Curated for Pride Library, University of Western Ontorio, Canada
Copyright Sridhar Rangayan, 2009
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DISCLAIMER: All interpretations and readings is by the author. All the images and videos on this site have been used only for reference, collated from sources on the internet.
CREDITS
Title: Mumbai Matinee
Year: 2003
Language: Hindi
Genre: Feature / Art House
Director: Anant Balani
SYNOPSIS
Debu Chatterjee is in his 30s, and is chided by everyone he knows as a "virgin". Tired of being stereotyped in this manner, he confides in Baba Hindustani, and Pyarelal about his predicament, and they offer to help him out, with hilarious results. Then one day, while watching a movie in a theater, Debu is shocked to see himself in an adult sex film, and this changes everything all around him, as people look at him differently than they did when they knew him to be a virgin. A stunned and perplexed Debu sets out to find out as to how he came to be caste in this movie.
QUEER NOTES
The protagonist Debu meets Roshan, a gay man who makes a pass at him which Debu rejects. He meets Roshan again and they become friends. But the third time when Debu meets Roshan on a park bench he learns that Roshan is HIV+ and they have a poignant exchange about life and love. What is interesting is that the gay man has not been stereotyped or caricaturized and not even rebuked for his sexual orientation. But many feel that this two and half scene smacks of minority tokenism and that the filmmaker is making some sort of a statement that is not just irrelevant, but also hard to comprehend.15 Possibly, the ill-fitting gay character represents Debu's place in Mumbai's cultural chaos.
ACTOR/S IN QUEER ROLE
Bakul Thakkar as Roshan Kumar (gay)
LINKS
Imdb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0382188/
queer portrayals in Indian films