'Gaylords' of Bollywood: Polics of Dire Hdi Cema on JSTOR

Contents:

• 8 BOLLYWOOD STARS AND INDIAN CELEBRI WHO ARE GAY
• REVIEW: REEL AND THE REAL; PORTRAYAL OF GAY MEN BOLLYWOOD FILMS BY HIMADRI ROY
• BOLLYWOOD RELEAS 'FIRST FILM WH GAY MAN AS LEAD CHARACTER'
• GAY-THEMED MOVI INDIA FIGHT BACK AGAST TABOOS
• KASHISH 2020 TO SCREEN INDIA'S FIRST GAY FILM 'BADNAM BASTI', LOST AND FOUND AFTER 49 YEARS

8 BOLLYWOOD STARS AND INDIAN CELEBRI WHO ARE GAY

Although homosexualy was only crimalised India 2018, proper reprentatn of LGBTQIA+ muni Indian cema has long been gatherg speed. Mastream Indian films featurg gay and lbian characters have often been marred by tokenism and naive stereotypg.

Memori March (2010)Bengali filmmaker Ruparno Ghosh is an in of India’s queer muny and was one of the first openly gay artists Indian cema. Ghosh plays Ornub, the son’s gay partner, who challeng Arati’s socially termed perceptns of love and pannship, leadg to a tersely marted crique of the hypocrisi of middle-class Bengali society. Aligarh (2015)Sectn 377 is part of a penal outlawg gay sex, which had remaed force India for 157 years.

The queer romance is picted by director Geethu Mohandas wh a tenrns that mak universal, focg on the pannship that emerg between Akbar, a gangster, and Ameer (Roshan Mathew), a gay man who is af. Profsnally speakg, I feel like ’s one ls reason for a producer or vtor who prevly dodged your project, dodged your pch when you e up wh somethg that is set a homosexual environment.

REVIEW: REEL AND THE REAL; PORTRAYAL OF GAY MEN BOLLYWOOD FILMS BY HIMADRI ROY

Saria’s 2015 feature Loev, which was warmly received on the ternatnal ftival circu and had s Indian premiere at the Mumbai ft 2016, is a rare Indian film that featur homosexual relatnships as key elements of the story.

Starrg Shiv Pand and the late Dhv Ganh, Loev tak a more nuanced approach to same-sex love and also tackl the issue of homosexual rape. At this year’s Mumbai ftival, wrer-director Rima Das’ Bulbul Can Sg featur a character that n be nsted as gay although is not explicly stated.

BOLLYWOOD RELEAS 'FIRST FILM WH GAY MAN AS LEAD CHARACTER'

Das told THR that she “wanted to show this character bee, spe the Supreme Court’s lg, villag, people are not even aware of what is like to be gay. “I thk ’s unlikely we’ll see anythg g out om a larger player or a larger stud, ” says Mishra, whose pany is producg the gay-themed feature Lala & Poppy, directed by Kaizad Gtad (Bombay Boys, Boom).

Two notable recent exampl clu Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh, a te-life dramastarrg Manoj Baayee as an amic who is fired om his post for beg gay, and Fox Star Stud’s box-office h Kapoor & Sons, a edy that featur a gay son g out to his fay. The mute [a gay-themed film] mak money, 10 of the typ of films will be announced and all will be merry, ” Saria says. Award-wng filmmaker, edor and wrer Apurva Asrani, who is known workg on succsful films like Satya (1998), Shahid (2013) and CyLights (2014), is one of few openly gay men Indian cema.

“The largt qutn, I thk, before India is not jt terms of legalisg homosexualy bisexualy or the transgenr muny, is social acceptance…there’s a great difference between the two thgs. Not long after India’s top urt overturned a lonial era law crimalizg homosexualy, Shelly Chopra Dhar and Gazal Dhaliwal’s 2019 edy-drama “Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga” picted a queer woman’s attempt to e out to her fay. “Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan” (2020), “Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui” (2021) and “Badhaai Do” (2022) each feature gay or trans characters relatnships who eventually e up agast disapprovg fay members.

GAY-THEMED MOVI INDIA FIGHT BACK AGAST TABOOS

) Still, as one of the first Indian films to pict homosexualy on screen, igned a discsn about sexualy and LGBTQ rights morn India. In the years that followed, dramas such as “My Brother… Nikhil” (2005) and “Margara Wh A Straw” (2014) portrayed queer characters sensively – the former is the story of a man diagnosed wh HIV who battl homophobia om his parents and Indian thori, while the latter is about a bisexual teenager wh cerebral palsy who falls love wh a young bld activist.

It was more mon, however, for Indian films to rce LGBTQ characters to stereotyp or to voke homosexualy for edic purpos. The 2004 film “Girliend” featur a lbian character who is jealo and vdictive and ultimately meets a tragic end – a textbook example of the “bury your gays” trope. And the 2008 smash h “Dostana, ” about two men who pretend to be a uple so they n share an apartment wh a woman, is rife wh ritured notns of gay men.

In “Dostana, ” for stance, the character Sameer’s mother is at first distrght at the thought of her son beg gay but ultimately to love and accept his (fake) partner as a son--law – that moment, when removed om s te ntext, is relatively progrsive for s time. In 1861, the lonial ernment troduced a law crimalizg homosexualy, which stood ntrast to centuri of lol cultural attus around sexualy and was only overturned 2018. “Thereafter, ted Indians, cludg all natnalists om right to left and everythg between, ternalized the Wtern ia that homosexualy is unnatural, abnormal, a s and a crime, ” Vana wrote an email to CNN.

KASHISH 2020 TO SCREEN INDIA'S FIRST GAY FILM 'BADNAM BASTI', LOST AND FOUND AFTER 49 YEARS

“What we do know is that homosexualy was well attted Bombay film-makg circl; film-makers were not naïve about .

As stigmas around homosexualy and genr fluidy persist India, LGBTQ muni South Asia and the diaspora have reclaimed certa Bollywood songs about iendship as their own, said Anjaria. “Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, ” a story about a gay uple stgglg to be accepted by their fai, allus to the inic motorbike scene “Sholay” and clus nods to films such as 1964’s “Dosti.