INTRODUCTION:

Films have been a part of the popular culture for so many years. It has amazed, amused, made people go beyond expectations and imaginations over myriad themes. Indian films are always said to possess multi-layered genres since it has to cater to varieties of audiences. The themes have been undergoing a constant paradigm shift. The humble beginnings of cinema saw various epics, myths and legends and retelling of ancillary stories around. Later there were themes of Independence movements and Gandhian ideologies’ reflections within the films. Later real life incidents were picked in and the fight for social justice were taken up by actors within the films. Then films underwent a radical change where it influenced politics and other political drama through the massive propaganda. Likewise, the themes for the films are basically lifted from the society and at times it is vice-versa, which proves it to be a vicious cycle.

Queering of Gender though has been criminalized according to the Supreme Court of India, is surely seen in the Indian societies amidst the chaotic homophobic social rants. The cinema has been a question of major criticism because of its employment with queer community’s representation either nullified or within exaggerated limits. There have been little or no films on a count per year to address the queer sexuality in India until 1990s. When this being the scene, Deepa Mehta’s film Fire hit the Indian cinemas which enraged so many non-liberals of India and many self taught moral police officers. The bridging of gap with another set of queer films on par for such a film itself took over a decade. Apart from that after 2000, there has been good number of films that come under the umbrella of queer cinema where a positive light is shown on the gender queer and gender fluid people of the film, by ensuring them many affirmative roles in it. The silencing of an issue cannot the idea of resolving it has been proved through such new wave queer cinema. As queer theoretician Judith Butler rightly points out masculine and feminine roles are not biologically identified but are socially constructed, the society amidst the alternative sex people also plays a major role in stigmatizing and de-stigmatizing the taboos around homosexuality in Indian communities. Also religion plays a major role in the case of Indian context when it comes to Alternate sexuality.

Coming to terms with all of these the present research article explores about how the sexual minorities or the sexual subaltern community, (as coined by postcolonial legal scholar RatnaKapur) are being represented through mainstream Hindi films which were released during the year 2014 to 2016 as, the previous films such as Mango Soufflé, I am Gay, Memories in March, Bomgay etc. have been already explored enough. The present article also delves into the human rights perspective of the LGBTQ individuals of the movie and how are their personal rights affected through the course of the time.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

According to Ruth Goldman, in article “Exploring norms around sexuality, race and class” queer means to make space for diversity amidst the society; a theoretical perspective in order to challenge the normative” Gender queer are the ones who do not confirm to the binary of gender or cisgender in the society. (Goldman, 1996) It can also be classified as gender queered community have fluid sexual identity. The word queer is an umbrella term which includes the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender, Queer) unfortunately were surrounded by many derogatory terms until the 1960s LGBT revolution. Later there were many terms such as Alternative sexuality, sexual minority etc, where the latter word was mostly promoted by Swedish psychiatrist Lars Ullerstam who was the author of the book the erotic minorities. (Ullerstam, 1971) According to a famous film scholar Vitto Russo, in his book The Celluloid closet, says that “the Hollywood films from the time period of 1890s to 1980s demonstrates a history of homosexuality, insisting on cruel representations and the society being homophobic”. (Russo, 1981) Indian author Shoma Chatterjee on the article gays and lesbians in Indian cinema says that “There were no parallels to scholar Vitto Russo’s book because there have been no sensitive documentations of gays and lesbians, for such an in depth study to be made on the cinematic space of the queer community.” (Chatterjee, 2008) Although, it was also evident that the ancient Indian times, were little more sensitive and understanding towards the alternative sexuality as many homophobic murals, sculptures can be seen in many cave walls like the Khajuraho. According to queer theorist Michael Foucault, who theorizes many implications on gay consciousness says that “If sex is repressed, or if condemned to prohibition, then the one speaking has the appearance of a transgression. In such a place, he has reached a certain extent outside the reach of power, he’s also to be believed as he has outlawed and anticipates the coming freedom” (Foucault, 1978). According to Rohit Dasgupta, who discusses the misrepresentations of queer culture in cinema says that, “Bollywood, explores queer spaces by adding a pseudo-queer story line with a case study such as the movie Dostana, where the mother is scared to her homophobic son and tries to “cure” it. With queer representations in cinema has a long way to go, the signifiers which were employed in the movies are hyper-masculinity through close torso shots, exaggerated mannerisms, and metro-sexual pattern shirts to gay men” (Dasgupta, 2012). Section 377 of the Indian Constitution was introduced during the British regime in India, and it states that it criminalizes the unnatural acts of sex, which also apparently sodomy, homosexuality etc. It was decriminalized by the Delhi High Court during the year 2009, but again later it was overturned in the year 2013. Naz foundation is an organization which actively plays a role in submitting of curative petitions to the court to revoke the judgement. The founder of the organization Anjali Gopalan, in an interview stated that, “Could it be scarier and challenging to patriarchy if women started saying they do not even need men?” This could also be one of the reasons where Lesbianism is even a lesser topic of discussion in the cinematic space, movie industry being a male dominated realm. (Anjali Gopalan on interview with the Hindu dt: December 20, 2013).

When this is the case of lesbian and gay representations in cinema space, the bottom most topic of discussion is bi-sexuality in films. According to scholar Carla Williams, “In Hollywood films, the least discussed being bi-sexuality in films, even if discussed it would always be exploring on female’s bi-sexual orientation since it belongs to one of the fantasies of a heterosexual male. The representation of a bi-sexual person in the cinema space is shown to be cruel, or someone behind money or following predatory methods for reaping selfish gains at the expense of others.” A famous line from the movie Cabaret which deals about bi-sexuality can be quoted, “Does it really matter so long as you’re having fun?” proves to the predatory sexually fluid character of the movie. Although there are decent numbers of documentaries made on bi-sexuality, there have been very less number of mainstream films to talk about it (Williams, 2015).

Theoretical Framework:

There has been many gender scholars and queer theorists like Michael Foucault, Lee Edelman, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwik, Teresa De Lauritis, etc. who have added different definitions to Queer theory. The present study deduces from the contemporary framework of Queer theory given by Judith Butler. Her ideas of Queer theory suggest that, Gender is something that is not biologically assigned to, but socially constructed. (Butler, 1990) She also theorizes that the binary male and female behavioural roles are not naturally identified, but are re-iterated by the society and representations of society such as the media. She also proposes the theory of gender performativity, in which gender is looked at as a “performance” This performing or “doing” of gender depends on different contexts such as time, space and social interactions etc and hence the sexual identity itself is fluid in nature. Gender trouble was another term coined by her, which defines how the society expects the people to be always heteronormative in nature. Any behaviour which is a deviant or anomaly that disrupts the accepted notions of gender causes gender trouble. These are the reasons which lead to misrepresentations of queer cinema, or exaggerations of gender queer community in the media.

METHODOLOGY:

The present research article uses Qualitative Content analysis of films which are not a random choice, but with carefully set parameters.

The criteria to choose the films are:

(1) Hindi Films which were released during 2014 to 2016, as there have been a paradigm shift noted globally post 2010 within the representation of LGBTQ community in the mainstream films. (2) Films with LGBTQ themes where the sexual minority characters play the pivotal roles in the selected movies. (3) Films with LGBTQ community being represented in a positive, progressive way throughout.

The chosen films for analysis are:

(1) Margarita with a straw– September 2014, (2) Angry Indian Goddesses – November 2015, (3) Aligarh –February 2016, (4) Dear Dad – May 2016.

Parameters to analyze within the films:

1. Queer: The personal self:

(a) The first identification of sexual awakening by the LGBTQ characters of the film. (b) Addressing of gender trouble issue. (c) Roles played by the LGBTQ characters in the films. (d) Defence mechanisms used by the LGBTQ characters in the film.

2. Queer self and the society:

(a) The bonding shown between the LGBTQ characters through the films. (b) Ancillary or supporting actors of the LGBTQ characters in the films and their reaction towards their queer sexuality. (c) LGBTQ characters VS. Societal conflict within the films. (d) Violence meted out by the LGBTQ characters of the films as shown.

3. Technicalities of queer cinema:

(a) Title of the movie and establishment of the queerness within title/movie’s name. (b) Filmmaker whether male/ female or gender queer. (c) Screen presence of LGBTQ characters (in minutes). (d) Other themes touched upon within the movies. (e) Three elements of Mise-en-scene: Lighting, colour and setting of the films selected.

4. Human rights, and Religion:

(a) Religious references prescribed within the movie supporting/against gender queer community in the films. (b) Human rights issue addressed in the movie: Right to privacy, Right of speech and expression. (c) The awareness of the LGBTQ character of the movie about IPC laws and section 377.

Analysis and Interpretation:

Queer: The personal self:

The first sexual awakening encounter is to be discussed in the few following lines: a. in the movie “Margarita with a straw”, the central character who falls in love twice within the movie finally understands she is bi-sexual. The first time being with her band’s lead male singer and the second time, a girl she meets along in New York. She experiments again with an opposite gender later through the course of time. The audience are to understand with no words, but only actions and her emotions about her gender fluid behaviour. B. In the movie, Angry Indian Goddesses, the audience are not aware of the Lesbian character’s first sexual awakening encounter. But the scene where she says it by enacting as if she is coming out of the cupboard makes her friends and the audience understand that she is coming out of her closet. c. In film Aligarh, there are subtle depictions of a male professor who shares a very intimate relationship with a male rickshaw puller which is being exposed to the public by few intruders in his apartment. The audience understand about the degree of intimacy during the course of a flashback, where the professor seems to read out a poem he had penned for the rickshaw puller. D. The last film chosen for the analysis, “Dear Dad” does not show the audience about either the first sexual awakening of the father character who is shown to be gay or even the gay partner of him.

The issue of gender trouble is being analysed throughout the films, where there is a lot of disruption of accepted notions of homosexuality through the LGBTQ people of the films. Laila and Khanum of Margarita with a straw, where one is seen to mobilize with a wheel-chair and other girl who is visually impaired are given regular clothes, and mannerisms. Similarly in other films too there is absence of machismo amongst the gay characters and show girl syndrome is absent in lesbian representations of the movie.

The roles portrayed by the sexual minority community in the films are also discussed in the present research article: Generally, Hindi films with queer narratives assume hyper masculinity to be shown in its LGBTQ characters, which is shown to be visible and thus adding to the queer gaze. The exaggeration of male stereotypical behaviour is generally to be predominantly seen in yester year’s Queer cinema. Also the movies generally had a tinge of homo-erotica, in which the queer characters of the movie are seen to be more glamorous and horny than the others in the film. On the other hand, the analysed 4 movies, the roles played by the queer characters were in which Aligarh and Dear Dad, talks about Gay narratives in, has its central characters which have been mainstreamed in such extent that they’ve been given normal, everyday roles and dialogues. No additional/derogatory camera angles etc. were not seen in the movies analysed. The idea of normalizing homosexuality was seen through the movies, beyond the legal challenges in the Indian context.

The LGBTQ characters of the movies analysed played roles such as teenage student, photographer, activist, well-read professor, rickshaw puller and a successful business respectively in movies , Margarita with a straw, Angry Indian Goddesses, Aligarh, and Dear Dad respectively. Thus the concept of “othering” has relatively stopped by making the characters play sensible and also sensitive roles. While the previous decade’s movies like Dostana, or a relatively early movie like Sadak, had queer characters playing cunning roles, or demonizing them in different ways, the roles of the chosen films showcase a very progressive nature, and the stigma has been well addressed.

The women characters of all 4 films are shown to be progressive in nature The movie Margarita with a straw shows supportive mother always having the higher hand, and the two girls who fall in love are also given active roles such as activist, band singer. The movie Angry Indian Goddesses has more number of women characters than any other movie and also all of them playing equally bold roles. The movie Aligarh, the news room is headed by a bold woman, and Dear Dad movie, shows the women roles such as the wife character and the principal of the school in very dominant roles. There are various defence mechanisms employed by the LGBTQ characters by the film. The reasons to analyse the defence techniques one uses are, to identify the alternate reasons the respective characters reason out during their coming out of closets. Also that they are ways and means in which the adult ego tries to bring in equilibrium with their life and conflicts faced by them. The commonly seen defence mechanisms in the four films analysed included denial of homosexuality by supporting characters in the movie, acting out of ancillary actors after knowing about their gender queer friends or family member, intellectualization in explaining about their homosexuality to their friends, rationalization of mistakes by society, displacement of anger performed by gender queer characters when their sexuality is seen like a penalty by their society etc.

Queer self and the society:

According to Gender performativity theory stated by Judith Butler:, “The one who fails to comply with the society’s norms or to obey their gender right, tends to be socially punished”, similarly in all of the movies analysed, the gender queer characters are shown to be punished by one or more of their peer members which they later repent for. The longing for their communal relationships is shown.

The bonding between the LGBTQ characters is shown in the following ways A. in the film Margarita with a straw, there are subtle intimate scenes with two girls Laila and Khanum and later with the guy classmate and Laila. The portrayal is in such a supporting manner that she is later being helped by the male classmate for her nature’s call, as she suffers from cerebral palsy is not able to mobilize much. The representation breaks the regular stereotypical demonic ways or any anomalism in telling about the LGBTQ character. The bonding between the two girls is very intimate, at times maternal, and also a seeking of kinship can be seen. B. InAngry Indian Goddesses, the intimacy between the two girls is more to be like two buddies. There are scenes where the other girls get jealous seeing how the lesbian partners cuddle each other where one of the supporting characters exclaims, Äw! How cute can they be”. The third film of analysis, Aligarh, showcases bonding between the two male partners in a differently intimate way. The two are seen to enjoy poems together, and the gay theme between a professor and a rickshaw puller also breaks the class differences amidst them. In the fourth film, Dear Dad, there is no bonding shown between the gay partners as the audience are unaware who the main character in relationship is with.

The recognition of queer community within the films recreates the dominant ideology by mainstreaming them, thus by normalizing them the directors have challenged the social construct of gender roles.

Out of 4 movies analysed, Angry Indian Goddesses is a movie which explores more on lesbianism and same-sex wedding. The movie detects the presence of many representations of phallic girl. According to Sigmund Freud, in psychoanalysis a phallic girl is a woman who possesses the symbolic attributes of a phallus. She is someone who traditionally has more masculine characters. Scenes where the characters in the movie are predominantly to be shown with long legs, nails, and long hair let to be loose can be taken as the absence of males seeking behaviour of their absent penis. There is also a scene where two heterosexual individuals have an intimate wet dancing sequence, which again can be decoded in the same way.

The supporting characters of the sexual minorities identified in all the 4 films analysed, play a very supportive role. Although there are initial shocks from them which are revealed in the movies. Be it the supportive mother character of Laila in Margarita with a straw, the ever loving gang of girls, who are invited along for their friends’ lesbian wedding, the understanding journalist character of professor Siras, who helps him and fights for justice in the movie Aligarh, and the son character Shivum, who understands, accepts and is also proud for his father who is gay. All of them add on to lessen the gender politics surrounded in the society. They add to the degree of tolerance amidst the community they hail from. This again proves that the movie adds on to a progressive side and thus can be seen as New wave in queer cinema.

The stigma attached to the LGBTQ community has been reduced in different ways through the four movies analysed: The amount of victimization which is shown can be seen only in 1 out of 4 films, whilst the others show the LGBTQ characters to have a good future in the films. Also the sexual minorities are not to be seen as isolated except for only one movie Aligarh (Even in which he still has two friends whom he occasionally visits). They are always surrounded with friends or their kith and kin.

In all the films analysed there has been a loss of a family member or an absence of a very beloved person which makes the sexual minority individual’s life a little void in nature. In Margarita with a straw, Laila’s supportive mother dies out of cancer, in Angry Indian Goddesses, the father characters of the lesbian couple stays out of the wedding and also a very beloved friend loses her life during the course of the movie, whereas in the movie Aligarh, the professor himself dies and in the movie Dear Dad, the gay character divorces his wife and moves out of the family.

The conflict between the sexual minority characters of the film vs. the society they live in has various representations throughout the four films analysed. In Margarita with a straw, the central character who has cerebral palsy, travelling in a wheelchair is already seen to be abnormal inside the conservative Indian society. Whereas, the scenes where she moves to America, the society seems to be shot more liberal and the people around her help her more actively. But later once she comes back to India, she is shown to be as a more of a bold girl than she used to be. Scenes from the movie Angry Indian Goddesses where all the seven leading ladies of the film had to fight the society they live in. There were judgemental looks by the police when analysing the murder of one of the girls, and there were also many scenes where sexual objectification of women were openly shown. The society, the girls hailed from seemed to be very binary and hetero- normative in nature. The movie Aligarh showcased a very conflicting society for the gay central character, who at the end of the film even dies due to the same reasons. He is manhandled by the people around and is denied justice over a prolonged period of time. In the final movie of the analysis, Dear Dad, there is not much conflict shown with the society. This is proved with a scene where the central gay character says that, he was not looking for any societal validation and he is only bothered about what is son would feel about him.

There are few violent acts meted out by the characters identified within the movies. Out of 4 movies analysed, 2 movies show violent activities against the sexual subaltern community. The violent activities within the movie text with reference to Indian Penal Code has been classified as culpable homicide, murder or attempt to murder, grievous hurt, assault, kidnapping, rape and abetment of suicide out of which murder and rape was committed to the LGBTQ characters of the films analyzed.

Technicalities of queer cinema:

The title of the films chosen establishes the queerness in different possible ways put together: a. “Margarita with a straw “title depicts it, through its title itself that the movie has got to do with something outside what the society calls “normal”. b. “Angry Indian Goddesses “title depicts it shorter whereas the logo of the movie shows a tongue which is red in colour, hence can also take the connotation of the burning sexual desire of women or the danger which is awaited for the characters in the movie. c. “Aligarh “movie’s poster had used the word “Come out “instead of movie ”release” which again symbolized the character of the movie who is someone “coming out of his closet”. d. “Dear Dad “title or the poster does not give away any queerness although the poster had shown that the sexual minority character of the movie has a popsicle in hand, hence could represent the male symbol who is looking at another male in the poster.

The film makers of the movies are namely a. Margarita with a straw: Shonali Bose, who she herself identifies as a bisexual. B. Angry Indian Goddesses: Pan Nalin, who identifies himself as a heterosexual man. C. Aligarh film is made by director Hansal Mehta who is a heterosexual person and d. Dear Dad is made by debutant director TanujBhramar, who identifies himself as straight.

The Screen presence of the LGBTQ characters in the movie in terms of time duration is as follows: a. Margarita with a straw: out of 140 minutes of run time of the movie, the screen presence of LGBTQ characters almost finds a place of 108 minutes. B. In Angry Indian Goddesses film whose run time is 2hours and 1 minute, the LGBTQ character share a screen presence of around 64 minutes altogether. C. Aligarh film has its run time as 114 minutes, where the sexual minority character finds around 88 minutes on the screen. D. Dear Dad film has its run time as 95 minutes in which the gay character takes up around 62 minutes of screen space, which proves to the fact that the LGBTQ characters have been given predominant importance in the films. The colours used by the sexual minority characters of the films are predominantly white, gray and shades of blue. They are all lighter hues and never employ “look-at-me” colours. According to Thomas Waugh’s article” Queer in Bollywood, or I’m The player, you’re the naïve one”, queer cinema of yester years in Hindi were to show the queer characters in darker tones of colours, like brown, red and black to show their innate evil nature in the films as shown. There were also traces of pseudo queer activities and cross-dressing going on in certain Hindi films of Amitabh Bachchan.” But films analyzed in the present study uses only light colours for depicting the LGBTQ characters adding on to the mainstreaming of them in Hindi cinema.

The lighting used in the films analysed show their LGBTQ characters in the same lighting set up which is used to show the other characters of the film. If low key is to been for a particular scene, the same is maintained for the sexual minorities in the film too. There is no spotlight or artificial lighting set up unlike older Hindi films to represent their queerness. The films were as seen as forms of expressionism in order to regularize the archaic stereotypes followed.

Human rights, Laws relating to Queer:

A right which is believed to belonging to every individual is called as the human right. This issue has been addressed in all of the four films analysed. In the movie Margarita with a straw, when the supportive mother finds out about her daughter that she has been watching pornographic content, the daughter replies it is her right to privacy and she sure can enjoy her sexuality. In movie Aligarh, the professor’s journalist friend actually takes up the whole story in order to fight for justice on terms with right to privacy to be enjoyed by the victimized. In Angry Indian Goddesses’ film, the LGBT right in India has been criticized, beyond the Indian Constitutional challenges. Also one of the sexual minority characters who is a photographer by profession in the movie, talks about the rights as an artist and an individual she possesses. Hence the characters of the movies chosen are represented to be well-read and also socially, politically and sexually aware individuals. Out of 4 films analysed, 2 films openly talk about the IPC section 377 and on Supreme Court criminalizing homosexuality by saying it is unnatural. One of the film also, shows that the central character of the film undergoing media trials etc and who is later victimized by the same law. The awareness level of LGBT rights amidst the sexual minority characters of the filmis also shown where in one instance, when a supporting actor says section 370 talks about Homosexuality, the sexual minority friend of hers corrects her by saying: it is not 370; but 377.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS:

Taking Hindi cinema’s popularity into consideration, the industry is contributing towards mainstreaming the queer culture in India. Homosexuality is addressed to be no more a taboo in many films of the recent era. Also many other Vernacular language cinema industries have started picking up the LGBTQ themes within it. While advertising such a film, the word queer is not mentioned anywhere directly in their promotional features unlike earlier, which itself is to be looked at as a paradigm shift.When suggestions for filmmakers through the present research are to be considered, the filmmakers might also have to add more voice to the bi-sexuality representation in the films. Also the lack of star cast in representing alternate sexuality can be bridged, so that the movie’s reach is bigger. For further research concerns, vernacular language movies of LGBTQ themes can be used as a research platform. Also, the analysed Hindi films can be screened to the alternate sexual community in order to validate their representation.

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Received on 24.10.2017 Modified on 28.11.2017

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(1): 177-182.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00031.1