There has always been a never ending debate over roles of minorities being played by someone who is not from the minority rather than someone who belongs to the same. The latest movie released title ‘Laxmi’ falls under the pretext of the same debate and I will attempt to break it down for you how and why it is a very important discussion to have.
There are various reasons why movies on minorities showcase people that are not from non-minority zones. The two major reasons are – a) profit maximization and b) bringing empowerment and increasing traction and awareness. If accurately represented, these roles when played by movie icons bring in a huge audience and understanding and start a healthy discussion by providing an entry point into the discourse. Since we have seen that a lot of movies that are otherwise great, do not go ahead and do as good as you’d expect them to solely because of not having a very prominent face, big stars provide the makers with the benefit of a larger audience and stir the pot of discussion. However a lot of movies that start off by addressing a very major theme do not fulfil the responsibility they took upon themselves and the whole thing remains a very performative and tokenistic gesture to begin with. There are various factors that to this material mint to address those in today's discussion.
Why to give minority roles to people who belong the group itself?
When it comes to minorities from any social, political, economic, gender context, it is already established that people aren’t sufficiently familiar with the ideologies, practices and lifestyle of the same and put them under a generalised umbrella. the very fact that you are making a movie including someone from, say, LGBTQI+ community or a socially ignored part of the society should come in hand with the idea of employing someone from the same group to portray a more realistic and lived experience of the same. Making Hritik Roshan darken his skin to play a particular role rather than hiring a man with that complexion, or making a cis-male play the role of a Trans person in Laxmi are all examples of the society failing to accept the reality but expecting high standards from the fantasy version of it.
A lot of the times the reason that producers hire prominent actors is obviously to have a larger fan base. in the process, the whole idea or theme or social problem that they were trying to address simply becomes a very tokenistic gesture and something that's only done to ‘pretend’ to contribute in solving a problem but doesn't necessarily do so rather it might create some even more controversial situations. Attempting to break one stereotype but creating ten more in the process is not how you deal with socially sensitive situations but somehow that has become the norm due to lack of information and knowledge about the theme that is being made a movie on. How?
The reason why a transgender or a black man should get to tell the story of a transgender or a black man is because no one knows their struggle better than they do and moreover, normalization and acceptance cannot be propagated if the starting point doesn’t take this factor into consideration itself.
If accurately represented, even a non-minority person can experience getting into the shoes of the target group and know their lives and expand their understanding their lifestyle all the while contributing to generating mass scale awareness and traction but if not done correctly, the whole thing remains a feeble attempt at trying to make a change and becomes a practice of feeding off the vital themes for personal gains. Create discourse, raise awareness and accuracy and precision and most importantly recognition of the group you are talking about with relevant and non- stereotypical or phobic dialogues, ideals and portrayal will always remain of utmost importance and value and when that happens, we will finally be able to call our cinema a conscious industry.
Piece By:
Komal Kaushik
2001komalkaushik@gmail.com
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