This is a very good post and thought provoking. I like content of the Swaddle personally. But this one was something I did not like.
Because honestly I feel we are judged too much if everything is viewed from a sexual lens. I mean, nowadays you cannot even move around with your own male cousins and siblings without being thought of as roaming with a BF or viewing from sexual or romantic lens in case someone does not know that person with you, is your cousin and sibling. Nor can you move around or say, express affection or hold hand of a friend of same gender without someone assuming you are lesbian or gay or bisexual.
I know LGBTQIA have been marginalised forever. But giving them visibility does not mean straight ones should be assumed to have LGTBQ tendency or leanings.
For eg, many do not even accept asexuality or aromantic ones exist. They just do not accept ACES. They are that obsessed with idea of being sexually attracted to either same gender or all genders.
Or people begin to assume say someone like Ratan Tata is unmarried and childfree or ML Khattar, is unmarried and childfree as they are gay (I have heard such gossip mongers).
This is unfair to be lumped or judged even if you do not have that orientation.
It is understandable that people crave bond that Jai and Veeru have in Sholay or the emotional intimacy Paro and Chandramukhi shared for a while in Devdas. But to 'read' a queer subtext in it is not fair to those who are just friends or like brotherly or sisterly bond. I mean not every connection has a sexual connotation to it. Sometimes you just connect for no reason and feel caring towards someone. It does not have to be romantic or sexual.
My issue is not as much as a cis het person but about viewing everything from a sexual lens.
Every bond, look or touch need not be sexual. Every unmarried person need not be lesbian or gay or queer.
I still maintain the LGBTQIA communities should create own characters or demand for own likeness in characters instead of appropriating old ones.
Given how Jai and Veeru were attracted to Basanti and Radha respectively, there is no need to call them queer. Anyway I have heard gay jokes on Thakur and Ramlal, Gabbar and Sambha, in that film also, and it is frankly not funny to me. All men living together are not gay unless they stated it thus.
However I understand your POV and you offered a different perspective, which I did not consider earlier.
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