“Aarum Kothichu Pokum”: Stardom, Androgyny, and the Gendered Spectacle in Indian Celebrity Culture

This paper addresses a significant gap in South Asian celebrity studies by examining how regional and national male stardom negotiate gender binaries through adorned masculinity in post-liberalization India. While existing scholarship has explored Indian masculinity in cinema, the specific intersection of celebrity culture, gender performativity, and feminized aesthetics across regional-national boundaries remains underexplored. Through comparative visual and textual analysis of media appearances, advertisements, and fashion choices, this study examines Malayalam superstar Mohanlal’s strategic deployment of ornamentation within traditional cultural frameworks and Bollywood icon Ranveer Singh’s sustained engagement with androgynous fashion practices. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity to understand how masculinity is enacted through repeated citations of gender norms, and Richard Dyer’s star image framework to analyse how celebrity personas manage cultural contradictions, the study reveals how feminized aesthetics, specifically jewelry, silk fabrics, flamboyant colors, and gestural femininity, are absorbed into masculine performances without undermining star power. This paper addresses a critical gap in Asian celebrity studies by undertaking a close examination of how adornment and feminized aesthetics are differentially adapted within regional and national star structures. The analysis demonstrates that Mohanlal’s momentary embrace of ornamentation operates within Kerala’s symbolic traditions that protect masculine aura through cultural capital, while Ranveer Singh’s continuous flamboyant self-fashioning represents a sustained redefinition of masculine expression within Bollywood’s aesthetic economy. Both performances reveal how contemporary Indian masculinity is increasingly stylized and performatively adaptable, expanding acceptable masculine expression while maintaining hegemonic structures. These findings contribute to understanding how celebrity culture mediates evolving gender norms in contemporary India’s visual economy.