Gay Themes Evolve In Bollywood Movies
MUMBAI — Bollywood has a long history of portraying gay characters with clichés or using them as an ostensibly comic sideshow. Often they are sexual predators whom the male leads, epitomes of heterosexual masculinity, must be wary of.
But several recent movies have challenged those stereotypes, suggesting that attitudes in India’s movie industry, or at least within an influential section of it, may be changing.
“Aligarh,” based on the true story of a gay professor who was hounded, possibly to death, opened nationwide in India in February to critical acclaim. It features mainstream actors — with Manoj Bajpayee in the lead role — a casting approach without precedent in Bollywood and unthinkable just a few years ago.
“Aligarh” was followed in March by “Kapoor & Sons,” a multistar big- budget Bollywood movie in which one of the two male leads is revealed to be gay. A tale of messy family relationships inspired by Woody Allen’s “Hannah and Her Sisters,” the film surpassed roughly $16 million in revenues, the Bollywood gold standard for commercial success.
This progressive turn is simultaneously a product of and a response to the changing mores of the urban middle class, which has developed a more tolerant view than other segments of society. This contingent is numerically a minority but it is Bollywood’s most significant source of revenue. Hansal Mehta, the director of “Aligarh,” acknowledged that he would not have found a backer for his movie a decade ago.
“The audience is more evolved than we think,” Shakun Batra, director of “Kapoor & Sons,” said.
In a country where the struggle continues to legalize gay sex, the movies have faced hurdles almost from their inception.
“Aligarh” was based on a 2010 case involving S.R. Siras that made headlines in India. Mr. Siras, a professor at Aligarh Muslim University in India, was surreptitiously filmed while having sex with a male companion in his apartment and later suspended by the university on charges of sexual misconduct. The movie narrates his troubled last days, an invasion of his privacy, public humiliation and a professional witch hunt that ends in his mysterious death, considered by many to have been a suicide.
“Aligarh” faced controversy even before filming began. Opposition arose within Aligarh Muslim University as news of the project spread. The hostility led Mr. Mehta to move the filming to Bareilly, a town about 160 kilometers east of Aligarh. The mayor of Aligarh pressured local theaters to take it off screens.
“Kapoor & Sons” did not find itself the subject of a public storm. Instead, five actors turned down the part of the gay lead, Mr. Batra said, and his search went on for a year until Fawad Khan, a Pakistani actor popular in India, took on the role. Mr. Batra and the movie’s producers decided to avoid any mention of same-sex relationships in the mov- ie’s promotions. “A big part of our society is homophobic,” Mr. Batra said.
The movies arrive at a delicate moment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in India. In February, the Supreme Court of India agreed to review its widely condemned 2013 judgment that reinstated a ban on gay sex, a law known as Section 377. The decision once again raised the temperature of the long-running battle between liberals and conservatives on the issue.
“Section 377 will eventually be thrown out,” Mr. Mehta said. “‘Aligarh’ is part of that larger history that this country is going to experience.”