Bollywood has evolved in its portrayal of the LGBTQIA+ community…
But is it enough?
“We are at the forefront of telling our own narrative. It’s not at the hands of other people who are outside the LGBTQ+ community anymore.” — Billy Porter
If you are a Bollywood buff, you have watched Kal Ho Naa Ho a ridiculous number of times, to the point where you have memorized most of the dialogues. Most of us have warm memories associated with the film. When a classic brings nostalgia, we tend to look past certain exaggerations.
Kanta Ben’s outright disgust and Shah Rukh-Saif’s overdramatic act of ‘being gay’ were an attempt to garner laughter at the expense of the LGBTQ+ community. And because it was Karan Johar and Shah Rukh Khan okaying such brand of humour — it didn't take time for the others to follow suit for the sake of a few laughs.
Bollywood has time and again had references to homosexuality in the films but not to speak about it but to rather stigmatize in popular space. They are either portrayed as the comic relief, as the antagonist or someone that needs to be ‘fixed’.
“Bhai, baddhoo normal chhe na?”
Gay characters are shown as exaggeratedly feminine while the transgender characters are garish and loud. And quite obviously, this affects the viewer-at-large’s understanding of a minority and makes them think that queer representation is an oddity, ‘cool’ to be made fun of.
As the global entertainment industry moves forward in sensitizing audiences, Bollywood is still stuck with its outdated, extremely problematic portrayal of the queer community.
A David and Patrick in Schitt’s Creek’s representation of the same community give out the warmth and the vibe of love as most would relate only to heterosexual, acceptable love without the overt sexualization of the characters that Bollywood just doesn't seem ready for. As is happening with most other content, the regional film industry has taken better adaptations than mainstream Bollywood.
Film and art are the biggest outlets for social change and acceptance. Cinema is a powerful tool that has immense power over the masses. Queer individuals deserve to see characters like themselves on the big screen, stories that mirror their own, but more often than not, what they get is films where they are side-lined or worse, stereotyped.
While newer films are trying to be more inclusive, they too are heavily flawed and must do better. It largely remains heteronormative in its portrayals despite a growing community of those who are openly ‘coming out’.
Films like Fire (1996), Margarita with a Straw (2014), Aligarh (2015), Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019), and Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (2020) has shown Bollywood evolve from just offbeat and Art filmmakers picking up scripts like these to those in the centre stage of audience attention. The characters in these movies have brought real-life perspective to the struggles faced by the queer community, into the mainstream Bharat.
But the problem still remains perspective —LGBTQ+ actors and filmmakers need to get dais for first-person accounts. The actual representation of actors in mainstream cinema that belong to the queer community cannot continue to be negligible. We need films where LGBTQ+ characters are just people, neither a problem nor an issue, nor grappling with the ‘out-of-the-closet’ drama of the Great Indian Family. Where the queerness of the protagonist is part of who they are-A Srikant Tiwari of Family Man, a Kaleen Bhaiya of Mirzapur or heck, even a Deepak Sehgal of Pink-and, not just ‘gay’.
There is something so powerful when the message lies in what the filmmaker is doing through his/her art. It is respectful, inclusive and revolutionary to go out of the way and challenge the heteronormative ideas about how stories are told. We don’t need the films to go the extra mile to convince Indian cinemagoers that the LGBTQ+ community exists — they know that already. It is now time to normalize it to such an extent that the undertones are enough to send the message out that the powerful character onscreen has a nonheterosexual orientation.
And this difference is also deeply embedded in the minds of the so-called swish set of Bollywood — the Khans, Kapoors and Kumars.
Where a younger Ayushmann Khurrana’s Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan tried to tell the story of a gay couple with heart-warming love songs and iconic Bollywood scenes, a larger-star Akshay Kumar’s Laxmii stuck to old-school mythology around the ‘evil and predatory’ Transgender identity.
There is a long battle to inclusiveness and visibility in Bollywood, we have not even scratched the surface yet. There’s still a long way to go before stories about the community become part of the viewers’ lives through everyday characters and narratives. But, until then, maybe some of us who like better cinema and real representation will not be so kicked about the next Bollywood attempt to laugh at our friends and loved ones from this vibrant community!
Equality. Love. Pride
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