‘Funny Boy’ isn’t as inclusive as you think
With no queer Tamil actors in cast, film adaptation of beloved book misses a big opportunity
I really hope my English teachers don’t read this, but “Funny Boy” by Shyam Selvadurai was the only book in high school I didn’t SparkNotes my way through. I remember reading it cover to cover, word for word, in Grade 10. At the time I knew I was different, but not yet sure how. “Funny Boy” shed some light.
It is a coming of age story about a wealthy Tamil boy growing up in Sri Lanka’s former capital, Colombo. He explores his sexual identity amidst the Sinhala-Tamil tensions leading up to the 1983 pogroms, which resulted in thousands of Tamils being killed. Though we may never know the actual number, and records are disputed, former UN spokesperson Gordon Weiss puts the number between 1,000 and 3,000 in his 2012 book “The Cage.”
The violence saw many Tamils, including my parents, leave Sri Lanka as refugees to countries such as Canada. Main character Arjie’s life was far removed from my reality as a Scarborough-born, lower middle-class Tamil boy. But for the first time in my life, reading this book had the three worlds I was familiar with colliding — my Tamil identity, my Canadian identity and my sexuality — three worlds that often lived separate, complicated lives of their own.
As with any good book, I was transported into the main character’s world and drew parallels to what Arjie was experiencing. Queer people of colour rarely see ourselves represented in media, or in books, or on TV. So while there were many dissimilarities, I was grateful that there were pieces of Arjie’s character I could relate to.
Arjie played “bride-bride” with his girl cousins while the boy cousins played cricket. In daycare, I learned to dance with my Black girlfriends, while my brother played basketball with the boys. Arjie found acceptance to break the rules of gender norms as the bride in his makeshift bedsheet sari. I found acceptance being the only brown boy in a group of Black girls doing the butterfly dance to dance hall music. Worlds apart, I still felt that Arjie and I shared a sense of resistance to the things that made us different. Arjie’s character gave form to both my Tamil-ness and my queerness, giving me the conviction I needed to stand strong.
For a long time I thought I was the only Tamil queer boy, that queerness in any form was only for white people to experience. “Funny Boy” taught me and the world that Tamil queer people do exist. That among the conversations of genocide, war and displacement, there were also queer Tamil people facing battles nobody spoke of. I learned that there were other queer boys who spoke Tamil with their family members, listened to Tamil music and felt the effects of being discriminated against for being Tamil. Being queer didn’t make me any less Tamil.
When the Deepa Mehta film adaption of the book was first announced two years ago, I was elated. A high-profile Canadian director was going to be taking on a celebrated work of Canadian literature, and that happened to be a queer Tamil story. The Tamil queer experience, though not monolithic and sometimes far from what Arjie experienced, would finally be seen.
The story coming to the big screen felt like a graduation of parts of my story becoming part of mainstream queer dialogue — one that isn’t just reserved for white gays. A chance once again to show more people that Tamil queers exist. This could be our “Moonlight,” I thought.
Sadly, for all my hope and excitement, this film has instead turned out to be another exercise in the erasure of Tamils. Casting for a Tamil queer story, shot entirely in Sri Lanka, has left Tamils out of the cut. With the exception of one actor whose mother is Tamil, there are no others listed in the main cast. While these roles could have been the opportunity of a lifetime for Tamil queer actors from Canada, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia or Europe — take your pick — the casting has entirely left out Tamils irrespective of their sexual orientation.
Mehta told online publication the Daily Mirror that she held casting calls with multiple Tamil actors and that two picks ultimately fell through. One of the actors was not able to commit as their immigration status meant they could not go to Sri Lanka. The irony of a Tamil refugee being unable to act in a film about the event that was the single biggest reason for creating Tamil refugees worldwide is just too bitter to stomach.
Mehta said that her priority was casting queer people for the lead roles. She goes on to say that it was difficult to find openly queer Tamil actors or Tamil actors who would take on queer roles. She perpetuates the stereotype that no Tamils in the diaspora are involved in the arts, that we are all doctors or engineers, and that we will have to wait generations before that happens. Mehta in this interview also says, “if we care so much, we should be back in our country and fighting for it there,” dismissing generations of trauma and violence faced by the diaspora, and worsening the continuing threats against justice campaigners on the island.
In the age of social media and open casting calls — like how Mindy Kaling found Tamil-Canadian actor Maitreyi Ramakrishnan — Mehta didn’t do nearly enough. As an openly queer Tamil comedian and artist who has intimate involvement with the Tamil queer communities in Toronto, London and New York, I can tell you nobody had heard of any such casting. The community is vast but tight-knit; we would have heard about it. This film is funded by CBC Films, Telefilm Canada and Ontario Creates, which means Canadian artists and taxpayers have every right to question these decisions.
I haven’t seen the movie yet but, in many ways, I feel like I’ve seen enough. Most of the movie’s dialogue is said to be in Tamil; in fact, it is one of the requirements to be selected as an International Feature Film for the Oscars. But from examples I’ve seen in the trailer, even simple lines of Tamil have been butchered.
For a people who have survived massacres, the erasure of our faces from our own stories and the carelessness with which our language has been treated feels like another attempt at destroying Tamil identity and existence. North Indians and Sinhalese both have a heavy history of violence against Tamils and, in this film, they are given the power to tell the stories.
Genocide does not just describe the number of dead bodies, it is also about all the big and small ways our language and culture is erased.
Since the announcement of “Funny Boy” being Canada’s pick for the Oscars and the release of the Canadian trailer, many Tamil folks, including myself, have spoken out online against it. And Mehta’s team has tried to win community support through political organizations while seeking Tamil-speaking voice actors to redub the Tamil in the film before release.
This year, the world has been engaged in an important dialogue around mainstream representation of people of colour. While I am hopeful about these conversations, I am sad to say that, with this film, Canada is taking a step back in the onscreen representation of Tamils, queers and people of colour.
“Funny Boy” may go on to win hearts and awards. But it would be nothing short of a lie to say it celebrates diversity and inclusion when it has left out the very people the story is about.