Gulshan Devaiah talks about representation of LGBT+ community in Bollywood
- IndiaGlitz, [Monday,June 20 2022]
Brilliant actor Gulshan Devaiah is known for starring in critically acclaimed indie movies like 'Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota', 'Shaitan', 'A Death In The Gunj' etc. In his last film 'Badhaai Do' which starred Rajkummar Rao in the lead, Gulshan portrayed a homosexual man and in a recent interview he opened up about the representation of LGBT+ community in Indian cinema.
According to a recent report in ETimes, Gulshan stated, Perhaps people are still a bit intimidated by the community or the idea that some people are different. It’s imagined to be a kind of a genetic threat to some people.
He further added, Some story tellers are genuinely accepting and inclusive but some are inclusive only to either appease a lobby or cash in on a trend, which is wrong because it’s not honest and leads to shallow representations.
Talking about how queer characters were often ridiculed in Bollywood, Gulshan stated, There was an era where queer characters were used for comedy. Well nothing wrong with that but when the community doesn’t have proper acceptance in regular society then it becomes hurtful to be used for comedy. But I think we’re moving ahead of that now. It’s not perfect yet but it’s a lot better than in the films of 70s to 2000s.