Akshay Kumar has criticised Bollywood’s portrayal of homosexual characters. Kumar was at a promotional event for his latest release Rustom when he said, “I have never understood how a lot of people do a caricature of homosexuality with their hands bent. Homosexuals are as normal as all of us. We are all one. So I have never understood why [they] play that kind of a caricature. Even in Rustom, we haven’t shown a Parsi caricature.”
Interestingly, Kumar himself played a leering, man-bun sporting homosexual man in Dishoom – very much a stereotypical caricature. He explained away this role as his willingness to do ‘something different’. “I try to do different things. When I get up in the morning, I want to do something different.”
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Among other things, Akshay Kumar’s character orders the film’s leads – played by John Abraham and Varun Dhawan – to strip to their bathing trunks. Perhaps the only homosexual stereotype that is not referenced in the film is the ‘bent hand’, Akshay Kumar refers to. The rest, are all there: innuendo-laced dialogues, heavy duty flirting that makes the ‘straight’ leads uncomfortable; the role is written in a way that mocks homosexuality. In light of all this, Akshay’s criticism of Bollywood for doing the same things he has done in Dishoom, seems like a case of double standards.
On the other hand, in an industry where influential stars such as Salman Khan get away with making homophobic jokes, and stereotypes of sexual minorities abound, Akshay’s stand on the issue is a welcome change from the norm.