Aparita

Toronto Star, [10/26/2001]

Film tackles community’s taboo subject

“We realized how our parents are silently struggling with this complete change in their plans for us, which is why we called it the Rewriting The Script,” says Leela Acharya.

The Toronto filmmaker is referring to a controversial documentary she’s directed entitled Rewriting The Script: A Love Letter To Our Families that explores homosexuality in the South Asian community.

The 45-minute film, which cost a modest $20,000 to produce, is a series of interviews with six gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered South Asians and their families.

With homsexuality a taboo subject for South Asians, funding quickly became a problem when the nine-member Desi Queer Video Collective, a group of teachers, journalists, community activists and educators embarked on their project.

“There is a lot of money in the South Asian community but they could not get over their homophobia to help us,” explains Acharya.

“We could not approach arts funding (organizations) because that’s for individuals. Community-based funding required us to be a charitable or a non-profit organization. We ended up affiliating with CTYS (Central Toronto Youth Services), which had not done a lot of anti-racism work but approached and supported us.”

The filmmakers also faced criticism from the likes of Toronto city councillors Doug Holyday and Rob Ford.

“Spending $5,000 on this video is disgusting . . .” said Ford, a sentiment echoed by Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente. In a column last July, Wente dismissed funding for a project she felt concerned only a tiny sub-segment of Toronto.

Undeterred, Acharya is pleased with the finished product.

“We were lucky to have Shyam Selvadurai (author of Funny Boy) and his extended family members speak candidly about their experience of handling issues of sexuality after Shyam came out to them. The others are regular South Asian people from various religious, ethnic and income groups.”

Despite the history of South Asian homosexuality, many parents cannot deal with the idea of a homosexual child. Others, more supportive, feel isolated in the face of the peer pressure of keeping up with the “Mehtas” and their MBA son with a car and a house in the suburbs. Their children, on the other hand, need the support and strong connection from their family of origin.

“Mainstream organizations like PFLAG (Parents of Lesbians and Gays) are very white and very middle class,” notes Acharya, who grew up in Edmonton and moved to Toronto 10 years ago.

“South Asian-specific organizations do not have programs to deal with homophobia. Our main aim is to strengthen our families of origin, so that they can watch the video and see that they are not alone.

“We tried to focus on the parents because, in a way, they are coming out too. Their biggest fear is that they are going to be thrown out of the South Asian community.”

In the film’s interviews, some subjects talk about their religious dilemma in seeking spiritual solace to escape racism but being unable to admit their homosexuality.

They also discuss their tendency to underestimate their parents and the fear of the moment of coming out because they risk the loss of their family.

For their part, parents talk about strategies they’ve developed to deal with the situation.
Acharya hopes to get the video out to South Asian families. She also wants to see it distributed to public schools, libraries and community organizations.