From Taking Stances to Real Understanding

What years of knowledge about the rights of gay, lesbian or trasngender people could not do for me in terms of creating a transformation in attitude, was achieved by watching gay and LGBTQ romance shows. I was never someone who was opposed to ‘alternative sexualities’, but I always thought of their issues in terms of rights and in terms of sex. Gay relations for instance were always imagined understood in terms of – they are attracted to the same gender. I didn't always relate to it, I even sometimes found it odd, unrelatable. I could only say that well, there are different kinds of people, different realities and people have a right to be who they are. So standing for a gay person for instance, involved ‘taking a stance’. However after watching male love stories, there was not even any need to take a stance. my understanding extended from a sexual orientation definition, to romance, feelings, flirting, heartbreaks, loneliness, acceptance by family, aspirations for one’s own family and so on. The naturalness with which I felt an understanding was of another level. Somehow never having had a close gay friend I never accessed these things earlier.

Dan Levy the man who co-scripted the series Schitt’s Creek with his father, said something like this about his show. I wanted to create a world wherein everyone felt safe and had respect and place in that town in which the tale was told. He plays a gay character and a romantic relationship is also portrayed in the show. No one in that show is fighting for the right to be gay, the family, the neighbourhood are all at ease with it, other men are not uncomfortable around him and so on. This may be somewhat idealistic, but I feel that by writing and creating films or shows in this manner, we make it possible to imagine that what we think are really big issues or will make us awkward actually may not be so, or could easily be worked out. On the other hand, a narrative that is mostly about rights and struggle, creates two parties pitted against each other – obscuring the fact of how we live in shared worlds. The very structure of this narrative, compels each group in a sort of automated way – to stick to its guns.

I don’t mean that stories of struggle and rights are not important. Times matter too. In the 70s and 80s public content that was even sympathetic to gay or queer people focused more on their struggles, the prejudice and violence against them. And of course this was a reality. It still is, though perhaps a little less. It is probably the natural evolution of a social movement and its narrative to reach such a stage today, when rather than only fighting for space, stories are more and more about imagining coming out to one’s family, teenage love, romance, marriage or families for LGBTQ people.

Anyhow, this experience for me was a learning one. Very quickly we get into debates, we stand for or against issues. But such a support is in the shape of concepts, ideas. There is another joy in actually coming upon a lived reality of another, such that a ‘stance’ shifts to an ‘understanding’ or as something relatable. To take a different example, rather than simply saying that Pakistan too is a country with its own people and culture and is not simply a hub of terrorists, that we ought to be more understanding, watching a show such as Zindagi Gulzaar Hai, could make it immediately relevant to an Indian. College life, youth, family troubles, fashion, gender struggles, dating etc. all come alive in this show and make an obscured neighbor a little more relatable.