Movies

Bisexual director Shonali Bose on her revolutionary queer film “Margarita, with a Straw”

We first told you how much we loved Margarita, with a Straw 10 months ago. This movie about two women with disabilities falling in love with each other completely captured our hearts. Flash forward to the end of 2015 and we still thought it was one of the best lesbian/bi foreign films of the year. All this time later and after already having hit theaters in India, it’s still on its festival run.

Ahead of the film’s screening at the ReelAbilities Film Festival in New York City, out writer/director Shonali Bose spoke with us about the importance of showing people with disabilities as sexual beings, how she identifies with her protagonist, her troubles with the Indian Censor Board, and more.

Warning: Spoilers ahead

AfterEllen.com: How did you come up with the idea for this film? What inspired you?

Shonali Bose: I have a cousin who was born with acute cerebral palsy. She’s only a year younger than me. We’re very much like sisters. We grew up together doing everything together. And when she was 39 and I was 40, we were in a London pub and I asked her, I said, “What would you like for your 40th birthday, the best birthday ever?” And she replied, “I’d just like to have sex.” And it hit me in that moment that I hadn’t thought about my sister’s sexuality.

This is something really important. There must be so many people who are disabled who are not considered sexual beings because of their bodies. And so I just felt like, in world cinema, it was a subject I didn’t see that had been dealt with. Particularly for women. And so that’s what was the inspiration.

AE: How did the transition happen where you decided this film would touch on queer sexuality as well?

SB: It happened very organically, and once it happened organically, then I stood by it politically. In the early draft, she wasn’t bisexual and there wasn’t another gay character. And I think after a couple of drafts I had developed this character, Khanum, who was very strongly political, a feminist, a gay activist. She was young. I had developed her because I just wanted such a character because I feel strongly about the gay issue as well. But then they didn’t have a relationship because she was just an inspirational character—that she was blind and yet she just did everything. She was an inspiration for Laila and in fact she kind of hit on Laila and Laila was like, “No, I’m straight.” So I was going along and then as I was writing for the draft and going deeper and deeper into the script, at one point Laila kind of spoke to me and said, “You know what? She’s much hotter than that white guy Jared. I’m not going to say I’m straight!” So organically I just created a scene where they make love and then she keeps getting drawn to this woman.

I myself am bisexual. At that time, I thought that Laila was speaking to me, but it was really that I had given myself permission to embody Laila. That it ceased to be my cousin and it became me. And the moment that it became me, it was automatic that I would just make her bisexual. But I didn’t think that. I didn’t think that’s what was happening. As I was writing, I was like, “Wow. Laila’s talking to me.”

AE: There aren’t many films that feature leads that are also people with disabilities. When you add queer and female to that, you’re really hard pressed to find any. And yet your movie has two. How much of that was organic and how much was deliberate?

SB: It was a political decision that, “Yes, I’m going to do it.” I was aware that it would be very hard to find money and produce it. I was. And then when she became bisexual, I actually lost half the money that I had. So it became even harder, but I stood by that.

It’s not just that they’re leads. The film is not about their gayness or their disableness.

AE: At times it seems Laila’s convinced she’s either completely straight or completely gay, and then when her attractions for the same and opposite sexes come up it looks like she has a hard time grasping the idea that she might be bisexual. Would you agree and, if so, why did you write her that way?

SB: She’s only 18. She’s never even been exposed to language on sexuality, let alone queer sexuality. So for her it was very organic to just get into this relationship that came across her. And then she falls in love with Khanum. But she’s never had sex with a guy, never had any interaction, so when that moment presented itself to her, when Jared—there’s a hot moment between them—, she has never had sex with a straight guy. She needed to test herself.

The moment she did it, as soon as it finished, you can see in the shot the way her face looks empty and her eyes look empty. She regretted it. She regretted cheating on her girlfriend. And it made her realize that, “Wow.” That’s why I say she’s gay and not even bisexual. She says, “I’m bisexual,” I think at one point. She says, “I’m bi,” to her mother because by then she understands the language and because she had sex, but I would say she’s actually quite strongly gay and she understood that. Only after doing that, cheating on her girlfriend, did she understand that, “Wow. I don’t like this. I really like what I have with my girlfriend.” But I understand that in that moment she needed to go forward. She just needed to do that.

Whether you’re straight or gay, situations present themselves and you may cheat on your partner. That’s something I also wanted to deal with.

AE: Right.

SB: I think it’s very natural in that moment. And when Khanum asks her, “How could you do that?” and, you could say that it’s cruel but it was the truth, she said, “Jared could see me.” And she needed to be affirmed, because I think the growth she goes through is not, “Oh, am I gay? Am I not? Am I straight?” It’s, “I can affirm myself. I don’t need an outside gaze to affirm me.” That is her growth.

She would rather be with an able-bodied person because she dislikes her own disability. Unlike Khanum, who’s extremely comfortable with her disability. But Laila isn’t. And Laila goes through that journey and therefore in that moment it was not about her confusion on her sexuality so much so as, “This is a really good looking straight guy who wants to have sex with me. I’m not the one hitting on him. I’m going to try this. And he’s not turned off by my body, by my twisted limbs, by my garbled speech, by my drool.” That’s huge. I think that’s huge and we have to honor that.

AE: So if Laila sees herself as a lesbian, why did she come out to her mother as bi?

SB: The only reason she said that is because, for an Indian audience, it is such a funny joke. There’s a double play on the word “bi”. So “bai” means the maid and “bi” is bisexual. When she tells her mother, her mother misunderstands and says, “All women are bai. I’m bai.” I really only did that for the joke because actually I think she would have said, “I’m gay.”

Once I wrote it and the joke mattered, the way I justified to myself was maybe she was too nervous to tell her mother the whole thing and so she probably figured her mother doesn’t even understand the word “bi”. Like, “Should I tell her? Should I not?” And then she just uses the language and then it’s revealed that she didn’t really get it and she has to again summon up her courage and come out with it.

AE: Laila is shown having sex. As you’ve mentioned, a lot of people have a tendency to not see individuals with disabilities as being sexual beings, whether they realize this or not. That said, those scenes might cause certain people some discomfort. Was there a part of you that wanted to elicit that reaction, or did you take that on as just another aspect of your character’s journey?

SB: I was not trying to make a point. At any point in the film when I was writing, I must say I was not trying to score political points or to wake anybody up. Maybe that’s just a part of my psyche so it just comes out in my writing that I’m going to make political choices.

For the girls’ scene, it was pin-drop silence, which you remember. You can only hear their breathing. Now the normal thing you do when you feel something is uncomfortable as a filmmaker is you add in music. You put in score. Because an audience can then just kind of go with the score and it eases their discomfort. There was no bloody way I was going to do that. So at that point, yes, I was like, “Okay, there are going to be people who are homophobic or people who even just can’t see two women like this feeling pleasure and they’re going to be uncomfortable. Am I going to ease it for them? No.”

AE: What about the straight sex scene? Were people comfortable with that?

SB: I don’t feel I got anyone resisting that other than the censor board. So in India, we have to cross the censor board before a film can be released. We thought both scenes would be completely cut. And in the initial round, they both were cut. But then when we appealed, interestingly they didn’t touch the gay scene, but with the heterosexual scene they wanted, and they used a crude word—they said “the humping.” “Can you make the humping scene 50 percent?” And I feel they felt uncomfortable and they felt Indian audiences would think it’s too graphic for them.

The censor board made the distinction. I never came across, and I talked with so many audiences, so many people—nobody ever raised a distinction between the two scenes.

AE: I would imagine some people on that board justified it to themselves by saying, “Well, at least the two women were both disabled.”

SB: I definitely agree with you. For India, definitely, I feel the fact that they were both disabled meant, “It’s fine. It felt moving and beautiful,” vs. “Oh my God!” I absolutely agree. Without a doubt, I think for many homophobic people across the world, not just in India, that makes them able to accept that.

AE: In general, what kind of feedback have you received from moviegoers who have watched the film? More specifically, what have the characters of Laila and Khanum meant to people?

SB: People have never come across a character like Laila. Ever. I’m talking now about world festivals. We’ve been in 135 world film festivals, starting with Toronto and then the London BFI and major festivals all over the world. And this is the international response to the film. It’s really always standing ovations and hugs and tears and people saying, “We have never come across characters like Khanum and Laila.”

People expected that they would be picky and feel sorry and feel sad, but they feel exhilarated and uplifted and empowered. That is what is unexpected from people.

Margarita, with a Straw screens at 7pm EST on March 10 at the ReelAbilities Film Festival in New York City.

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