Fawad Khan – 9 years ago Fawad Khan changed the picture of Gay characters, many actors had rejected ‘Kapoor and Sons’ – Fawad Khan Changed Bollywood Style of Gay Portrayal For Ever with Kapoor and Sons 9 Years ago NTCPSM

Nearly two years trapped between Kovid Lockdown have disappeared from the brain calendar that due to this, the accounts of the past years often seem wrong. Like today, Fawad Khan, Alia Bhatt and Siddharth Malhotra’s film ‘Kapoor and Sons’ has been released 9 years. Can you believe this?

It seems like just a few days ago, Alia, Fawad and Siddharth dancing to ‘Kar Gaya Chul’ were seen on the screen. Or seeing Rishi Kapoor in grandfather’s avatar, theaters had a few days ago. Another meaningless fact is that 5 years have passed since Rishi Saheb has gone from us.

Even though it has passed so long that ‘Kapoor and Sons’ has passed so long, but this film of Shakun Batra seems as fresh as it seemed on the first day in theaters. Alia Bhatt’s bubblyness, Siddharth Malhotra’s Confuse younger brother-in-law character and sour-sweet family, ‘Kapoor and Sons’, who moved away from family knocks, was very special in another case. Fawad Khan played a gay character in the film. But the way he played this character, he had changed a big thing in Bollywood in himself.

How was Fawad Khan’s gay character?
‘Kapoor and Sons’ was not the first film Bollywood film in which gay character was seen. But in this case, this film was definitely the first popular mainstream Bollywood film, which changed the attitude of showing gay characters on the screen.

Earlier, gay characters in Bollywood’s popular films were always shown with a look, which aims to create laugh or shock on the screen. For example, the way Abhishek Bachchan’s character in ‘Dostana’ (2008) acting to be gay, he had become a fixed screen language of Bollywood to show gay characters.

From 90s and initial 2000s, you will find such characters in popular Bollywood films in many films which were told in the story. But their body language included such gestures of hands, face and waist, which were shown in the language of cinema with women. Whereas such gestures were not honorable for women themselves on any scale. Perhaps at that time, the understanding of the gender of the filmmakers was that according to them, a person’s sexual interest or his sexuality, his physical structure and body language changes.

In 2016, just a month before ‘Kapoor and Sons’, director Hansal Mehta’s film ‘Aligarh’ was also released, in which Manoj Bajpayee played a gay professor. This film was praised fiercely, but at that time ‘Aligarh’ could not make a place in the space of popular cinema as ‘Kapoor and Sons’.

A special thing in Shakun Batra’s film was that this film was a family drama which was full of natural comedy coming out of light moments and situations. In this, the reaction of his family was highlight on the matter of Fawad Khan’s character being gay. ‘Kapoor and Sons’ was not focusing on the private moments of this character. The gay of this character was just like a fact in the story. Like any common man has a sexual choice.

Fawad Khan had made her Bollywood debut in 2014 with ‘Sundar’ and at that time his craze was different in girls (rather Aaj Tak). Fawad was a man who came in the fantasies of girls and in such a situation, casting them in a gay character was also a mastestroke for ‘Kapoor and Sons’. Because seeing Fawad’s face, no audience was expecting such a twist in the story. There was no alien behavior like the previous gay characters of Bollywood in the ease with which Fawad played a gay character from above. There was nothing different in this character that tells that his sexual interest is different. And by doing so, ‘Kapoor and Sons’ made the gay character as comfortable as Siddharth Malhotra.

Many actors rejected the character before Fawad
Old reports say that Akshay Kumar, the character of Fawad Khan in ‘Kapoor and Sons’, was also offered to Akshay Kumar. But they do not accumulate anything to understand this character. After this, Saif Ali Khan was also offered this character but he was busy then. At one time, there were reports of offering this character to Shahid Kapoor.

When Fawad Khan played a gay character in ‘Kapoor and Sons’, it was praised in almost every review of the film. During the release of the film, when an interview was told by Fawad that he was not afraid of being a sideline in the industry by playing such a character? So he had said, ‘If someone plays such a character, then why will they be done by doing so? Wait a few years, things will become normal. People who are worried about these things in future, they will learn to accept them.

Fawad had rightly said, after his character in ‘Kapoor and Sons’, things also became normal in Bollywood and the way of showing homosexual or gay characters changed. In the years after ‘Kapoor and Sons’, Bollywood showed homosexual characters with the same body language in films like ‘Ek Girl Dekha To Aisa Laga Laga’, ‘Shubh Mangal Bahi Savdha’ and ‘Badha Do’ with the same body language which is of any man or woman.