectacular cinematic image. Real resistance often concerns everyday relationships with land, forests, water, culture, livelihood, and political representation.

This is where RRR becomes both powerful and problematic. The film gives tribal resistance extraordinary visibility, but it also converts historically specific struggles into a spectacular nationalist narrative. The challenge is therefore to appreciate the film while reading against its simplifications.

From a postcolonial perspective, genuine representation requires more than placing a tribal hero at the centre of a blockbuster. It requires attention to the voices, histories, lands, and continuing struggles of the communities themselves. The legacy of Bheem cannot be separated from Jal, Jangal, Zameen, just as Raju's resistance cannot be understood without the history of colonial forest policies.

Ultimately, RRR reminds us that cinema can recover suppressed histories, but it can also reshape them according to contemporary political and cultural needs. The task of the postcolonial viewer is therefore not simply to celebrate or reject the film. It is to ask what the film makes visible, what it leaves outside the frame, and how its representation relates to continuing struggles for justice. In this sense, RRR is not only a story about resistance to colonialism; it also encourages us to think about the unfinished struggles over land, environment, identity, and representation in postcolonial India.

References

Barad, Dilip. “Reimagining Resistance: The Appropriation of Tribal Heroes in Rajamouli's RRR.” 2024. [ResearchGate article](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/383603395_Reimagining_Resistance_The_Appropriation_of_Tribal_Heroes_in_Rajamouli%27s_RRR?utm_source=chatgpt.com)