much of it is also reflected in how they treat their lovers and others. they don't burst in rage or break things, they fight with love to win hearts, change minds, make life better for those around them. love to them is not conquest or possession but sacrifice and passion 12/

while his own family punishes him for it, seen both after heartthrob and dola re dola. karan manages to capture men who arent manly the way society expects, but men nonetheless. he's not a queer coded character by his sexuality, but a man who embodies a queer masculinity 9/

ranveer plays rocky as caught between who he thinks he's supposed to be, what a man is supposed to be, and who he really is. he's a dancer who loves to express himself. he doesnt put up a stoic front, he is all emotions all the way through, which rani's family helps bring out 8/

the dola re dola performance has been talked plenty but to me, that is the most visible representation of it, paired with tota roy chowdhury's performance. the film shows a man who is "a fragile" in his own words. he's unafraid to love, who admits fault and seeks forgiveness 7/

2023 was the year of the manly men in a lot of ways, and amidst all of that, the performance that stood out the most to me was ranveer singh as rocky randhawa, visually the epitome of masculinity with all his muscles, but a man who learns to embrace the softer side to himself 6/

much of karan johar's oeuvre features men like this, unafraid to express themselves, cry, men who dont adhere to traditional notions of masculinity. a lot of it is in collaboration with srk, who has put forth a non-normative masculinity for much of his career 5/

this refers to cis-het-allo people who dont perform in accordance with their assigned gender expectations. while radical feminists have opposed this idea as watering down the meaning of queerness, others see it as a way of understanding how heteronormativity works 2/

as a queer man, ive always been drawn to a gentler masculinity that is often ostracised by society, but still manages to find a place in films with actors like srk and last year, ranveer singh

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani and the Queer Masculinities of Straight Men 🧵

his confrontation with satish shah is one of my favourite scenes in the film, where of course they use the term "normal" to describe starightness, but even when shah is convinced that rohit is gay, his reaction is mostly just annoyance, not disgust the way kantaben responds 8/

but i don't think the rest of the film supports that reading, which brings me to my second reason, that aman knows the whole time. from the very beginning he plays into it, and isn't even the slightest bothered by it, and neither are others when they realise what's going on 7/

in my years doing research on the representation of
queerness on the big screen, i've seen many papers cite rohit and aman's dynamic as a "negative stereotype" of gayness, and i think it really misses the point of what the film does

Kal Ho Naa Ho: In Defence of Queer Humour 🧵

found this on my college's International Relations Department notice board