That’s a Queer Joke

What,you’re gay? Okay,let’s outfit you in a pink wig and enormous falsies,get you to squeak in a thin falsetto,and have you mince across the screen.

Okay viewers,here’s your cue to roll in the aisles.

One of those ha-ha moments was used to prop up a recent rom com in which Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra are trying to find love,and bump into a few well-muscled studs who grab their car. To get the keys back,the Kapoor lad lets himself be pawed by those who did the grabbing. He arranges himself on the bed. He bats his eyelashes. He smiles coyly. It’s a nice little act,and we smile,but it feeds into every single exaggerated stereotype that the movies have set up in representing gayness. Or queerness.

A discussion a couple of weeks ago on how South Asian cinema represents gay people,ranged from how things used to be back in the ’50s and the ’60s and how they are now. As a panelist meant to speak on Bollywood,I was asked if there have been significant “changes” in the way gay people are portrayed. That was a no-brainer: no,of course not. Yes,there’s a chink in the armour,a crack in the door,but “change” is a big word,and it hasn’t come yet. Poking fun is still the safest way to deal with otherness. Keep the centre occupied by familiars. Shove the differently-abled to the side,and give them tiny speaking parts. Pat yourself on the back for being inclusive.

How tough it is to show characters with same sex preferences,male or female,is evident in a recent clunkily made film that calls itself Dunno Y Na Jaane Kyon. Ostensibly about a man who likes men,it meandered about in the first half setting the scene: the character had to be shown repeatedly rebuffing his wife’s advances (but being a good parent to his little daughter),and trying to help his other family members before turning to the matter at hand. It was trying to get an important aspect of sexuality out there for everyone to see,but it was doing it in a way that would turn most people away. There were about four other people in the theatre along with me.

You would have thought that Bollywood,post-Dostana,which helped enter the word “gay” into the popular lexicon,would be a place where gay people would have more acceptance. No,of course not. John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan can kiss and cuddle,but it’s all done with such a loud nudge-nudge wink-wink that even the most obtuse among us would get the point: the only one who needs to fall for the act is leading lady Priyanka Chopra,or there would be no plot.

Of course,these hunky heroes (lean mean John with his sculpted butt and Abhishek with real hair on his chest) are regular hetero males. Of course,the light-eyed dreamboat Hrithik Roshan can be a gay icon (that’s a good way to sell posters and merchandise),but can he seriously divest himself of his god’s-gift-to-women image? Of course,Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan can horse around cosily so as to create shock and awe in housemaid Kantaben’s bosom (that’s a great riff to rock award functions),but can they ever play gay with any seriousness and sincerity? You know,just as an example,the kind of character that Sean Penn played in Milk,where the limpness of the wrist was not cruel caricature but so,so heartbreakingly real?

The stereotyping of gay characters is of a piece with the treatment non-mainstream people get in our very mainstream cinema,where broad brushstrokes are all. Still,in 2010,Parsis are to be seen in that too-small red car asking for directions but going nowhere. Muslims have token presence,now that the big overblown socials that kept them confined to their havelis and shararas are a thing of the past. South Indians are generic,dark-skinned,idli-eating people speaking “gitter pitter”. Fatties and banana peels go together. Old Bollywood story. We have no use for these stories anymore. Bye-bye Kantaben.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com