Bollywood

Generally agreed to have entered popular usage in the mid-1970s and often attributed to filmmaker Amit Khanna, the term Bollywood combines Hollywood with Bombay, the anglicized name for the western Indian city now known as Mumbai.

Despite the protests of critics who prefer the term Indian film industry, Bollywood remains a popular term because it evokes the cultural particularities for which Hindi cinema is best known, including the Mumbai-based film industry, which features Indian actresses who have set the standards of beauty throughout south Asia for the past 50 years; the three-hour-length melodrama format, often featuring tales of forbidden love, and at least four music and dance interludes; and a visual aesthetic characterized by bright colors, elaborate costumes, idealized gender stereotypes of passive women ...