It’s easy to dismiss Bollywood movies, with their lavish costumes, song-and-dance sequences, and melodramatic stories, as whimsical and over-the-top. But for students in ASIA107N, Hindi films are more than entertainment: They offer a lens to explore the many traditions, institutions, and socio-cultural mores of Indian society, from India’s independence in 1947 to present day, says instructor and course creator Ritu Jayakar, lecturer in Hindi and South Asian Studies. The popular course also broadens both Penn State’s South Asian Studies offerings and students’ understanding of media and cinematic cultures across the world.

Every semester, Jayakar’s students watch six Hindi films that she says align with India’s socioeconomic and cultural growth through the years. Choosing those six was not easy: Every year, India’s prolific movie industry produces many films in multiple regional languages including Hindi (Jayakar’s mother tongue) and the language of Bollywood—a name derived from mixing Bombay (Mumbai’s former name) and Hollywood. But the six movies on her list reflect pertinent themes like patriotism and nation building, economic disparity, gender roles, the patriarchy, and the enduring importance of marriage in Indian society, among others. They include classics like “Mother India,” a heart wrenching story of a woman in post-Independence India struggling to raise her sons alone in a village; “Sholay,” an epic 1975 Indian-style western that remains one of the most commercially successful films ever made in India; and “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge,” a hugely popular 1995 film shot in India, London, and Switzerland that is to-date the longest-running movie produced in India.

Each film is two or three hours long, “so there’s a lot to watch and to reflect on,” Jayakar says. Students watch the movies in their own time, then come to class with an in depth “clip critique” of a particular moment in the film. “They have to say why they chose that snippet, how it illustrates the theme we’re discussing, and the cultural connections they’ve made,” Jayakar says.

For their final assignment of the semester, each of her students presents a “My Bollywood” project to showcase what they’ve learned about India and Hindi cinema—and showcase their creativity. “Some people do podcasts or videos, others make posters or presentations,” Jayakar says.”