Tamanna Sharraf
The LGBTQ+ community in India has been dealt many misgivings- they have been ridiculed, tormented and even physically harmed. But beyond this, there are some films that have beautifully tried to break the pattern, like Fire, 1996 and Darmiyaan, 1997. Dostana, however, was not one of these films.
Dostana, released in 2008, was a ground-breaking moment for the Indian cinema as it was one of the earliest queer representations in Bollywood, paving the way of acceptance and familiarity with the LGBTQ+ community. But instead of trying to remove the stereotypical image that Bollywood has oh-so well embedded into the minds of Indians, the film further feeds into the misrepresentation.
The movie stars playboys Kunal (John Abraham) and Sameer (Abhishek Bachchan) who PRETEND to be gay to have access to a 3-bedroom apartment, a residency permit for Miami and a shot with the smoking hot Neha (Priyanka Chopra). The movie is riddled with sleazy innuendos like eating hotdogs and finding Kunal and Sameer in compromising sexual positions, because apparently that’s all queer people do. Aside from objectifying Neha, the movie also manages to pull focus on the fact that Sameer works as a nurse. This fact seems to be the center of a lot of mockery for Sameer. It brings about how a female dominated industry has no space for a man and if one attempts, he can only be gay; a pattern found in other queer-based movies like Ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga.
The main plot revolves around the idea of Kunal and Sam getting a residency permit- a legal document allowing a foreign national to reside in another country for an indefinite time, filing as a gay couple which isn’t even possible unless they’re married! So the whole concept is flawed. Aside from this, the director does not hold back on using vulgar and cliched fashion like spiked chokers, sailor’s costumes and rainbow shirts to prove hencemore that the two are an effeminate gay couple. The “girly” hand gestures, ridiculous ad libs and the infamous song Maa da ladla bigad gaya are horribly misleading and insultingly stereotypical.
The movie steadies when the homophobic mother of Sam (Kiron Kher) comes into the picture. She comedically handles her role of trying to rid her son of the “disease/spirit” that has taken over him, also known as him being gay. She cringes when Neha’s boss (Boman Irani), who is actually gay, touches her or sees her son Sam getting close to Kunal and even tries to “fix” him with skulls and brooms, because she is an Indian mother after all.
Priyanka Chopra’s character then gives a shockingly graceful speech on ‘love is love’ and explains to the mother how her son is no different and how hard it must’ve been for him to hide his identity for so long, a message that should’ve been promoted from the beginning of the movie. But not as shocking as knowing Karan Johar, who is queer himself, has produced this degrading concoction.
Quickly losing focus from the queer acceptance and celebration message, the movie begins its Bollywood masala with a love triangle and Bobby Deol (Abhimanyu Singh) stuck in between the three protagonists. Kunal and Sam now spend most of their time trying to woo Neha, very transparently, and forgetting that she, and everybody else, have been told that THEY ARE GAY.
After keeping a word count, I have realised that the movie uses the word “gay” only 5-7 times to describe their relationship, the rest of the times they are referred to as hero-heroine, boyfriend-girlfriend and constantly told to “think like girls” and “talk about shoes and hair” just to prove that they are queer. The misogyny and banality is so deeply engrossed in the film, it is hard to look past it.
In conclusion, I wish that the filmmakers would realise that the impact of this movie is far deeper than John’s V-necks and how harming it must be to watch two non-queer actors pretend their way into being gay. Aside from forever ruining the song beedi jalaile for me, they have used destroying queer typecasts and further pigeonholed the community into the society’s already existing wrong impression.
And so I declare this movie not worth watching.
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