Rated A

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Presss Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In the 1990s, Indias mediascape saw the efflorescence of edgy soft-porn films in the Malayalam-speaking state of Kerala. In Rated A, Darshana Sreedhar Mini examines the local and transnational influences that shaped Malayalam soft-porn cinemasuch as vernacular pulp fiction, illustrated erotic tales, and American exploitation cinemaand maps the genres circulation among blue-collar workers of the Indian diaspora in the Middle East, where pirated versions circulate alongside low-budget Bangladeshi films and Pakistani mujra dance films as South Asian pornography.Through a mix of archival and ethnographic research, Mini also explores the soft-porn industrys utilization of gendered labor and trust-based arrangements, as well as how actresses and production personnel who are marked by their involvement with a taboo form negotiate their social lives. By locating the tense negotiations between sexuality, import policy, and censorship in contemporary India, this studyoffers a model for understanding film genres outside of screen space, emphasizing that they constitute not just industrial formations but entire fields of social relations and gendered imaginaries.