Now that Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga has broken the boundary, I want more MORE!!!! And I am looking back on some previous movies and realizing they really should have been Lesbian romances.
Dil Dhadakne Do
Make Priyanka’s character gay! So easy! That’s why her family was against her relationship with their perfectly nice old family friend’s child, that’s why she is so miserable in her marriage and unattracted to her husband, and that’s why she has turned angry and buried herself in her work. And now her girlfriend is suddenly back in the picture and she hates her husband even more. SO GAY!!
Qarib Qarib Singlle
Again, it just works better! Our heroine is lonely and out of place, goes online to find love, is scared of what people will think of the love she finds, tries to use it as an impetus to seek out her college romance she was trying to forget, but eventually realizes she can find happiness with her new fearless online person. If Irrfan is a woman, and Parvathy is bi/gay and had one serious relationship with a woman in college before marriage and is using fearless Irrfan to inspire her to seek that out again. And if Irrfan is introducing her to her past girlfriends to convince her that it is possible for women and women to love each other. SO GAY!!!
Kahaani
Vidya has a strange connection to the case, is lying to everyone, has a secret love story. Just make her husband into her wife, with a happy life and pregnancy back in London, and keep everything else the same. Adds even more to the final reveal and the female power message, plus the stories we tell and how people want to believe those stories instead of the truth. Also, SO GAY!
Queen
I am torn about this one, because the Kangana-Lisa Haydon relationship is obviously the best. But making it explicitly gay, and making Rajkummar the Worst partly just because he isn’t what she wanted, does that cheapen the Kangana-Lisa friendship and build in some forgiveness for Rajkummar? Anyway, I would still like it because SO GAY.
Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani
Okay, bigger rewrite here, but I like it. Blah blah, Deepika is pretty but studious, Ranbir is wild and charming, Kalki and ARK are Ranbir’s friends, they go on a trek together in college and then 10 years later Ranbir reunites with them all for Kalki’s wedding. But! What if Ranbir thinks Deepika is in love with him, and Kalki is still in love with ARK and doesn’t want to get married, but in reality Dips and Kalki have fallen in love over the past 10 years? It can plug along mostly as before with Ranbir the outsider at the wedding hanging out with Dips until halfway through when he overhears Kalki talking to Dips about how she can’t forget her first love, Dips says “the same”, he thinks they mean ARK and him, but then pokes his head around the corner and sees them kissing and realizes they mean each other. Ranbir realizes he really does love Dips, but love means sacrifice, and helps her and Kalki be together and run away from the wedding. SO GAY!
Cocktail
Another longer rewrite! Although it starts in the same place. Diana Penty is a homeless abandoned wife in London, meets troubled rich girl Deepika, Deepika cheerfully invites her to move in with her. At the same time, Dips meets Saif in a club and they start dating, the three of them form a happy threesome. Dips and Diana fall in love but feel bad for betraying Saif, especially when his parents show up ready to bless his marriage to Dips. Diana disappears, Dips spins out. Saif tries to take care of her but realizes it doesn’t work when it is just the two of them. With his help and encouragement, they track down Diana and Dips confesses her love and they kiss. SO GAY!
Which is most naturally perfectly GAY? Which is the most impact fully GAY? Which is the biggest improvement on the original?
I think for me making PC in DDD gay just flows, and almost makes more sense then the version we have now.
Kahaani would be the one that has the biggest impact though, the reveal that the reason our heroine is so good at telling “stories” is that as a gay desi woman, she has had to tell those stories her whole life.
And then YJHD I think would be a big improvement, the whole idea of Ranbir returning and not understanding what is happening, and then finally grasping the reality of his unrequited love and that it isn’t about him, it is about Kalki and Dips getting their happy ending.
dontcallitbollywood 
The right answer is of course all of them. I haven’t seen some of these, but Queen and QQS I think wouldn’t work as well in a lesbian romance, because it’s too much of a reason to stop being a square and it’s more fun to have that choice come out of the individual. I like Girls like to swing, so my vote is for Dil Dhadakne Do.
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I like Girls Like to Swing too! And DDD would solve our “why can’t Reema and Zoya do a Lesbian romance?” question. It was actually DDD that sparked this whole post because that change just feels so natural.
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 7:47 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Agreed that making Priyanka gay in DDD flows. For improvement I’m going to go with Queen. I didn’t love that character, I did love Lisa Haydon, and that was the sequence where Kangana seemed happiest. I think the journey to self awareness would be interesting if she were also discovering this side of her sexuality. The only thing I would be sad to lose is the great friendship with the roommates. The friendship could stay, of course, but I loved the lack of romance in close quarters with no need for explanation.
For impact I’d choose Qarib Qarib Singlle. Showing two mature, complex individuals with a full romantic past, and a story focused on just them would be a whole new level.
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In Queen we could slightly twist the roommate sequence, make it instead a confirmation of her sexuality, she discovers the freedom of just not being interested in boys that way?
I do like Qarib Qarib Singlle, the idea of lesbians as middle-aged (or close to it) people who have layered complicated pasts. And I especially like the idea of Parvathy as having a lesbian relationship in college that has remained as kind of a fantasy, but being truly in love with and grieving her husband, and now using Female Irrfan as kind of a way back in to the idea of a relationship with a woman. Only to find that her guide/way back in person might end up being her real Person person.
On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 11:11 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I read the first half of Queen as an unrequited crush anyways. Lisa Haydon is totally into Kangana. That’s even more than subtext, with that „Je t‘aime“ at the end of the first half. Ok, still less than main text since almost no Indian is gonna understand it. But it’s there, I insist on it. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded if the movie totally changed from that point on and we continued to explore their relationship.
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I love this interpretation! And then Lisa is going to visit India with her son and see Kangana again, and maybe they will get together then, for real.
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Exactly!
I had to stop the film at the intermission and go live a little. But in the meantime the fanfiction in my head kept writing itself.
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Hmm. I already wrote a fanfic for Queen where there is a sequel and she gets together with Oleksandr. But I think if you read this, and just replace Oleksandr with Lisa, it totally works!
https://dontcallitbollywood.com/2018/12/15/another-fanfic-from-the-comments-queen-sequel-rani-and-oleksandr-forever-and-happy-ending-for-kedarnath/
On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 1:29 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Can we also get fanfic of Sridevi with Hot French Dude from English Vinglish? Because she wuz robbed!
Agree on the queer subtext with Lisa Haydon, she was totally bi, wasn’t she?
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All the French people! All the French people should have been love interests! And the in Befikre they actually were love interests and no one l liked it. Oh well.
It’s hard to picture a legitimate way that Sridevi could have gone French in English/Vinglish. Maybe if she discovered her husband was cheating on her? Or if he died suddenly? Otherwise, the marriage just wasn’t bad enough to justify blowing it up.
On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 2:29 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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For some reason, I really want Anushka Sharma specifically to be in a lesbian romance film. I don’t know why. But I’m gonna go with Dil Dhadakne Do for this one just so I can get my fantasy and Priyanka can end up with her, cuz they’d be hot together.
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Hey, I can write you an Anushka lesbian romance! I agree, that seems really fun. Who would you pair her with, if not PC? I’m kind of feeling Anushka as an out and proud and confident woman who falls in love with and courts a more shy traditional type. Anushka in a fedora and skinny jeans, her girlfriend in Salwars, like that.
On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 8:45 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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My first thought was Deepika, but she doesn’t fit the traditional type. If not PC, maybe Katrina? Redeem the JTHJ/Zero fiascoes?
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OMG YES!!!!! And almost playing themselves. Kat is older and has had her heart broken over and over again. Maybe an actress! Anushka is a hotshot young reporter/writer who interviews her and they weirdly spark together, bump into each other again later at furniture store or something, Anushka invites Kat out for coffee, they have a great time, and then this romance slowly grows despite Anushka (and her friends) being nervous abotu her falling for this woman who has never been in a lesbian relationship before and isn’t sure she wants to be in one now, and Kat’s family and friends pressuring her to want the perfect marriage and perfect kids and on and on. And then other stuff happens, but it definitely ends with a Love Declaration and proposal at the FilmFare Awards from the stage.
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GOD I would watch that in a heartbeat.
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