Religious Hate Speech against Islam in Bollywood Cinema in the Context of Self-Orientalism: The Example of “The Kerala Story”

Hate speech, which refers to any form of expression intended to humiliate, harass, intimidate or incite violence against a person or group because of their religion, language, race, gender, political preference, physical disability or illness, occurs in different societies and in different media. Undoubtedly, one of the most common forms of hate speech is religious hate speech. Religious hate speech, which causes great harm to the individual, group or society, when carried out through cinema, causes victimization to increase and the discourse to spread throughout the world. Religious hate speech, generally produced by the West towards the East in cinema, sometimes comes to life with self-orientalist actions and religious hate speech is reinforced. From this point of view, the aim of this study is to reveal how religious hate speech against Islam and Muslims is realized in the context of self-orientalism in Bollywood cinema. In the study, critical discourse analysis method was used and the 2023 Indian film ‘The Kerala Story’ was analyzed. According to the results obtained in the study, the film, which was designed with a self-orientalist perspective, contains intense religious hate speech against Islam. In the film, Islam and Muslims are associated with terrorism through characters, actions, lines and plot.