'Male actors insecure about playing gay'

Mumbai: Filmmaker Onir recently said that male actors in Bollywood are still insecure about playing gay roles.

The director said a film based on LGBTQ characters can get a mainstream release but "good actors" avoid such roles.

"I have had many narrations with these mainstream male actors and they refused it. The fear of what it can become still holds them. And this is why I really have a lot of respect for all those actors who say yes to these roles," Onir said at a panel discussion at an event.

Filmmakers like Hansal Mehta, Sridhar Rangayan, writer Gazal Dhaliwal and veteran actor Shabana Azmi were also a part of the panel which discussed on the topic 'Celebrating Rainbow: The Seven Shades of Content'.

Dhaliwal, who wrote Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga, urged mainstream male stars to take up well-written gay characters. "It is all about business and what works is what sells and reaches the audience. Because of the patriarchy we live in, the masculine ego is really fragile and that's the reason they refuse to take up gay characters," Dhaliwal added.

"Our mainstream cinema needs to become responsible in representing LGTBQ characters. Till the time there is general sensitisation among audience, we should refrain from creating characters like in Dostana, where it is all about laughing," Dhaliwal said. Rangayan, who has made films on queer subjects like "he Pink Mirror, Yours Emotionally, said he faced trouble in releasing his films. However, he thinks with Section 377 being decriminalised, things are changing better.