7 Films that strive to represent LGBTQ stories on screen

Over the years, representation of the LGBTQ community in the hindi movies has evolved. From showing their struggles to just telling their stories, the acceptance of this genre of movie has increased over a period of time. Here is our list of movies that beautifully represented the queer community. Celebrating the Pride Month starting from 1st June, let’s look at some of the best movies and shows that strived to represent LGBTQ stories on screen effectively.

Pine Cone
Onir’s movie PineCone follows the life of a gay man over three decades, through his different relationships. It also highlights different landmarks for the LGBTQ community, like the first gay pride, which happened in 1999, then ten years later, Delhi High court’s decriminalisation of the same sex relationship. The movie has Vidur Sethi in the lead, and probably for the first time a Hindi film will have a gay actor playing the lead gay character.

Margarita with a Straw

The story follows Laila (Kalki Koechlin), an Indian woman with cerebral palsy, who falls madly in love with a blind Pakistani girl (Sayani Gupta). Director Shonali Bose, very delicately shows how Laila slowly discovers her sexuality. Despite not being a huge commercial success, the movie was quite critically acclaimed.

Kapoors and Sons
The story revolves around a dysfunctional family. There are many sub-stories in it and one of them is the story of Rahul Kapoor, played by Fawad Khan, who lives in New York and still has not revealed his sexuality to his family. As the story moves ahead, it shows how the family accepts Rahul’s reality.

Badhaai Do
The movie’s lead characters, played by Bhumi Pednekar and Rajkummar Rao are in a lavender marriage, a marriage which is undertaken as convenience to conceal the socially stigmatised sexual orientation of the partners. The movie was lauded by the queer community for beautifully showing the reality of society.

Chandigarh Kare Aasqhiui
Abhishek Kapoor’s directorial ‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’ shows us how to accept transgender. While many movies have been made about same-sex couples, very few explore transgenders. The movie has Ayushmann Khurrana and Vaani Kapoor, who was seen in an unusual role as a transwoman. The movie is still spoken about for its acting and the songs.

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan
The movie stars Ayushmann Khurrana as Kartik and Jitendra Kumar as Aman, who play the gay couple in the movie. One of the reasons why the movie shines, apart from the fantastic acting by the cast, is that the same-sex couple is not humiliated and the story has a touch of humour too.

Maja Ma
This is a queer tale which stars Madhuri Dixit as Pallavi Patel, the key protagonist. A quintessential story of an Indian girl who suppressed her sexuality for society and her family. Hugely applauded by the queer community, it was a breath of fresh air to see the dhak dhak girl in a different role.