The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema

Voice, Body, Technology

Shikha Jhingan, Barry Keith Grant

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English

Wayne State University Press
28 October 2025

Acting techniques; Film theory & criticism; Music; History: specific events & topics; Gender studies, gender groups

Series: Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media

How the sound of the female playback voice impacts Bollywood's cultural, musical, and cinematic environment.

Drawing on sound studies and performance theory, scholar Shikha Jhingan explores the discursive nature of the female playback voice in Bombay film songs. Mapping the production, circulation, and reception of the voices of singing stars--notably Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle--Jhingan situates the singing voice as a cinematic object with limitless possibilities of distribution and dispersal. She employs the perspectives of a diverse range of listeners across a vast media landscape to illustrate how the affective charge of the female playback voice, combined with developments in audio technology, has led to a gradual expansion of opportunities for women in film, popular music, and media and audio production. With nuanced exploration of the way the human voice becomes intertwined with devices such as the microphone, radio, cassettes, and digital technologies, Jhingan argues for the sonic excess of the female voice beyond the narrative and visual. The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema is an authoritative addition to the field of sound studies with implications for gender studies, performance studies, and cinema studies.

By: Shikha Jhingan
Series edited by: Barry Keith Grant
Imprint: Wayne State University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780814350942
ISBN 10: 0814350941
Series: Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media
Pages: 296
Publication Date: 28 October 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Shikha Jhingan is associate professor of cinema studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Her research focuses on voice, music, and sound in cinema. Her work brings a sound studies perspective to Bollywood films and their intermedial footprints. She has published in journals such as BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, Feminist Media Histories, South Asian History and Culture, and Studies in South Asian Film and Media and in several book anthologies.