CTF ½ Working Papers of the Chicago Tamil Forum, volume 3 (2016), chicagotamilforum.uchicago.edu, © S. V. Srinivas. Version/date of publication 12.15.2016 Rajinikanth and the “Regional Blockbuster” S. V. Srinivas * Introduction In the recent past, Tamil and Telugu films have managed to find aud- iences beyond the southern region and have also competed with the biggest Hindi films in Hindi cinema’s traditional markets in northern and western India. A subset of these films are big-budget spectaculars, which I would like to call regional blockbusters. This term flags the critical import- ance of developments in the south Indian region and film industries for the emergence of relatively new production and narrative regimes which raise interesting questions of value—of films as commodities and stars alike. 1 In the pages that follow, I trace the evolution of this form to argue that it is symptomatic of a fundamental transformation of industrial- political logics of south Indian cinemas, whose most visible manifest- ations so far have been the star politician and fan clubs. I propose that Rajinikanth is a useful point of entry into the discussion of the regional blockbuster because he belongs to a small number of Indian superstars who were a part of the very problem that the blockbuster attempts to overcome and, at the same time, a valuable asset for it. By tracking the career of Rajinikanth, I propose to show how crucial this star in par- ticular, but also the south Indian star vehicle known as the “mass film,” is the condition of possibility for a form that may or may not use major stars. The paper is divided into two parts. The first elaborates on the blockbuster as a descriptive-analytical category and shows why it is use- fully seen not just as a global form but also a regional phenomenon, pred- icated on locally specific historical contingencies as well industrial-aes- thetic practices. The second focuses on Rajinikanth’s career from roughly the period when some of the earliest movies began to be made in both the Madras and Hyderabad film industries to assemble the blockbuster. * S. V. Srinivas is Professor in the School of Liberal Studies, Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India. E-mail: srinivas.sv@apu.edu.in