Men in India are attracted to Hindi films partly because of their attraction to depictions of modern lifestyles. Dern DEGREESD'e argues that films help men handle their ambivalence about modernity by rooting their sense of Indianness in women's acceptance of traditional food habits, clothing, and gender subordination. The book is one of the first ethnographic studies of filmgoing and one of the first to focus on mainstream male audiences.

Dern DEGREESD'e considers the effects of films' eroticization of domination and submission on men's sexuality. The study provides...