The recently released film, Kaathal, has ignited public discussions of gender and sexuality in Kerala. But to what extent does it subvert Kerala’s norms around family, caste, and class? Sandra Elizabeth Joseph reflects.
Sandra Elizabeth
Director Jeo Baby’s latest movie ‘Kaathal: The Core’, starring Mammootty and Jyothika, has garnered much-deserved praise for its careful depiction of homosexuality. Mathew Devassy, played by Mammootty, finds himself in a quagmire when the community discovers his sexuality. The Devassy family is shocked to learn that Mathew’s wife Omana has filed a divorce petition against him on the grounds that he has failed to perform his conjugal duties. Amidst this intense personal turmoil at home, Mathew is also contesting in the upcoming ward elections as an independent candidate. It is in this turbulent context where Mathew’s sexuality becomes public knowledge that the movie frames the subsequent events of the movie and creates the possibility of an alternate family. In this article, I evaluate this treatment of the bourgeois family order and the makers’ vision of rewriting the ethos underlying family in Kerala. I show that the film has, in fact, ended up reinforcing or reconstituting the very norms it sets out to challenge.
In his analysis of the movie ‘Kettiyolaanu Ente Malakha’ (2020), Nidhin Donald has argued about the predominance of a particular strain of ‘Christian Familism’ within Malayalam cinema. In this recurring trope, the prototypical hero is an upper-caste respectable Christian man hailing from a family of land owning agriculturalists. Apart from engaging authoritatively with the matters of the church, he is also someone who maintains civil relationships with the local parish. This is also visible in Kaathal, which seamlessly weaves themes of homosexuality and religion together without friction. For example, in the opening pan-shot of the film, we see Mathew (played by Mammotty) and Omana (played by Jyothika) attending the Sunday mass. This ordinariness is not disrupted even when the revelation of Mathew’s sexuality is leaked alongside Omana’s divorce. However, the film expects the viewer to reimagine the disruption as a site to conceive the possibility of a utopian casteless queer future.
In Kerala, religious fundamental groups are notorious for their aggressive espousal of conversion therapy to ‘cure’ homosexuality. Over the last few years, several instances where young people were forcibly subjected to conversion therapies in retreat centres or allied religious organisations have been reported. Within Christianity, the Catholic Church in Kerala has always viewed homosexuality as a deviant behaviour that is antithetical to the institution of family. More recently, for example, the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (K.C.B.C.) had even shared a press release criticising Kaathal’s anti-Christian agenda. Despite such avowed, but predictable condemnations from the Church, the film somewhat undermines the Church’s response to Mathew’s sexuality by showing the priest to be more accepting of this anti-familial disruption.
While the makers diminish the Church and its reactions on the one hand, they also attempt to show how an upper caste heterosexual family moves beyond such disruptions. For example, when Mathew and Omana separate, we see them remaining amicable with each other even after the separation. We also witness Thankan (played by Sudhi Kozhikode), Mathew’s lover, entering Mathew’s life at the end of the movie. Their daughter, Femi (played by Anagha Akku), is also shown to be supportive of her parents’ decisions. In this manner, the film reimagines the heteronormative family and offers the possibility of reworked family structures that are undergirded by values of acceptance, friendship, and care. This, it renders quite gently. On the other hand, one cannot help but wonder whether Mathew’s unchallenged sexual difference along with his eventual victory at the local level elections was made possible due to the merit of his upper-caste lineage and his entrenchment in Christian familialism. At the end of the day, Mathew is a Syrian Catholic patriarch who enjoys the material and intangible caste benefits accrued by his father including the power he exercises at the level of the Church and the State.
From the outset, it is evident that the Devassy family is progressive. Mathew’s father, a former Congress supporter who switched to the Communist Party during the time of Emergency, is respected as a veteran activist among the locals. Although Mathew’s brother-in-law (played by Joji John) has hues of conservativeness, this is also balanced through depictions where he is shown as an uncle who is welcoming of his niece’s drinking habits. Similarly, Omana is a writer of serialised novels. She is depicted as a progressive woman who reads ‘too much of philosophy’ (according to her brother) while being fully devoted to Our Lady and her homemaker duties. Although Omana is clinging to a stifling marriage for eighteen years, Omana never expresses disgruntlement at Mathew. Omana’s composure, if anything, is unnatural, or perhaps, a hint at the filmmakers caving into the stereotypical depiction of women as the passive recipients of suffering. Although the divorce petition disrupts this progressive normalcy, it is also evident that even this disruption is balanced with the dignified tip-toeing around that Omana does around the family.
The Devassy household is archetypcal of a bourgeois family order envisioned by colonial modernity. Even though Mathew’s sexuality is a threat to its preservation, the filmmakers ensure that the crisis is subverted. Had Thankan, a working-class gay man, been the protagonist of the movie, one would have witnessed a different ending. For example, in the movie, Mathew’s family quickly accepts the crisis and folds Mathew back into the family order. In contrast, Thankan’s nephew is abused at school and is forced to leave Thankan alone at home. In other words, throughout the course of the movie, we see Thankan leading a lonely life while Mathew grapples with the public knowledge of his sexuality. Though the climax suggests a union between Mathew and Thankan, signified by an idyllic rainbow in the sky, it is unclear how the two would live.
In the song ‘Ennum En Kaaval Neeye’ composed by Mathew Pulickan, the lines ‘lokamembadum onnayi kinaavil, veedu ente naadu enna bhedham poyi 1 signify the negation of the binary between the household and society. This negation, as the song suggests, is made possible by a common dream, perhaps one that is emancipatory in its essence. Although Kaathal does not explicitly disrupt familism, it does indicate an attempt at revealing the structural violence of the heteronormative family. In recent years, movies like Shyam Pushkaran’s Kumbalangi Nights (2019) had skilfully redefined the family beyond the biological circumscribed sphere. Similarly, Dileesh Pothan’s Joji (2021) had shown how the insular Christian family could become a repository of mortal sins and secrets until it implodes. While Joji is a reinforcement of the family versus society binary driven by paranoia, Kaathal: The Core ruptures this binary, with the compartmentalized parts of self inevitably spilling into the societal terrain.
In his paper on gender and sexuality debates in Kerala, Muralidharan Tharayil (2014) argues how it is essential to grasp the specificity of the regional inflection of the politics of sexuality. In Kerala, this inflection may appear as a demand for new spaces that would fashion ‘egalitarian bodies and selves’ in response to new political demands. The success of Kaathal is endearing on this note considering how it makes the mainstream medium of cinema a space to explore the gender and sexuality discourse in Kerala. Although notable films addressing similar themes have been made before, Kaathal’s box office success encourages the audience to grapple with the sensitive theme of queer sexuality that have been more or less sidelined in Malayalam cinema. However, it does very little towards disrupting the savarna family order. In this sense, the movie reinforces a liberal variant of Christian familialism.
About the Author: Sandra Elizabeth completed her Masters in Sociology from the South Asian University. Her broad area of research interests include agrarian ecologies, transnational forms of religion and political economy of higher education.
