Carnivalesque Popular Culture and the Goopi-Bagha Trilogy of Films

Abstract

Satyajit Ray’s films Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne (Adventures of Goopi and Bagha, 1969), Hirak Rajar Deshe (The Kingdom of Diamond, 1980) and his son Sandip Ray’s Goopi Bagha Phire Elo (The Return of Goopi and Bagha, 1992) together form the Goopi-Bagha trilogy which has become an important part of the popular culture in Bengal since their release. Though primarily meant for the pleasure of the children, the directors have incorporated the carnivalesque cultural praxis into the films to resist the hegemonic power structure. However, while on the one hand, the films subvert the authority and provide new ways of imagining and sustaining the social relation, on the other hand, they reinforce some of the dominant ideologies of the society and seek to win the consent of the masses. Exposing the ambiguity and contradiction inherent in the very concept of carnivalesque popular culture, the paper would explore how Goopi-Bagha trilogy while critiquing some of the power games, also sustains the hegemony of a heteropatriarchal society.