There has been an old tradition of men in drag in Bollywood. Some say it is a result of gender lines being more fluid in South Asia than in the industrial Western world. Others would argue that is is the colonial creation of the image of the "Manly Englishman" posited against the "effeminate Indian", or as Mrinalini Sinha would have it, Bengali. Popular cultural theorists assert that Bollywood films have always been coded with queer references and have been sites for queer pleasure.
But the question I have to ask is this, in the good old days you always knew when there was a man doing drag, his awkward gait, tennis ball bosom, bony hips or bristling mustache usually gave him away.
Quite frankly, they looked hideous. Of course, they could be a laugh riot, but they were objects of bemusement not desire.
Evidence A
Kishore Kumar
Evidence B
Amitabh Bachan in Lawaris
But something happened in the 90's, maybe it was globalization, maybe it was the availability of a dozen varieties of shaving cream but men in drag were often scarily convincing. And no this was no Ali Saleem doing a Begum Nawazish Ali, but the macho men of Bombay cinema strutting their stuff in stilletos
Evidence A
Shahrukh Khan in Duplicate as Svetlana
Evidence B
Aamir Khan in Baazi as Julie Braganza
Evidence C
Salman Khan
And the exception to prove the rule,
Trivia Note: Only Govinda and Shakti Kapoor are in drag, the one in the middle is Karishma Kapoor
