Delivered by Intellect to: Soumik Pal (33330460) IP: 182.70.51.71 On: Wed, 03 May 2023 15:14:13 SAFM 14 (1) pp. 91–99 Intellect Limited 2022 Studies in South Asian Film & Media Volume 14 Number 1 www.intellectbooks.com 91 © 2022 Intellect Ltd Review Article. English language. https://doi.org/10.1386/safm_00064_4 Received 3 June 2022; Accepted 20 October 2022 REVIEW ARTICLES SOUMIK PAL Ajeenkya DY Patil University Desperately seeking answers to the future of stardom in the age of neoliberalism ABSTRACT Shrayana Bhattacharya’s book Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India’s Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence is about women in contemporary India, how their gendered existence is shaped by patri- archal structures of exclusion and censure, and how women often use fandom (for Shah Rukh Khan) to build communities of solidarity and togetherness. This review article uses the book’s analysis to move the discussion of stardom beyond the star’s romantic appeal to women, to contextualize Shah Rukh Khan’s appeal in the broader milieu of precarity, alienation and heightened misogyny produced by neoliberalism. Ironically, the very culture that is responsible for the misery of women, has also created an unstable public that is putting real, violent limits to the phenomenon of stardom itself. Shrayana Bhattacharya’s book Desperately Seeking Shahrukh: India’s Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence is about women in contemporary India, and how gendered discrimination and deprivation KEYWORDS stardom Bollywood Shah Rukh Khan neoliberalism fandom masculinity alienation Hindu right-wing