No one in Bollywood, at the moment, fits these criteria; it’s why everything coming out of the industry is slop. And if you bring up Badhaai Do, I will be moved to violence.
If the recent rise of Shabana Azmi and Zeenat Aman tells us anything, it’s that we’re desperately seeking Bollywood’s lost vitality. Even the West, which has a long tradition of queer icons from Judy Garland to Chappell Roan, is resurrecting the likes of Nicole Kidman and Michelle Yeoh.
In India, it all began in July 2023, when three things happened in rapid succession.
First, Zeenat Aman, after conquering Instagram, earned herself a feature on the cover of Vogue India. Second, Rekha appeared on the cover of Vogue Arabia in what can only be described as the photoshoot of the decade. (The technical term, I believe, is “slay the house down boots”.) Third, Jaya Bachchan and Shabana Azmi returned to the big screen in KJo’s Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani.
Three of these women were what can be called ‘fierce’, which is code for subversive. The fourth one is the exact opposite, most likely by choice. But let me elaborate.
Zeenat, while she was ‘bold’ during her time in Bollywood, wasn’t ever rebellious. She didn’t ruffle feathers—the right kind, at least. She was daring and perhaps outrageous, but always demure. Case in point, the way she convinced Raj Kapoor to hire her for Satyam Shivam Sundaram.
It is in her arrival on Instagram, where she revealed the person behind the persona, that Zeenat became radical.
Shabana was always non-conforming. But the women defined as queer icons often carry a sartorial edge. A lot of it is in fashion—a performance of such extreme femininity that it begins to undo the very institution that ordains it. Who can watch Mandi and deny her the title?
Jaya, I’ve heard, was once profound. Perhaps she remains so, but subversive, she is not.
Rekha is the only one out of these legends who wasn’t making a ‘comeback’—she’d never left. A line about Madonna from the fits here, too: The most controversial thing she ever did was to stick around.
Part of why Rekha is the embodiment of a queer icon is that she knows how the delicate line of power has to be toed. She is real, but to a point. She knows how to lure in her interviewer with a scandalous confession—only to undercut it with a paltry statement of fact.
And if you need more proof, look no further than the Simi Garewal interview. Rekha responded to Garewal’s befuddlement with queerness in an unbothered yet bratty “Why not!”
Yes, you heard it here first: Rekha is ‘brat’.
All this to say, the grandmas returned in 2023 to remind us how comfortable we’d gotten with conformity. Everyone knows that pop culture becoming hetero is a recession indicator.
When was the last time Bollywood wrote a good part for a woman? Even Alia has hit a dry spell. Not that Mrs Kapoor could ever embody defiance. Priyanka Chopra was at the precipice for one hot second—before PC decided to become POC in America. Katrina, too, had potential before she went the Karva Chauth route.
One name I think queers are overlooking is Mallika Sherawat—beyond a eureka mention of Hisss, we haven’t been paying much attention to her.
The gays certainly love Deepika and Madhuri, but these women are not quite the brat-fierce-vamp-femme fatale brand of defiant. One might call them ‘mother’, but I’m afraid that word has become antiquated already.
Rekha, Shabana, and Zeenat belong to the subversive brand of queer icons. But even the tragic figure and the camp queen are rebellious in their own way.
At first, I thought of the tragic icon as a woman doomed by the narrative—Meena Kumari, Parveen Babi, Whitney Houston, Princess Diana. These were women whose suffering and loneliness drew the queers in. I’d even count Meerabai here—her power to yearn is unrivalled—but I believe I may be alone on this particular hill.
I hadn’t realised that the tragic women had been named so by the world—a world ruled by the very men who let these women down. They had been marked as outliers until the queers made icons out of them. Not by indulging in the sorrow of their fall, but by celebrating the art and vitality they bequeathed us.
Who can listen to I Write, I Recite and not realise that Meena Kumari’s depth defines her, not her death?
And then there is camp. If Rekha is subversion personified, Sridevi is camp come to life. She, too, is exaggerated, irreverent, hyper-feminine, and non-conforming to the bone. But there is a wink-and-nudge to camp, a disarming playfulness. The claws are well-hidden.
Kareena Kapoor, I’m forced to admit, is part of this tradition. But when camp, or fashion in general, isn’t backed by any real rebellion, it becomes slay—in other words, liberal. Desi gays who stan Kareena are like the white gays who enjoy Ariana Grande: they don’t really care for substance.
Today, campy queens can be found in reality TV and influencer culture, be it Rakhi Sawant, Pooja Mishra, or Uorfi Javed. From this generation, though, Rakhi is the only one at par with Sridevi. The claws are there, even if power isn’t.
So what is it that makes a woman a queer icon? And am I saying that our lack of queer icons is a failing on the part of the women in Indian pop culture?
Not really. A Rekha can’t be repeated today. Our definition of celebrity has shifted, as have the ways in which we rebel. Chappell Roan is an icon, but in vastly different ways from Judy Garland.
Rebellion is part of it. When women fight the karva-chauth-and-sindoor type of patriarchal assertion, they’re inadvertently forming ties with the queers. And if Bollywood wants to remain relevant, it must let these women surface once again.
The women queer people idolise are the ones who, through their own pain, sass, or subversiveness, create spaces where we can belong. Who’d have thought, all it takes to earn our admiration is letting us in.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)
