Are Americans and British people aware of Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan?

Sadly, most of what I know about Bollywood comes from movies likeOutsourced (not the TV show) and Slumdog Millionaire, and shows that make fun of or parody it, like The Simpsons. I've heard of Salman Khan, but that's about it.

The scene in Outsourced where Todd is told to "Dance like Salman Khan."

There aren't a lot of places for Americans to be exposed to Bollywood films. Perhaps it's different in the more urban areas, where populations are more diverse and cater to a wider range of ethnicities. But in rural America, it's not easy to find these movies, or even know that they exist.

Our movie theaters carry only Hollywood blockbusters, hardly ever any foreign films. The most exotic shows on cable tend to come from Mexico (at least here in the Southwest), and most of my friends don't have television anyway, so the chance of flipping through channels to accidentally land on one is nil. Netflix, Hulu, and other subscription streaming services are sorely lacking in Bollywood films, or at least they're not front-and-center when browsing their streaming collections.

If I am exposed to something interesting online (through Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Quora, etc.), I may be interested enough to find out more. But because we live in a very proactive, on-demand world of media consumption now, I don't sit passively on the couch and wait until something is broadcast to me. I have to know about it before I can go seek it out.

As an example, I ran across a trailer for Student of the Year while looking for visual inspiration for an assignment. It looked like a fun movie, but it wasn't in English, and wasn't available on Netflix or any other legal channel available to me. So, I gave up on trying to see it. Hopefully, in a year or two when it might possibly become available in the States, I'll remember it, and try to find it again.