In his latest film, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, Ayushmann Khurrana plays a muscular gym trainer with a trans girlfriend, played by Vani Kapoor. Soon after Kapoor’s character comes out to him, Khurranna’s character is asked by his friends about the couple’s sex life: “Kiya kahan se?”—Where did you do it from? He replies, condescendingly, “Jahan se sab karte hain”—Where everyone does it from. The construction of this joke, which is also a highlight of the film’s trailer, is undeniably demeaning—a play for laughs at the expense of the trans characters. The underlying transphobia is “corrected” by the end of the film, but that is meant to be a surprise. What the audience expects, and what is meant to pull crowds to the cinema, is the cruel punchline and all that it contains.
In , released in 2020, Khurrana plays the openly gay Kartik. The romantic comedy revolves around the struggles of Kartik and his partner, played by Jitendra Kumar, to have the latter’s family accept their love. The film was warmly received for its effort to
