the day a tamil movie opened with two men kissing, another director announced that queer cinema is an ngo plot

Karthik Subbaraj at the Iraivi press meet, 2016. Photo: Silverscreen Media Inc., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

via reviews in Hollywood Reporter India, Scroll and The Week, and reporting from the Free Press Journal, India.com and Gulte.

Somewhere in Tamil Nadu this weekend, a man who has never once worried that a gangster movie would make him a gangster is very worried that a movie will make him gay.

The movie is Dorothy, the new film from the Tamil director Karthik Subbaraj. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 11 and opened in Indian theaters on Sept. 25, per the Free Press Journal and India.com. Rishikanth plays Karthi and Sananth plays Subbu, two boys who grow up best friends, per The Week and Scroll, and Keerthy Suresh plays Dorothy, the woman who marries into Subbu's family and changes everything. Scroll's review places it in a Madurai village in 1995, where caste lines are thick and stepping out of your assigned role can get you killed.

what is dorothy about?

Reviewers have been careful about spoilers, so we will be too. The short version comes from Hollywood Reporter India critic Prathyush Parasuraman: "Subbu desires not Dorothy, but what she represents," he writes, and what she represents is womanhood. He writes that this desire nudges Subbu toward a trans identity, and that underneath it all is "a thick desire that throbs under the film's skin." Gulte reports that intimate scenes between two male characters, kisses included, are what set a section of the audience off, with some accusing Subbaraj of showing Tamil culture in a bad light.

the ngo theory

On opening day, the Tamil filmmaker Mohan G posted on X: "Supporting LGBT in Tamil cinema is Not an idea or revolution. Its completely funding from various NGOs to make youth influence & eroding our tradition and culture," adding, "They spoiled North America and now targeting India." He did not name the film. He did not need to. It had over 5,500 likes by Saturday.

We have checked our own finances and regret to report that the NGO money has not arrived. As residents of spoiled North America, we would like to know where it is.

Then came Malaysia. The Hindu Tamil reported that Dorothy was denied a theatrical release there, with its depiction of same-sex attraction among the reasons, according to both the Free Press Journal and India.com. Both note that no official Malaysian order confirming a ban has surfaced, so for now it is a report, not a ruling.

how the audience answered

Subbaraj has mostly been posting thank-yous. "Be Calm & Believe in AUDIENCE," he wrote Saturday, "Personally Overwhelmed with the Love showered upon #Dorothy in Theatres." Dulquer Salmaan called it "A bold and beautifully crafted film." He also thanked Mani Ratnam for his words. The man making the movie is having a lovely weekend. The man worried about the NGOs is having a different one.