Televisual Drag: Reimagining South Asian Film and Media Studies

Abstract

This article engages with the history of television and television studies in South Asia to reflect on how “media” can be re-imagined as an object of analysis and critique. Questioning the analytic primacy accorded to film, we develop the concept of televisual drag and argue that bringing television to the fore can reveal different temporalities, modalities, and logics for the evolution of South Asian screen media, both in their past forms and current constitution. We critically engage with recent studies—of Indian women filmmakers, Pakistani comic shows and YouTube videos, and small-town video circulation in India—to illuminate the currents of televisual drag at work in contemporary media scholarship. We conclude by reflecting how how televisual drag might be a critical method for drawing insights from media histories, practices, and environments that do not or will not follow an easily comprehensible path toward a seemingly inevitable digital horizon.