Review: A Jihad for Love

Parvez Sharma's important documentary A Jihad for Love is receiving some well-deserved acclaim. After hearing buzz about this film for months, I was lucky enough to attend a screening, here in Chicago, at which Sharma fielded questions from a small but inquisitive audience.

A Jihad for Love follows a series of queerly-inclined folks of various nationalities (South Africa, India, Turkey, France...) as they attempt to confront the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between their Islamic faith and their same-sex desires. Some offer revised interpretations of the Qur'an, some hope to emigrate to escape social (and sometimes political/legal) dangers, and still others are wracked by guilt and shame about their sexual preference.

Sharma's decision to film subjects in a variety of national contexts highlights the immense diversity in beliefs and practices across the Muslim community. Ultimately though the film fails to fully interrogate the profound importance of Islam in these peoples' lives; we get that Islam is important to them, but not exactly how faith functions in daily life and in the formation of identity. Islam (and more broadly, Religion) is portrayed as a given--a static, stable system of belief that exists as is; a force with which it is possible to argue, but rarely to refashion.

Nonetheless, the film packs a substantial emotional wallop in its presentation of complex, intelligent people struggling to (re)define themselves. At its core A Jihad for Love opens up a space for insightful discussion, no small feat for a small-budget documentary released in an era defined by severe anti-Islamic rhetoric.

Weekly Mix Masala

Just like always, taboos about sex prevent HIV prevention. This time, in Pakistan.
New York Times

Bombay High Court aquits two Britons of charges on pedophilia
Times of India

In Australia, a lesbian couple tries to sue their doctor when their in vitro results in two babies instead of one...
Times of India

When Kiren Met Karen review. After all the hype before the movie, this reviewer finds the movie disappointing
AfterEllen.com

New book sheds light on gay life in the Muslim world.
PRWeb

Film Review: My Brother...Nikhil (2005)

Inspired by true events, Onir's debut My Brother...Nikhil is an ambitious, deeply emotional film, featuring subtle performances from its ensemble of seasoned actors. In stark contrast to the big-budget spectacles that have come to stereotypically define India's rich cinematic traditions, Nikhil underplays its melodramatic sensibilities to evince some truly heartrending moments.

Set in Goa, from 1987-1994, the film narrates the story of Nikhil Kapoor (Sanjay Suri), champion swimmer and all-round nice guy, who is diagnosed with HIV at the height of his sports career. News of his diagnosis spreads quickly in the community, ultimately leading to his arrest and subsequent imprisonment in an abandoned sanitarium. Nikhil's parents flee Goa in shame, leaving elder sister Anamika (Juhi Chawla) to provide support to her brother, along with Nigel (Purab Kohli), Nikhil's boyfriend.

Given that My Brother...Nikhil centers around issues of HIV/AIDS, gayness, gender bias, and social stigma, the film is sometimes forced to function as an extended public service announcement. For example, the depiction of the legal battles regarding Nikhil's 3-month imprisonment is so underdeveloped it borders on being peripheral. The film works best as a family drama in which parents, children, siblings and partners must come to terms with the ravages of illness and blighted expectations.

Of special mention is the film's narrative style--rather than allowing the film to unfold in a linear fashion (which would have resulted in little more than a two-hour death knell), Onir cleverly uses a docu-drama approach in which each of the principal characters directly addresses the camera, narrating the flashbacks that fill-in Nikhil's story. Though this technique falters a few times, it is surprisingly effective on the whole, especially in terms of character development.

The cast is, without question, the film's biggest strength. Purab Kohli and Lilette Dubey, as Nikhil's boyfriend and mother respectively, are solid. Victor Banerjee is especially fine in the role of Nikhil's father, who must overcome his deep-seeded homophobia in order to reconnect with his son. Juhi Chawla gives a potentially career-best performance as Anamika, Nikhil's sister, confidant and champion. And finally, Sanjay Suri (also serving as producer) turns in a sterling performance as Nikhil. Although often overlooked in mainstream Hindi cinema, Suri proves here that he ranks among the most expressive and dauntless of Indian actors.

Also worth mentioning is the ingenious TV promo-spot (included on the Elite DVD). A range of well-known Bollywood personalities (Karan Johar, Abhishek Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Mandira Bedi, among others) appear to say, "I care for my brother, Nikhil. Do you?" one after another, after another, until a title card with the film's original release date appears. It's rare to see celebrities promoting projects with which they have no affiliation, especially those that deal with what might be considered "controversial" thematic content.

Recommended.

Because I Have a Voice

For those of you interested in learning more about the queer movement in India, this book is a great place to start: Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India, edited by Arvind Narrain and Gautam Bhan. This is an informative collection, comprised of academic essays, activist accounts, and personal narratives. Narrain and Bhan’s introduction is especially useful in delineating the uniqueness of South Asian sexuality studies in relation to postcolonial studies, legal battles, and debates over terms and definitions. Alok Gupta’s essay on class dynamics in the queer movement opens up a series of questions about the influence of globalized gay identities and (limited) access to queer resources. Nivedita Menon offers a powerful polemic about the need for South Asian feminists to take up compulsory heterosexuality as a founding structure of patriarchy. Gautam Bhan looks at Section 377, and the need for legal reform to be included in the larger political movement of queer activism. The personal narratives, though often brief, are moving accounts of queer life in India. Highly recommended.

Because I Have a Voice is published by Yoda Press, a wonderful publisher based out of New Delhi. Recently, they've introduced a new book series called "Sexualities," which includes a number of very interesting titles. Check out Gayatri Reddy's With Respect to Sex as well; it's a deeply moving ethnography of hijra communities living in and around Hyderabad. You can access the website for Yoda Press here.

Weekly Mix Masala

Its hard our there for a prince -- an interview with Manvendra Singh Gohil
Out.com

New York Times review of A Jihad for Love
NYTimes

Online Survey: Who's the gay pick for the hottest in the IPL?
Questionnaire

Sizzling Pakistani model, Emmad Irfani, featured on Queerty's 'Morning Goods'
Queerty

Gov't divided over law governing gays -- Naz Foundation's case garners press attention
NDTV

Tragic end for lesbian couple tormented by family pressure
PinkNews
EDGE Boston

UK grants Mehdi Kazemi asylum
CNN
Queerty

South Asian Bar Associaton of Northern California lauds California judgement on marriage
IndiaPost.com

Indian men may claim to have a healthy sex-life, but a new international survey claims that orgasm often eludes them.
NDTV

MAP raises awareness of HIV/AIDS in API community -- a look at being South Asian, gay, and HIV+
Bay Windows

Out in India: A Family's Journey will be showcased at the 2008 SF International Film Festival
Bay Area Reporter

Gambia President announces that gay men and women must leave the country in 24 hours
Gays Without Borders

Props to fellow bloggers pass the roti on the left hand side and Sepiamutiny for their posts on Section 377

Some Saturday Morning Eye Candy

So we "innocently" stumbled across a fellow blog. Thought it would be nice to share its wealth of knowledge (or however you want to justify it). The site, Filmy Romeo, posts some impressive desi male models/actors/pageant winners. Although its not updated regularly, some good things are worth the wait. :-)

Warning: Although there's no nudity, this is probably not safe for work.

Here's a little taste of what to (s)expect...




Filmy Romeo blog

Weekly Mix Masala

Sholay's Desilicious Love Ball -- 5/17 at Webster Hall
a celebration of the theatrical release of A Jihad for Love
SholayEvents

A Jihad for Love reviews/interviews
Bay Windows
New England Blade

Review of The English Game -- a state-of-England play out of a cricket match; look for the gay Hindu!
The Guardian

Love, actually -- an interview with Gay Bombay author, Parmesh Shahani
Financial Express

SF's Bibi Chic benefit raises over $2K for Middle Eastern LGBT charity
IndyBay

Indian Man Killed by Wife's Female Lover -- yea it caught our attention, too
EDGEBoston

My film shows gender issues -- interview with Pankh director, Sudipto Chattopadhyay
Rediff.com

India's Transgendered: the Hijras -- a well balanced piece and a good read
The New Statesman

Harold & Kumar (& a Cockmeat sandwich)

With the new sequel Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay finally out, teenage (and not-so-teenage) boys are flocking to theaters to enjoy the sex, drugs, and nudity that are no doubt an integral part of the film. While the first movie has been hailed as one of the very few successful mainstream movies with a South Asian lead (the only other movies I can think of are Bend it Like Beckham and The Namesake), Harold and Kumar is the frontrunner in terms of appealing to general audiences. For many of us, this movie signifies a rare occasion where a Desi does not make an appearance simply to be the brunt of a cheap joke, but instead is the one making the jokes (and with the sound of it, everyone else is laughing as well)!

Just by having "Guantanamo Bay" in the title, you can tell that the movie is clearly trying to take issue with the war on terror and Harold and Kumar uses it as a platform to make fun of the "white man." It's not a movie for everyone - their tactic is to push the line with vulgarity and satirize perceptions about race with every possible racist stereotype in the book. It's almost as if they went down a list: Asian jokes, check; Arab/Indian jokes, check; Jewish jokes, check; black jokes check. So with such deliberate planning, it's hard to believe they skipped over tackling gender issues, at least for satire. While the film does slightly stray from being typical straight, white, male humor, it is right on the dot for typical straight, male humor.

That much being said, queers are definitely one of the major targets. To become normalized, Harold and Kumar engages in the standard heterosexist humor. Any queer/gender joke serves more as the base humor, and there is a sense of underlying homophobia (or at least penis-phobia) and disrespect for women...aka why would any man want to touch a penis? Penises are disgusting (but it's okay if a girl does it). And sadly but not surprisingly, no strong women of color are in the movie. I thought the movie was hilarious; they could have brought it up a notch with at least one funny Asian woman.

So what do the non-desi gays think? I can see most being a little turned off by this movie, as an excerpt from an AfterElton.com review shows:

Maybe H&K thinks it's being "edgy" and making fun of homophobia by including lame gay panic gags (forced oral sex in prison, complete with the attempted rapist calling the heroes "fags") and bandying about words like "queers", "fag", and "c*ckmeat sandwich". And if it were done intelligently and with a modicum of skill (like, say, South Park does), I could buy that. But here it's mean-spirited and not very clever, and it will likely make any gay viewer squirm in his seat. The racist jokes that perforate the rest of the movie are at least making a point about racism, but with the gay jokes the context is missing, and so is the satire.

Case in point: at the very end of the movie, two gay characters (they show up literally seconds before and stick around for two whole shots) kiss as the punchline to a standard jealousy gag. I'm sure the filmmakers intended this to be a laugh, but the entire audience at the screening I attended actually booed the gay kiss. (and this is New York City!) Why would this be? Maybe because the film sets up any mention of gayness as something to be viewed with scorn? Come on, guys. Let's be a little more careful.

It's like being pulled apart in two different directions. What's a queer desi to do? If you’re sensitive to heterosexism, I suggest renting the DVD and fast-forwarding through the homophobia. Besides openly gay Neil Patrick Harris being hailed as a hero in the film (ie What would NPH do?), another saving grace is the endearing poem at the end of the movie. Any nerd can appreciate "The Square Root of Three" which was originally written by David Feinberg, an MIT graduate and a gay-rights and AIDS activist. But it took some digging to find that connection.

So, did anyone else enjoy/hate the film?

Bollywood Screen Queens

Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla's Ode to Lata is a deceptive book. When I first stumbled across it, almost four years ago, I did not realize that I had found that rare breed of fiction that so subtly works its emotional resonances on the reader. Although I found the book likable on first read, it was only on subsequent rereadings that I was able to recognize the depth and wit of Dhalla's narrative voice.

Ode to Lata is the story of Ali, a desi queer man living in Los Angeles, whose quest for love is leading him down a self-destructive path of loneliness, cynicism, and anger. In writing Ali's struggle for self-acceptance, Dhalla addresses issues of cultural displacement, racialization, intergenerational conflict, coming out, queer activism, and the search for community. It's a lot to take in, but well worth the effort.

Perhaps the most charming--and most provocative--aspect of the novel is Dhalla's reliance on Bollywood cinema and filmi songs to characterize Ali's sense of identity (the 'Lata' of the title is Lata Mangeshkar):

I've known, much to my dismay, that in situations both turbulent and trivial, I've always played the role of the victim, the heroine in plight...I've avidly watched the melodrama unfold in Hindi cinema through my youth...And now my life has become just that.

Images from those Hindi films often flashed through my mind. As a waited for Richard to satisfy himself with yet another trick and return to me, spent but just a little more tender, I became Jaya Bachhan in Silsila, lamenting in song until tall and handsome Amitabh comes back to her from carousing with his mistress...Faces of actresses whose names I knew so well. Scenes from movies, the titles of which are long forgotten...And those songs. Yes, those filmi songs with the poignant lyrics that epitomize the suffering of love and that only Lata can sing.

They are all there in their pomp and melodrama. Directing me. Reminding me. Unfurling within me their systematic chaos. How can I help but heed their systematic direction?

This engagement with Bollywood cinematic tropes is not only a clever narrative device, but more importantly, it suggests a deep seeded connection between pop culture and our queer desi identities.

Highly recommended.