In many ways, Bollywood is almost slavish in its devotion towards Hollywood. Bollywood copies stories and lifts entire scenes; even the name of the Hindi Film Industry is derivative. Yet in some ways, Bollywood filmmakers are positively squeamish about touching on certain subjects that could still be considered taboo. Homosexuality is something Bollywood is not yet comfortable with. But if the gay rom-com has arrived in Hollywood with Love, Simon, how long will mainstream Bollywood take to follow suit?
Philadelphia was a path-breaking film for its time, in the way that it tackled hitherto taboo subjects such as homosexuality and homophobia in 1993. However, the Tom Hanks-Denzel Washington starrer was more a fascinating court drama and a film about living with AIDS. A few years later, The Birdcage starring Robin Williams, Gene Hackman and Dianne West among others was hugely enjoyable ride that helped in normalizing ‘alternative’ lifestyles. Films such as Brokeback Mountain (2005), Milk (2008), and The Kids are All Right (2010) also worked well to normalize homosexuality and to break at least some of the taboos, stereotypes and misinformation that surrounded the subject.
More recently the 2016 film Moonlight again broke new ground when it told a complex, gripping story of sexual identity and became the first LGBTQ film of its kind to win an Oscar for the best film. As an important film with an all all-Black cast it made a point for diversity in Hollywood as well. The evolution of the gay Hollywood film has been steady – the films becoming more open, progressive and embracing. The movies have also become gradually more evolved, with fewer instances of the stereotypical 'comic' homosexual character.
Love, Simon marks the arrival of the gay romcom in Hollywood. It is a sort of gay You’ve Got Mail. Not only is this the first gay teen movie by a major studio (20th Century Fox), this is a cheerful, light-hearted film about coming out. It is unlike previous films about coming out; most of which are serious, often angst-ridden depictions of the emotional and personal upheaval/cost of coming out.
Described by one columnist as “big, fluffy, and pink,” the film appeals to more nuanced perspectives; perspectives that are able to view a gay romance as just another regular romance. The film is an acknowledgement that the gay film is now bankable and box-office worthy; that it has an appeal that reaches beyond smaller niche audiences.
The 2005 Sanjay Suri and Juhi Chawla starrer My Brother Nikhil was perhaps India’s Philadelphia moment. A little late in arriving, the movie was nevertheless a sensitive portrayal of the issues it addressed. Though the 2008 Abhishek Bachchan-John Abraham –Priyanka Chopra starrer Dostana is sometimes referred to as a gay flick, it most certainly wasn’t; in fact the puerile humour and regressive stereotypical portrayals made it the opposite of that. In 2011 the anthology film by Onir, I Am focused on the issue and was also notable for being based on true stories; an important benchmark.
The Indo-Norwegian productions Dunno Y...Na Jaane Kyon (2010) and later Dunno Y2... Life Is A Moment (2015) took on the issues facing the LGBTQ community in the Indian subcontinent head-on. However, the films went largely unnoticed in the mainstream, though they received rave reviews and made waves on the festival circuit. They were very niche, at best. It is also telling that the parents of the producer of the film, Yuvraaj Parashar, took legal action to disown him because of the shame he brought upon his family by making the films.
Bollywood films are still largely regressive and many are frankly homophobic. The 2004 Girlfriend for instance was a terrible mishmash that showed a lesbian woman in the worst possible light. Mainstream Bollywood movies still routinely lampoon and denigrate homosexuality; using the crudest of stereotypes to evoke a few lascivious laughs.
The closest Bollywood has come to making a mainstream film about gay people, is the 2016 biographical film starring Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkumar Rao, Aligarh. Not only did the film receive critical success and acclaim at international festivals, it did reasonably well commercially. However, in spite of starring mainstream actors, this was an independent production; major production houses would think a subject such as this would be unviable.
The stigma against homosexuality is alive and well in India. The day that Karan Johar makes a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai about the romance between two Indian men or two Indian women (gasp) in a romantic relationship, we will perhaps celebrate our Love, Simon moment in India.
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