The conversation about whether queer people should be cast in films to play queer characters have been going on for a while now. What further gave impetus to the debate is the casting of Sushmita Sen in Taali, Trinetra Haldar Gummaraju in Made In Heaven season two and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Haddi.
In an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, writer of Taali, Kshitij Patwardhan, addresses this debate and points out that OTT platforms often play a big role in approving the cast. “If there’s an opportunity in the future, I would love to cast a transgender person to play a transgender character. They cast Trinetra in Made In Heaven and that was an amazing choice. The only problem is that in most cases, it’s not in the control of the makers, it depends on the platform, whether they want to approve of that,” he says.
So, the safest option for a project to travel far and wide, is to have a known star headlining it. “For two-and-a-half years, my producer and I were looking for creators and platforms who would agree to release Taali. It’s a reality here that if you don’t have big names associated with your project, there’s a very bleak possibility for it to get approved,” adds Patwardhan.
He also refers to Sen, who played transgender activist Shreegauri Sawant in Taali, and her take on this much-talked about subject. “Sushmita has rightly said that we can’t stereotype genders. She said, ‘Why a woman playing a transgender is a problem but a transgender playing a woman isn’t a problem?’ We should all be gender fluid about this. Taali is the first series to feature a thousand transgender people, who play supporting characters,” he says.
However, Patwardhan is happy with the way Taali has reached so many people and he attributes the same to Sen. “Since we wanted to reach out to the maximum number of audience, the platform and the production house needed a face. After the first poster and the teaser were out, there were some conversations about not casting a transgender in the lead role but it’s because of Sushmita and her performance that we could reach those audience who were skeptical about the subject,” he remarks.
Recently, Sen took to Instagram to share a post that read that Taali has already garnered more 25 million views. Elated with the response, Patwardhan says, “The feedback, overall, is very overwhelming and positive. Since JioCinema is a free streaming platform, the reach has been phenomenal. But more than the views, the social dialogue has been created about the transgender community is more overwhelming.”
Elaborating further, he continues, “Some schools, colleges and NGOs are holding small sessions to talk about inclusivity of the community. A couple of days back, I got a message from my assistant. His sister is a teacher and when she asked her eighth graders how many genders are there, they told three – male, female and other. All those students had watched Taali and many of them told her that they would like to work with the transgender community in the future, create opportunities for them and make the society more inclusive for them. When you hear such things, it feels so good.”
