Chinese Identity Complexities in Comrades

The central theme of Mississippi Masala is the exploration of hybrid cultural identities, where the main character Mina accepts and combines a triple identity as Indian, African, and American.

The term 'masala', or spice mix, is used in multiple senses in the film to describe the hybrid nature of the main character Mina's family, which is Indian, Ugandan, and American, as well as to define Mina's own cosmopolitan identity and sensuality.

The Indian and Hong Kong films discussed in the passage advocate for the appearance of a new type of social cosmopolitan who easily navigates between cultures and mixes identities in line with situations and needs, juggles languages, adopts a transnational lifestyle with travel and standardised consumerism, and experiences all sorts of other mixings in order to acquire a hybrid cultural baggage.

According to the passage, cultural identities are rarely uniform in these films, but are instead 'superimposed as the characters' geographic, social, and virtual mobility grows'.

In the context of the passage, the term 'cosmopolitan' refers to a new type of social figure depicted in the Indian and Hong Kong films, who easily navigates between cultures, mixes identities, juggles languages, and adopts a transnational lifestyle, resulting in a hybrid cultural identity.