Bollywood goes LGBT: Gay romcom Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan is a game-changer for minority representation in India

Mar 10 , 2020

Gay romcom Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan marks the beginning of Bollywood’s mainstream reckoning with LGBTQ+ lives. Photo: @ayushmannk/Instagram

Following last year’s breakthrough Lesbian love story Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, comes director Hitesh Kewalya’s hit new 2020 romcom – starring Jitendra Kumar and Ayushmann Khurrana as a gay couple

Bollywood has long stereotyped LGBTQ+ characters into farcical clichés – the brothel-owning transgender villain, effeminate horny gay man, cross-dressers, sexualised lesbians and predatory transgender men – typically cast as mere accessories, crude caricatures, and the butt of jokes in most films.

Times have changed. Bollywood is now challenging the norm by providing LGBTQ+ characters a platform with its first mainstream gay romcom, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan (Be Extra Careful About Marriage), the trailer for which has already gained more than 53 million views.

Seeking to portray queer people in a more realistic and dignified manner through humour, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan tells the story of Kartik Singh (Ayushmann Khurrana) who overcomes social obstacles to be with his lover, Aman Tripathi (Jitendra Kumar) – a tried and tested Bollywood plotline, except that the main characters are openly masculine and gay.

The movie follows the couple hesitantly travelling from New Delhi to their hometown, Ahmedabad, to attend the wedding of Aman’s cousin, Goggle (Maanvi Gagroo). Aman is reluctant to go; his family is waiting to talk to him regarding his impending arranged marriage. Aman changes his mind out of motherly guilt and tags Kartik to come along with him.

Within the first hour of the movie, both of them kiss on the train with Aman’s family on board – and his father Shankar (Gajraj Rao) sees. The defiant act of showing affection already validates the characters’ sexuality and shows that being gay is normal.

What follows that kiss is a predictable conflict that drives the plot of most LGBTQ+ films: parental acceptance – and in the case of Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Aman’s conservative father is disgusted and does not approve of their relationship.