Author(s): Soumoshree Mukherjee, Suman Mondal
Abstract:
Kaushik Ganguly’s Arekti Premer Golpo (2010) occupies a singular position in the history of Bengali queer cinema, released in the immediate aftermath of the Delhi High Court’s 2009 decriminalization of homosexuality under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. This article argues that the film’s most significant achievement is not its topical daring but its structural deployment of Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity as a cinematic grammar: the film does not merely represent queer identities but formally enacts the Butlerian proposition that gender is constituted through repeated, coerced performance rather than through any innate essence. By placing two queer subjects; Chapal Bhaduri, a female impersonator of the “jatra” tradition, and Abhiroop Sen, a contemporary transgender documentary filmmaker across a fifty-year temporal gulf, Ganguly constructs a comparative structure that measures not simply social change but the differential terms under which performative conformity and resistance become available to queer individuals. The article undertakes close readings of key scenes, examining the film’s visual and narrative language in relation to Butler’s theorization of performativity, social acceptance, and the regulatory fiction of gender norms.
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