Deepfake Performativity: Synthetic Actors, Consent, and the Ethics of Digital Resurrection in Indian Cinema

Abstract

Deepfake technology has moved from the margins of internet subculture to the centre of Indian media production, generating a crisis of definition for performance, consent, and legal personhood. This paper argues that deepfake imagery and voice cloning constitute a new mode of synthetic performativity — a form of acting in which the face and voice are algorithmically generated rather than humanly inhabited, yet produce the affective impact of embodied presence. Through four Indian case studies spanning consent, resurrection, and political weaponization — the Rashmika Mandanna non-consensual deepfake of 2023, the Shammi Kapoor Cadbury resurrection advertisement of 2021, the cloning of Amitabh Bachchan's voice for political outreach in 2024, and the deployment of synthetic media in the 2024 general election — the paper maps a terrain in which Indian law, framed by the Copyright Act of 1957 and still-developing personality rights precedents, lags far behind technological capability. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard's theory of simulacra, posthumanist performance theory, and the emerging jurisprudence of digital personhood, the study argues that deepfake performativity dissolves the traditional triad of actor-body-audience into a fourth term: the synthetic likeness that circulates independent of the person it represents. The paper also addresses the ontological question at the core of the phenomenon: when an actor's face performs actions the actor never consented to perform, who — or what — is doing the acting? The research contributes to urgent interdisciplinary conversations at the intersection of performance studies, media ethics, Indian constitutional privacy law, and the governance of artificial intelligence in creative industries.

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