TRANSGENDER ISSUES IN NEW QUEER
CINEMA: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF CHITRANGADA-
THE CROWNING WISH AND ARDHANAARI
“Films are all fictional, since they all represent something by means of signs, rather than presenting what exist in spectators’ real time and space”
-Christian
Metz
The
present study aims at analyzing the transgender issues as portrayed in the
Indian cinema; those movies that could be clearly demarcated and classified
into the genre of New Queer Cinema. The first and foremost concern is to
describe the terms Transgender and New Queer Cinema.
As
defined in the USI LGBT Transgender Campaign, Transgender are the group of people
who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, but who
feel that this is a false or incomplete description of their self. The National
Center for Transgender Equality defines transgender as a term for people whose
gender identity, expression or behaviour is different from those typically
associated with their assigned sex at birth. Transgender is a broad term and it
is often shortened as Trans. Transgender is correctly used as an adjective, not
a noun, and transgenders is often viewed as disrespectful.
New
Queer Cinema is an umbrella term for the queer themed independent films; an
inclusive way of describing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender identity and
experience, and also defining a form of sexuality that was fluid and subversive
of traditional understandings of sexuality, through the visual media. The term
was coined by B. Ruby Rich in Sight & Sound magazine in 1992. The term was developed
from the use of the word queer in academic writings of the 1980s and 1990s.
Indian Cinema is undisputedly one of the world’s biggest
and most diverse film industries with a long history of about 100 years. The
cinema was purely culture bound in the beginning stages, and portrayal of many
aspects of life was considered to be taboos. Women were marginalized,
subjugated and were placed secondary to their male counterparts. But as years
passed by, the status of Indian Cinema was raised to a higher platform by many
brilliant creative artists, who could be considered as the benchmarks of the
industry. Sexuality and its discourses have gained prominence as the hot topics
of discussion in the contemporary situation, which is very well reflected in
the cinematic medium.
In
India, the transgender community is commonly referred to as the “hijras”. The
Indian usage has traditionally been translated into English as
"eunuch" or "hermaphrodite”. Hijras have a long-recorded history
in the Indian subcontinent, from antiquity onwards.
There
are different types of portrayals of eunuchs in Indian cinema, such as
transsexuals, homosexuals and hijras, which are all part of mainstream cinema.
They are usually 'objects of derisive comedy or disgust.' In Indian cinema,
eunuchs are generally stereotyped and have so far been the figures of
rejection. Many of them have been the brunt of crude jokes especially in the
song sequences. Many actors cross-dressed with deliberate crudity so that they
are not mistaken for a woman but a eunuch in an attempt to evoke laughter.
However, this type of humour did not go down well and the mimicking of eunuchs
slowly died out. Nevertheless, this changed in time and many Indian filmmakers
started to show a different side to the eunuchs, which slowly helped them to be
accepted in Indian society.
There are many notable movies portraying the transgender
issues in Indian Cinema. The present
thesis analyzes Chitrangada- The Crowning
Wish and Ardhanaari.
Chitrangada- The
Crowning Wish, the Bengali film written and directed by Rituparno Ghosh, is
a contemporary reworking of Rabindranath Tagore's famous dance drama of the
same name which depicts the love story of Arjuna and the warrior-princess of
Manipur, Chitrangada.The director himself attributes the movie as a self-
retrospective trip. The film is radical, and explores the issue of freedom to
choose one's gender and sexual orientation. It is believed to be a milestone in
the History of Indian Cinema as it broke out a new revolution- the cinema of
the third sex. Rituparno Ghosh, as a person, has gone through a series of
evolutions in his life and is accredited as the exponent of the ‘third sex’.
The movie reflects the life of Rudra Chatterjee, a
choreographer obsessed with Tagore’s plays, falls into an unnatural
relationship with Partho, a drug-addicted percussionist, undergoes gender
reassignment surgery, with the wish to fulfill his dream of becoming a foster
mother. Rudra was the director of Chitrangada,
the dance-drama by Tagore, which portrays the story of the princess of Manipur
who was brought up by her father as a son; and she wished to become feminine as
soon as she met Arjuna, the third one among the Pandavas. Rudra identifies the
sort of inertia that existed between himself and Partho, and falls into a
passionate love affair. He sees himself as the princess Chitrangada who
ventured out to explore the love for her Arjuna, Partho. Rudra gets addicted to Partho in the same way
as Partho was addicted to heroin. During the course of their relationship,
Rudra identifies his longing for a child and the unexpressed desire of Partho
to become a father. The law prohibited them from adopting a kid as two male
partners were not legally permitted to adopt, and they had to give up that
option. This created a craving in his
mind to transform his phenotype, to adopt a child, and nurture as their own.
Rudra identifies his own mind that he was quite unhappy with his natural self
and decides to undergo a gender reassignment surgery inspite of the
discouragement by Partho. In course of the treatment, Rudra realizes that ‘his’
female
body never succeeded in appeasing Partho as it used to be before and he betrayed his
former love for the sake of a true female body, for a child borne out of his
own blood. He never wanted a synthetic
woman in life, and says “The man I loved was not this half thing”. In the meantime, Rudra was approaching the
final stage of his surgery, vaginal reconstruction, and decided to give up
everything as he had completely lost Partho and had to choose between the two
options- whether to be man or a woman. Since there was no point in becoming a
woman without Partho in his life, he wanted to embrace his manhood discarding
the half travelled path of womanhood. The movie ends with the message “Be what
you wish to be” which echoes that every human being have the right to choose
their own gender. The movie exhibits the struggles and day
to day life of a gay choreographer and his father and mother. It becomes an
inspiration to a million for the acceptance of all people in the society and it
also becomes an inspiration to the people who can relate themselves with Rudra.
The movie exploits the stream of consciousness technique in which the past and
present of Rudra’s life are carefully interwoven with great artistic skill.
Ardhanaari
is a Malayalam film about the transgender people in Kerala. Unlike Chitrangada, this film explores the life
of transgender community and not merely the story of a single eunuch. The story
moves around Vinayan, a transgender with male physique and effeminate
behaviour, who is ridiculed and nick named as Vinutha. His brother considers
him to be the curse of their family and hence, he elopes from home to “Hamam”,
the world of eunuchs. He was welcomed by Naik, the head of the eunuch clan and
leads a happy life over there. Vinayan had a gay relation with one of his
childhood friends who promise to marry him once they are grown up and ready to
face the world. On reaching the hamam, Vinayan transforms himself as Manjula,
as the new member of the transgender folk. A clear and detailed depiction is
made about the practices and form of governance among the transvestites. Later
on, the old childhood friend comes back and approaches Manjula with the wish of
marrying her and leading a normal life. Manjula falls prey to his tricks and is
finally betrayed by her husband and her new family. The film ends with a sad
note of the pathetic condition of the protagonist- rootless in the world,
longing for love and support. The film was a box office flop as it succumbs
before the pressures put on by a shaky script. The performance of
Manoj.K.Jayan, who played the title role, is worth appreciating; and he was
supported by veteran actors like Thilakan and Sukumari.
The
two movies dealt with in this study voices concern for the transgender, but in
two different ways. Chitrangada
portrays the existential crisis of the protagonist between manhood and
womanhood, who undergoes a series of operations for transformation of sex. Ardhanaari showcases the life of the
eunuch clan, but the protagonist over here is a bisexual who chooses a man to
live with, though she also confesses that she could fall in love with a woman.
Also, lessons on the dangers of unsafe sex are highlighted through the death of
an elder hijra.
Transgender
people have their own associations and groups to safeguard and protect their
rights, but their rehabilitation is still an unfulfilled dream. The common folk
still have an indifferent attitude towards such groups and hence, they are
pushed to the margins. One notable group, Sahodari foundation established by
Kalki Subramaniam, a transgender rights activist, an actor and a transsexual
woman herself, works for the social, economic and political empowerment of
transgender persons in India. Such initiatives should be encouraged and
measures should be adopted at the governmental levels instead of ridiculing and
subjugating the transvestites. Since
Kalki herself belongs to the transgender community, she has many limitations.
Still, she conducts various seminars and street plays to give awareness to the
people. A short documentation uploaded in the personal website of Kalki entitled
“Her name is Sowmya, an angel gone” unleashes the bitter truth that affects the
lives of such people.
Transgenderism
have been a topic of discussion in our popular cultures too. Different and
varied examples of transgender characters are there in Hindu Mythology and
epics. It is very interesting to note that the majority of older world
religions perceived their deities as hermaphroditic and whole-gendered.
Ardhanarishvara in Hinduism, Avalokitesvara and Kuan Yin in Buddhism, and
Dionysus in the Greek pantheon are examples of this. The transgender are oft
ridiculed as contrary forces against our culture. But such notions are easily
overthrown if we analyze the age old religions and culture. Transvestites are neither
ordinary nor extraordinary but meta-ordinary
people, who have transcended the binary opposites of male and female and hence,
they deserve a better position in the society than what they have now.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bignell, Jonathan. (1997).
Media
Semiotics: An Introduction. UK:
Manchester
University Press.
Chakravarti, Mahadev
(1986). The Concept of Rudra-Śiva Through the Ages.
New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Hindocha, Nishma. Eunuchs
in Indian Cinema. Retrieved on 07.02.2014 from
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