Guns in Bangla cinema across borders: perspectives on cultural evolution

The paper examines how firearms, specifically guns, are represented in Bangla-language cinema across Bangladesh and West Bengal (India) as a lens on cultural evolution from 1947 to the present. Framed by the traumatic historical milestones of the 1947 Partition and the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the study asks how cinematic uses of guns map onto shifts from historical realism to hyperreal simulation. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s notions of simulacra, hyper-reality, and simulation, the authors hypothesise a three-phase trajectory: (1) Partition-era narratives focused on civilian suffering and state violence; (2) Liberation War films where guns symbolize collective resistance and liberation; and (3) contemporary commercial action cinema where guns are commodified within hyperreal spectacles akin to video-game aesthetics. The purpose is to historicise these symbolic and visual functions of guns and to assess their cultural significance, arguing that the contemporary turn reflects a broader confusion of cultural values in an age of mass consumption.

The paper situates its inquiry within the historiography of Bangla cinema and broader South Asian visual culture. Early cinematic developments in undivided Bengal include Hiralal Sen’s bioscope productions (late 19th–early 20th century), the rise of Kolkata studios (e.g., New Theatres), and early Dhaka productions leading to the East Pakistan Film Development Corporation (1957) and later the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation post-1971. Scholarship notes South Asian cinema’s delayed direct engagement with Partition trauma (e.g., Kaur 2017), while East Pakistan’s post-1947 focus shifted toward linguistic and political struggles culminating in 1971. West Bengal’s filmography addressed Partition and its aftermath through works like Nimai Ghosh’s Chinnamul (1950) and Ritwik Ghatak’s trilogy (1960–62), with Mrinal Sen and Satyajit Ray exploring postcolonial sociopolitical matrices. The authors also mobilize Baudrillard’s theory (Simulacra and Simulation; The Gulf War Did Not Take Place) to conceptualize the movement from representations approximating reality to hyperreal simulations. Additional references include Blood (2017) on 1971, studies on sexual violence and memory in Bangladesh (Ibrahim 1994; Mookherjee 2015), and contextual socio-political shifts (e.g., Hindutva politics, Gorkhaland agitation) that frame contemporary media environments. This literature underpins the analysis of how guns’ meanings shift across historical and cultural contexts and how Hollywood action cinema and gaming cultures influence recent Bangla films.

The study employs purposive sampling to select representative Bangla-language films from Bangladesh and West Bengal across three historical phases: Partition (e.g., Chitra Nadir Paare, 1998; Rajkahini, 2015), the Bangladesh Liberation War (e.g., Amar Bandhu Rashed, 2011; Juddhohisu/Children of War, 2014, dubbed in Bangla), and contemporary commercial action cinema (e.g., Bullet Babu, 2017; Commando, 2018). Methods include qualitative film analysis (narrative, visual, and scene-by-scene assessments of firearm presence, type, and function), historical contextualization (policy, censorship, availability of weapon props), and theoretical interpretation via Baudrillard’s simulacra/hyperreality. Primary insights are augmented with director interviews (notably Tanvir Mokammel) regarding historical weapon availability, production constraints, and representational choices. The study delimits its scope by excluding documentaries and intervening topical films (e.g., 1952 Language Movement) to maintain comparability between Bangladesh and West Bengal filmographies focused on the selected phases.

• Three-phase trajectory: (1) Partition representations emphasize civilian vulnerability and state repression with limited on-screen firearms (e.g., Chitra Nadir Paare shows covert/limited gun use, police as RSA); (2) Liberation War films depict guns as symbols of collective resistance and liberation, reflecting historical heterogeneity in arms among Mukti Bahini and allied forces (e.g., rifles, stenguns, LMGs, mortars; Amar Bandhu Rashed’s adolescent participation, Bhittika’s clandestine arming in Juddhohisu); (3) Contemporary commercial films commodify guns within hyperreal spectacles, often detached from social realities (e.g., Bullet Babu’s arbitrary, toy-like gunplay; Commando’s implausible, Hollywood-style armaments and scenarios). - Symbolic re-coding of guns: From instruments of power/unity and liberation (phases 1–2) to phallicized, consumerist markers of violence and bravado (phase 3), mirroring a cultural shift toward simulation and video game-like aesthetics. - Cross-border contrasts and continuities: West Bengal’s Partition cinema (e.g., Rajkahini) reframes women as armed subaltern agents, while Bangladesh’s 1971 films foreground broad-based civilian militarization and sacrifice; both later converge toward hyperrealized action tropes influenced by global media. - Production and policy constraints historically shaped representations (e.g., difficulty accessing authentic weapons, censor norms), contributing to minimal gun depiction in earlier Bangladesh films and stylized excess in recent ones. - Cultural and political implications: Contemporary films risk trivializing real histories of violence, align with broader neo-liberal media consumption, and may reinforce problematic profiling and majoritarian narratives (e.g., in Commando), raising concerns about audience socialization into normalized simulated violence.

Findings support the central hypothesis that Bangla cinema’s firearm representations have shifted from historically grounded narratives (Partition and 1971) to hyperreal simulation in contemporary commercial films. In phases 1–2, guns function as signs of state coercion (Partition) and collective resistance (1971), aligning with documented histories and lived experiences; in phase 3, guns become decontextualized commodities of spectacle, reflecting Baudrillardian hyperreality where signs supplant referents. This evolution illuminates broader cultural dynamics: the impact of globalized Hollywood action aesthetics, gaming cultures, and market-driven entertainment economies on regional cinemas; the erosion of ideological anchors in post-liberalization contexts; and the potential normalization of violence among heterogeneous audiences. Cross-border analyses show both divergence (e.g., Bangladesh’s focus on 1971, West Bengal’s on Partition) and convergence toward simulation over time. The discussion underscores tensions between censorship regimes that curtail critical social films while allowing hyperviolent spectacles, suggesting a disconnect between state cultural policy and social welfare concerns. Overall, the study argues that the changing semiotics of guns track a wider confusion of cultural values and identities in contemporary Bengali public spheres.

The paper maps a progression in Bangla cinema from socio-political realism with minimal or ethically framed gun use, through historically urgent depictions of armed liberation in 1971, to contemporary hyperreal action where violence is often arbitrary and decontextualized. Early directors appealed to middle-class tastes seeking moral resolution; post-war films mobilized patriotic and national sentiments; recent films leverage commodified violence aligned with mass-consumption logics and simulated media cultures. By tracing firearm semiotics across seven decades and two national industries, the study contributes a novel cultural-historical perspective on a community not typically cast as martial. The authors posit that this framework opens an emergent, interdisciplinary avenue for further research into media, ideology, and the socio-political implications of simulated violence in South Asian cinemas.

• Purposive sampling of a limited set of films restricts generalizability; documentaries and several topical intervening events (e.g., Language Movement 1952) were excluded to maintain focus. - Historical and production constraints (e.g., difficulty accessing authentic weapons, censor norms) affected both real-world armament and cinematic representation; as noted by director Tanvir Mokammel, such constraints weakened some action sequences and may bias visual portrayals. - Reliance on qualitative textual analysis and selected interviews, without systematic audience studies or quantitative content analysis, limits claims about reception and societal impact. - Temporal distance from events (Partition, 1971) and the use of retrospective narratives may shape representational choices. - Cross-border industry differences (policy, funding, censorship) may confound direct comparisons across the three phases.