Storytime! (queer people kill themselves)
Apr. 26th, 2019 08:51 amSo--as I think most of you know?--I'm Indian, and we had a five-year decriminalisation of "unnatural" sexual acts from 2009 to late 2013, and legal acceptance of queerness as an identity only in 2018. As you might imagine, queer media isn't thick on the ground: commercial releases have queer villains or victims, rarely, homophobic jokes often.
In 2016 a family film had one of the estranged brothers queer, but obvs not openly at all, and we were all very relieved that he was a lead character and nothing offensive was perpetrated onscreen. In 2013, while stuff was still decriminalised, we had a prestigious short film about a young man having a brief fling with his boss' very closeted husband. In 2005, an AIDS film that had queer domesticity and was stupendous for the time. In 2004, we had a film that posited queerness as a result of CSA and also was very confused about lesbians v. transmen. This is all Bollywood, of course: regional industries do their own thing and the Bengali film industry--which is the one I know--has had some nuanced queer depictions in telefilms, and a couple commercially-released ones, primarily because of the fantastic Rituparno Ghosh, who ventured into acting in the last few years of his life. Still mostly sad gays, because well.
In 2015, a film called Family Album promised--in part--the story of a mid-late 20s woman going on dates with a view to immediate marriage and being completely icked out by the process, who falls for an artsy bisexual woman, and then just leaves her family and goes away with this chick. I can't begin to tell you how fucking revolutionary that was: two grown women (so it's not a phase) and the more conservative one actually choosing queer love over convention. We don't get those stories. I wanted to watch that film so very badly I cannot even begin to tell you. But obvs it wasn't releasing nationally, and I wasn't in the relevant state. But! SO also wanted to see the film very badly, and she was in the right place right time, and it was around her birthday, so I got her a ticket.
And she sat through a rather nuanced film, with a lovely soft queer storyline, and then the bisexual woman, after they've run away together and have had A Perfect Day at the beach, decides "well it can't get any better than this" and commits suicide. That was it, that was the film.
So, I mean. I'm glad my SO didn't find time to start watching The Magicians is what I guess I'm saying.
ETA: In 2014, as![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dhobikikutti reminded me, we also had the magnificent Dedh Ishqiya, which straight-baited the audience before ending with Madhuri Dixit and Huma Qureshi's characters living happily ever after (and having been in a relationship before and during the film). Shame on me, shame on my cow for forgetting.
In 2016 a family film had one of the estranged brothers queer, but obvs not openly at all, and we were all very relieved that he was a lead character and nothing offensive was perpetrated onscreen. In 2013, while stuff was still decriminalised, we had a prestigious short film about a young man having a brief fling with his boss' very closeted husband. In 2005, an AIDS film that had queer domesticity and was stupendous for the time. In 2004, we had a film that posited queerness as a result of CSA and also was very confused about lesbians v. transmen. This is all Bollywood, of course: regional industries do their own thing and the Bengali film industry--which is the one I know--has had some nuanced queer depictions in telefilms, and a couple commercially-released ones, primarily because of the fantastic Rituparno Ghosh, who ventured into acting in the last few years of his life. Still mostly sad gays, because well.
In 2015, a film called Family Album promised--in part--the story of a mid-late 20s woman going on dates with a view to immediate marriage and being completely icked out by the process, who falls for an artsy bisexual woman, and then just leaves her family and goes away with this chick. I can't begin to tell you how fucking revolutionary that was: two grown women (so it's not a phase) and the more conservative one actually choosing queer love over convention. We don't get those stories. I wanted to watch that film so very badly I cannot even begin to tell you. But obvs it wasn't releasing nationally, and I wasn't in the relevant state. But! SO also wanted to see the film very badly, and she was in the right place right time, and it was around her birthday, so I got her a ticket.
And she sat through a rather nuanced film, with a lovely soft queer storyline, and then the bisexual woman, after they've run away together and have had A Perfect Day at the beach, decides "well it can't get any better than this" and commits suicide. That was it, that was the film.
So, I mean. I'm glad my SO didn't find time to start watching The Magicians is what I guess I'm saying.
ETA: In 2014, as
dhobikikutti reminded me, we also had the magnificent Dedh Ishqiya, which straight-baited the audience before ending with Madhuri Dixit and Huma Qureshi's characters living happily ever after (and having been in a relationship before and during the film). Shame on me, shame on my cow for forgetting.
