Movie Review: Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan

Mohabbatjaan

Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan is the sequel of Bollywood movie- Shubh Mangal Saavdhan. This adaptation has a gay narrative with a leading gay-couple played by Ayushman Khurana and popular youtuber- Jeetu. Unlike previous gay-movie attempts done by Bollywood, this movie is made for the masses (Straight Bollywood viewers / Hetero society) with typical Bollywood masala. It can be labelled as a full-on entertaining family-comedy as the intense sexual-homo-romance is missing from the movie. The reason behind it could be the gay roles played by straight actors. It’s a Fam-com (Family-comedy) rather than Rom-com (Romantic-comedy) which also justifies their tagline- “Jeetega pyaar she-parivaar!” (Love will win with the support of family). Though Ayushman has done splendid acting in his previous films, this film lacks a bit of emotional depth regarding gay-love at some points. Again the reason is because he is straight in his real life. The romance and chemistry between Ayushman and Jeetu looks awkward at times compared to the other not-so popular non-mainstream Indian gay-couple romances we have seen so far in various movies and web-series. If we don’t focus on the romance and chemistry and scatter light on the plot of the movie then we will see that this movie is not about homo-romance in the first place! It’s rather about homophobia. This movie debunks some rural misconceptions about homosexuality with a rural middle-class family backdrop with heavy “Masaledar” Bollywood-ish comedy. This movie must be applauded because it’s a bold step to re-write Bollywood stories replacing the heroines with two-heroes. This is not just a replacement as they do break the stereotypes from straight Bollywood viewer’s mind! This movie might seem a bit awkward for gay community as it’s made for the straight masses and according to their humor on gay-love. No need to think that it will create more homophobia like Dostana as this movie debunks those rural-middle-class humorous notions of straight societies. It’s a movie for straight eyes to understand their own homophobia and question them internally. This movie psychologically influences straight masses positively in their own homophobic language and brings out new allies out of them. We see this movie having a gay version of several popular Bollywood songs which is very much unique and heart-warming for gay people who never thought that they could ever see their stories on mainstream Bollywood and gay version of their favorite songs playing on MTV, 9XM, Masti and other music channels publicly all day. We must praise and welcome this mainstream Bollywood movie as it’s a bold step! In one line this movie can be described as a movie which is about a gay couple but it rather revolves around their straight family members and their homophobia being hilariously shot down. It’s a gay movie for all. A gay movie by the straight people, for the straight people in their straight language of-course but to learn and understand freedom of choice, freedom to love, meaning of homosexuality and homophobia!

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