"Peepli Live" and "No One Killed Jessica": Remediating the “Bollywoodization” of Indian TV News

This article considers two recent Hindi-language films, "Peepli Live" (2010) and "No One Killed Jessica" (2011), that depart from formulaic Bollywood in content and form and shed light on the practice and reception of television journalism in contemporary urban India. Extending Daya Kishan Thussu’s discussion of the “Bollywoodization” of Indian TV news, the article argues that the films perform a remediation by refashioning and commenting upon other media. On the one hand, the films represent different aspects of TV journalism in present-day India. On the other hand, they also comment on and critique its machinations through the narrative devices available in the cinematic form. Beginning with a close textual analysis of the films, the article then traces the attributes of the Bollywoodization of television news in India, showing it how it represents a public discourse regarding TV news’s privileging of immediacy over context, its preference for spectacle and sound bites over substance, and its promotion of nationalism through narrative drama.