I got into a heated argument over a simple question: What makes a gay film good? The debate exploded when the film Dostana was referred to as a potential good gay film. “Oh please,” said one person “It’s the oldest trick in a filmmaker’s manual––get a straight man playing a straight hero to pretend to be gay and have everyone laugh at it. It’s exploitative comedy. That is not a standard for a good gay film.” Another said that the stereotype of the gay couple, one effeminate and the other macho, was upsetting because there may be many youngsters that might get the wrong idea about gay relationships. “But the scene where the mother accepts her pretend-gay son’s sexuality is a good one” said a third person, “You can get families to talk about gay sexuality with that.” However, the most violent argument was presented like this: “None of the leads are gay! This is not a gay film! Why do we need to argue about this?”
These arguments are important reminders of how much distance mainstream Indian cinema is yet to cover. Will the release of new ‘gay’ themed films or films with gay characters––that are not pretending to be gay for comic effect––change the way that movies will get made? If we have really advanced in filmmaking and recognise that audiences are mature and can handle any issue, why do stereotypes still populate our screens? Should we consider that any representation is good representation as long as it gets people to talk about gay, bisexual, lesbian or transgender issues in the living room?
Considering the argument around Dostana, I believe that no matter how many gay-themed films get made, regardless of whether they change the way filmmakers target gay audiences, films will still be subject to viewers’ interpretation. Just because filmmakers might consider their output sensitive or path-breaking, doesn’t mean everyone who watches the film will think so.
In earlier times, when gay audiences found no representation in cinema (stereotypical or otherwise) we resorted to something more familiar––reimagining the film by looking for homoerotic subtext. For instance, a particularly close friendship between the hero and his friend would mean something entirely different for us. Sometimes for gay men an entire romantic scene between the leads will get re-imagined in our minds with us role-playing with the hero. With gay characters (real or pretend) in mainstream cinema, the search for subtext is probably slowed down, but not entirely ended. Dostana and other Hindi films with real or pretend gay characters may have provided much fodder for the imagination of many young gay men across the country.
But filmmakers have generally shied away from having gay leads in mainstream films. Even the marketing of Philadelphia and Brokeback Mountain as non-gay films showed how much producers feared the ‘gay’ label. It is still a film industry mantra that films with gay leads are a distributor’s nightmare. This kind of homophobia is, unfortunately, still prevalent both in the industry and in audiences. Despite their successes at film festivals around the world, serious films like Tom Ford’s stunningly beautiful A Single Man and Lisa Cholodenko’s lesbian family drama The Kids are All Right didn’t really see the kind of box office success that they deserved.
However, filmmakers’ still rake in money when they show a heterosexual hero donning a dress and acting effeminate for comic relief. The exploitation of such stereotypes ignores two things: first that it insults actual members of a community that are effeminate and have struggled with years of bullying because of it and second that the queer community is in reality far more diverse and deserves the kind of representation that will help increase acknowledgment and acceptance.
Eventually, all representation of gay characters (however offensive) will reach the living room of the average middle class household. In a country where any conversation around sex is still hesitant and uninformed, guiding a viewing public to talk affirmatively about gay rights is a huge responsibility for filmmakers and one that they might have to seriously consider.
