Goa

Cast: Jay, Prem Gi Amaran, Vaibhav, Sampath, Sneha, Music: Yuvan Shankar Raja, Direction: Venkat Prabhu

There’s another film that deserves social criticism, not for the same reason. Though Goa scores high on certain aspects of filmmaking departments and, on occasions, high comedy, sociological approach would better suit the content.
Venkat Prabhu came with a fresh perspective to Tamil film storytelling that had not existed, the perspective that’s going to inspire very many filmmakers of today and tomorrow. One of his stock tricks, of identifying an old, usually nostalgic, song with each of the characters and playing it in bits at strategic points in the story is clever and funny. He also has a semi-spoof tendency where his characters often enact famous scenes and characters from other films. Many filmmakers do that for comical effects but Venkat Prabhu does it to progress a story or conclude a sub-plot. That is used to a great effect (and humour) in Goa when he brings in Simbu in the form of the psycho from Manmadhan character together with psychologically disturbed Sneha with a cheeky caption ‘Corrected Machi!’ Is it also a coincidence that Sneha’s estranged husband subsequently meets Nayanthara? Is there another layer to that?

Now coming to the sociological perspective, it’s worthwhile to question how much the audience understood the story and also appreciated its boldness. It is the first Tamil film to portray an ‘ordinary’ gay couple and arguably the first Indian film to use them non-judgementally. The Indian public can’t just be considered homophobic but homo-ignorants, people who were not even aware of the existence of communities with different sexual orientation. To them, the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) are the people who are genuinely ‘queer’ to the public and are not just disapproved but even considered ‘outside’ of their normal lives, like lepers. In this respect the homophobia is at a stage higher than in other countries. This, combined with classic Indian tendency to reject anything that’s not part of their culture (that’s mainstream contemporary culture) has relegated homosexuality to the farthest of the backbenches. Till about mid-noughties, they were referred to as strange ‘beings’ spotted in the dark corners of the beach at late nights or the corners of obscure restaurants, and spoken in the same delight and astonishment accorded to a Bigfoot or Yeti.

Bridging this divide would have been immensely challenging for the sponsors of the subculture, whose attempts began in the mid-noughties with none other than the then health minister who openly made a statement about legalising homosexuality. His context was mainly about the AIDS epidemic and the need to control it and he thought that by bringing the gay community out from the underworld would be the first step towards his goal. Whatever may be the aims, coming from such an authority did create some ripples, but not enough to be of any significance. There is one thing to be remembered here though: that something becoming a ‘law’ really means nothing to an ordinary Indians. Hardly any law is respectfully obeyed and adhered to and subsequent governments, both state and central, have lost even a superficial inclination in trying to enforce it onto their billion plus citizens. In that chaotic, yet incubate environment, many counter-cultures thrive, queer being one of them.

Hence it becomes important that more than the law, an acceptable depiction in the mainstream culture becomes necessary and nothing is more dominant in Indian psyche than the influence of cinema. That’s where Goa’s achievement becomes momentous. As mentioned earlier, Goa attempts to portray a gay couple without judgement. Although it make fun of them (a few of the jokes being really crass) the fun element clearly comes from Venkat Prabhu is inherent nature of ridiculing just about everything rather than aimed at queerness disparagingly. Goa also could be the first film to look at homosexuality beyond ‘sexual overtones’. In this film the couple are endowed with normal relationship-emotions, such as love, jealousy, companionship, and they even dream of gay weddings. Though homosexuality is no longer illegal in India civil-partnerships are still far from reality. In this context, Goa goes beyond even what could legally be achieved however irrelevance that is to the filmmaker’s objectives.

The crucial question is how many people really understood what’s being portrayed? Venkat Prabhu never openly identifies them as ‘gay’ even though he graphically depicts their relationship using gender symbols. Funnily enough, it escapes attention since not many movie-going audiences in Tamil are aware of these international symbols. His success could be in providing such depiction convincingly but his failure may have been that it did not garner much attention. In other words, not many people may have understood what was happening on the screen. Personally, I believe that Venkat Prabhu may have anticipated some controversy but I’m not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed at not having generated one. In any case that doesn’t diminish the sincerity of his ambition.

It is difficult to say how much impact this film will have on people’s attitude towards sexual orientation. It is also confusing to see the society being so progressive at certain and so primitive on the other avenues. Movies like Angadi Theru (a review of this will be made shortly) that portray the residues of the society in bare disillusionment to shocking effect whilst Goa portrays a clubbing, doping crowd with assimilationist tendencies. In both films a group of disillusioned and desperate rustic venture out onto the bold and promising urban life. While one end up in streets to sleep with urchins, in other they party joyously and end up bagging beautiful women. Both have humorous overtones. Both happen in India. And that’s what’s confusing.