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Bollywood dips its toe in gay well
Well, it's not exactly Brokeback Mountain, but an upcoming Bollywood romantic comedy called Dostana is getting lots of attention for a rumored gay plot twist. Dostana's two main male leads are played by major Bollywood stars John Abraham and Abhishek Bachan. Their characters are both straight and best friends. Bachan’s character is in love with a female character played by Priyanka Chopa (a former “Miss World”), but unfortunately she only has eyes for Abraham’s character. To throw her off the scent and get her to fall in love with his best friend, Abraham's character pretends to be gay. Okay, so this isn’t exactly a landmark gay storyline by Hollywood standards – sounds like it's about on par with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry - but by Bollywood standards this is apparently quite daring. To date, no major film star has ever played gay in a true Bollywood movie. Or even, as in this case, played “pretend gay.” And while the Abraham character is only masquerading as gay, plot complications ensue when - heavens to betsy! - an actual gay character (played by Bobby Deol) pursues him romantically. And who can blame him. That Abraham guy is green curry hawt.
From left to right: Abraham, Bobby Deol, Bachan Is it just me or is John Abraham a doppelganger for old Hollywood film star Tyrone Power?
Tyrone Power Speaking of Hollywood, I'm often discouraged by the slim pickings when it comes to GLBT representation in American films - but the fact that Dostana is such a huge deal for Hindi films reminds me that it could be a lot worse. Dostana will be out in November. Note: Special thanks to LolaRuns for bringing us this Bollywood news. Submitted by on Thu, 2008-08-07 12:12. |
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John Abraham
Sigh, pant, swoon. John Abraham is hotter than a nuclear explosion on the sun! You can keep Tyrone Power. Really, why isn't Abraham a huge star all over the world? He's a pretty good actor and, to repeat, he's just hot as %@#K!
John Abrahams = Ridiculously Hot
Taken from here: http://indiafm.com/celebrities/wallpapers/8534/index.html
I think the woman in the
I think the woman in the first picture is actually a fan and not Priyanaka Chopra. If you look the caption on the site ( http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/apr/01celeb.htm ) says
I did laugh a lot about all the praise about how daring John is to take a gay role when he really plays a guy pretending to be gay because of some girl related trouble.
But, I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed that the rumored plot of the movie is actually true, because John is just hot and while Bobby Deol isn't the best or the hottest actor, I have always had a soft spot for him and I'm very curious to see him tackle the role. It certainly is unlike anything else he has played.
Besides, outside of arthouse movies the list of gay characters I have encountered in BW movies goes something like this:
- Every comic relief character played by Bobby Darling
- The occasional attempted prison rape scenario
- Gay villain in the action movie Karam
Interestingly Bollywood did a BW version of Philadelphia a few years ago but they changed the main character from a man to a woman to get around the gay angle.
That is infact Priyanka Chopra
And its clrealy one of the promotion stills from the film.
You can check this article at: http://indiafm.com/features/2008/07/24/4110/index.html
Dennis already changed the photo.
There was another photo of John and Abhishek with a different woman earlier.
Thanks LolaRuns
I'm so over the whole "pretending to be gay" storyline...
With any luck Dostana will do the same thing for this tired plot device that Soul Man did for white guys pretending to be black.
It's Bacchan not Bachan
And he is like the Michael Douglas of Bollywood, his Dad is an institution, his mom is an actress and his wife Aishwarya Rai is "the most beautiful woman in the world." Still Abraham is far hotter. I also lust for Hrithek Roshan and Akhay Kumar. Look them up on youtube, you won't be sorry. The great thing about Bollywood is that all the action heroes also have to do elaborate production numbers and lipsycnc as well. The movie could be about gangsters, rape, and incest, but it will still have at least five huge song and dance numbers and during one of those for some reason everyone will be so wet that their clothes are mostly transparent. Can you imagine an American Leading Man that could do all that and still look hot and not ridiculous. I'm holding out for Daniel Craig to go BW.
Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages.
I'm a huge fan of Bollywood
I'm a huge fan of Bollywood movies. Been watching them for years. And the men are incredibly hot who star in these movies. What's interesting is, although we have the all the povocative and sexy outfits and jestures throughout the movies, there is no kissing. They go in for the kiss and fade to black or turn their heads. Only a few Bollywood movies i've seen where the couple in love actually kissed. And nearly all of the movies are musicals with brilliant dance numbers, settings and outfits.
Abhishek Bacchan's father, Anitabh Bacchan is the God of the Bollywood movie industry. He must have starred in more movies than any living actor on earth.
I'm with you HapNStance on the hotness who is Hrithik Roshan, sixth finger and all. But my favorite is Shah Rukh Khan. He may not be the hottest looking Indian actor, but he has a sex appeal about him which is incredible.
A number of years ago there was a small, and what I would consider independant Bollywood movie, which was released called 'Fire' I think it's presently playing on LOGO, about two women who fall in love. I heard when that movie was released it almost caused riots. So producers have to tread cautiously. Now, I did read that a number of Bollywood producers would love to do a movie about homosexuality and coming out, but fear of public reaction and even getting actors to play the part of two men in love would not be easy. An anonymous big Bollywood actor did say he would have no problem taking on a gay role, but he worries about how it would affect his future roles in movies. And he's not alone. Some have said they are up to playing gay, but again...fear of what it would do to their careers.
Bollywood reminds me of 1930-1950s Hollywood
Bollywood reminds me of 1930-1950s Hollywood, the way everybody is interlinked, the attitudes towards gossip, the mob connections.
As for the kissing thing between straight couples, I think this is slowly being dropped and more and more high profile actors are willing to do it (Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukerji in Bunty Aur Babli, Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan in Salam Namasta, Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2). At this point I think it is held up mostly by the fact that some of the most high profile BW actors (most notably Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan as well as currently Akshay Kumar, though I think he has kissed in the past) won't do it.
The most amuing thing about the lack of kissing was that as the kissing ban started to go down and the first movies that had straight kissing in it (mostly sleazy productions with less high profile actors) came up it was amazing how terrible the on screen kissing was. You could clearly tell that the actors just had no concept at all of how to do on screen kissing.
About gay in BW, while it's not really a "gay movie" per se, I was very amused when a gay friend pointed out to me just how much more sense one of the biggest BW blockbusters Kabhie Kushi Kabhie Gham alias Sometimes Happy, Sometimes Sad is when you read it as Kajol's character Anjali who the main hero falls in love with as a guy and the whole story as a father disapproving of his son being gay.
(in the story the main character is supposed to marry his childhood friend at the wishes of his parents; but he then meets a girl and very BW atypical falls for her with little to no build up. He goes to his father and tells him that he would rather marry this girl as opposed to the childhood friend the father has selected for him. Again with little or no explantion the father has a huge freakout that his son is disobeying him and kicks out the son and proceeds to be mad at him for the next 10 years. The heartbroken son takes the girl he likes, moves to the UK with her, but remains heartbroken because of the bad relationship with his parents who don't approve of his relationship. 10 years later the younger son who has trouble grasping what exactly happened travels to the UK to get to meet his brother. Finally still grouchy father and the quietly disapproving of the father's hard stance mother also travel to the UK. Eventually the father, the older son and his wife meet, everybody cries buckets and the father forgives the son; director Karan Johar said repeatedly that he was dealing with his own complex relationship with his father who died a few years ago through this movie)
Basically, I don't think people can apply the same standards they have for Western movies to BW, there are a lot of different attitudes going on in this country, after all it is the place where Richard Gere was sued for kissing Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in public at an AIDS benefit, where people are known to throw bombs at movie theaters if they feel offended by a movie. The movie you mentioned Fire, from what I remember the director was actually forbidden from either shooting or showing it in India (it should be noted that people were deeply offended because in the movie the director compares the heroine who starts sleeping with her sister in law with Radha, the pure goddess of one of the most important Hindi myths who had to walk through fire to prove that she hadn't gotten impure during her abduction by an evil demon/god) and all her further movies I think were shot in Canada.
Progressive movies are made in India but they run only at festivals or very few theaters and the vast majority of Indians never even get to see them.
Pretending To Be Gay Plot
He can pretend to be gay, and we can pretend we watched his film. :P
BTW, IMHO, he'd be way hotter if he were gay in real life.
Man dancing!
I forgot to mention, my favorite part about BW is naturally the man dancing.
So, any excuse to provide some examples:
Bobby Deol (the one who is supposed to be the "real gay"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I22SOMotDNI (Bobby is the
less attractive oneone with the white shirt)John Abrahams: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYu87URcsg4
Priyanka (featuring some hilarious summer man dancing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjdCYxbRxqM
Abhishek http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvF1YyBEARI
trailer
the trailer for dostana is out..you can see it on youtube..
But em..it shows that john and abhishek are together..or pretending to be?..but tht doesnt make much sense..does it?
Hello
Actual Plot may not be same as picture shown