‘Chutney Popcorn’ w/ Rita Sengupta

Full Transcript of Technicolor Theatre podcast: Season 2, Episode 4

In this episode of Technicolor Theatre, filmmaker Aditya Joshi and comedian/actor/writer Rita Sengupta discuss how the directorial debut from director Nisha Ganatra, Chutney Popcorn (1999), has a continuing legacy in queer South Asian cinema despite it being seen by many as one of a kind.

The episode aired on August 24, 2020 under the podcast’s previous name, Token Theatre, and can be found here. Full transcript (below) was captured by Madelyn Gee.

Aditya Joshi: Hey folks. Aditya here — Just wanted to give you a quick note before we get into today’s episode. We had a bit of a tech hiccup in recording. You might notice a change in the audio of our guest Rita Sengupta around 45 minutes in. Anyone who hosts a Patreon-supported podcast from their bedroom will tell you that technical issues happen. We appreciate you as an audience sticking with us through that. Anyway, thanks for bearing with us and enjoy the episode.

Aditya: Hello and welcome to Token Theatre, a Mediaversity podcast about representation on film. You can find Mediaversity at MediaversityReviews.com. But for now, I’m your host, Aditya Joshi. Joining me today, now that she’s finished wiping off a perfectly good baster is Rita Sengupta. Hi, Rita.

Rita Sengupta: Hello.

Aditya: What’s up?

Rita: Not too much, not too much. Back in Brooklyn, after a quarantine.

Aditya: I’m actually super excited that you’re back because I think we might be neighbors soon, which is exciting.

Rita: I know. I’m super excited about that.

Aditya: Also because the movie we’re talking about today is set in New York and I think it paints a pretty interesting picture of what the ’90s era in New York must have been.

Rita: Oh, it was so funny — the music. I just was laughing out loud listening to the soundtrack again.

Aditya: Before we get too deep into the movie, why don’t you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and how you identify?

Rita: Cool. So my name is Rita. I am a queer South Asian American actor and comedian. That is what my bio says. So that’s how I identify.

Aditya: The movie we’re talking about today is Chutney Popcorn, which is Nisha Ganatra’s breakout directorial debut. Nisha Ganatra is of course probably best known lately for Late Night with Mindy Kaling. But this movie is about a queer South Asian artist living in New York in the late ’90s. Perfectly set up I think to talk about some really interesting themes and things in the movie that I feel like are really specific to South Asians. I’m excited to get into them with you. Before we do that, why don’t you tell me a little bit about the first time that you saw this movie?

Rita: Yeah. So I don’t know if you’ve mentioned this. But like the movie was made in 1999, first of all. Which is over 20 years ago now, which is amazing. So I first saw Chutney Popcorn two years ago. It was right when I moved to New York, and I started building this network of South Asian filmmaker creative friends. One of my friends, she’s like a really big cinephile. I guess that’s the word. Obviously, she knows I’m queer and South Asian. I’ve been interested in like, more queer South Asian stories and I said, “I just feel like there isn’t any.” And she’s like, “Oh, haven’t you seen Chutney Popcorn by Nisha Ganatra?” I was like, “Whoa, I’m getting out my notes. I need to write this down.” I think I rented it on Amazon and watched it that night.

It was amazing. I mean, besides the fact we’ve mentioned before, the ‘90s-era music, the clothing, the way they’re talking. You really do step into a time capsule. When preparing for this podcast, I was trying to find the text conversation with my friend after I watched the movie because I was like, “Oh my God, thank you so much for recommending this movie to me. It completely opened up my eyes.” I had no idea anything like that had existed before. I feel like what was cool about Chutney Popcorn specifically was like it was South Asian American. It felt very true to my identity.

Aditya: Have you had you seen many movies about the South Asian queer experience before seeing Chutney Popcorn?

Rita: I’m trying to think now. I don’t think so. I feel like they’re also like the side characters, you know what I mean? Not like a movie where they are the main character and the whole movie is about them.

Aditya: The other thing is — I feel like this happens a lot with both South Asian movies and queer movies — a lot of times the narratives will be centered around the coming out story. “Am I gay? What does this mean for me?” Then for the racial minority part it’s like, “What about my culture? How engaged with it do I want to be?” The Big Sick, Namesake kind of formula. The really interesting thing about this movie is that it does neither of those things. Everyone knows that Reena is gay and that’s fine. She’s as South Asian as she wants to be and it’s never really questioned. Which I think is so cool and forward for a 1999 movie.

Rita: You literally hit all of the points of why I love this movie so much. That’s the thing I hate about a lot of queer movies — I don’t hate about it — but like you said, they’re just always so centered on the struggle, the coming out and they become stereotypical now even though they’re of course important. I just love that the story with her mom is not the fact that they’re struggling that she’s gay or lesbian or whatever. It’s just the fact that Reena is just an artist living her life. She’s just not living the stereotypical life that her mom wants her to lead. But it’s not because of being queer.

Aditya: It never feels like her mom is ashamed of any of those things. It’s more just like, “What are you doing?” Generally, get your shit together as opposed to “do what we expect you to do.”

Rita: Exactly. Yeah, I love that. I mean, I feel like there are a few times when she calls her like, “Oh, your roommate” and things like that. But I feel like they’re not like the main struggle, you know? It feels very real life. I feel like she still has a very loving relationship with her mom and it’s not this contentious thing.

Aditya: Actually, I’m glad that you brought that up. I wanted to ask you about that kind of interaction in the community. Her mom Meenu the entire time never refers to Lisa, her girlfriend, as her girlfriend. It’s always like her college roommate, her friend, or by name. There’s even a scene where some Indian guy comes over and is like, “Yo, you want to set me up with your roommate?” She is like, “My girlfriend?” You grew up in Oklahoma, which is a super conservative state. Did you find in your experience that similar things were happening to you where there was a mask around what you actually were when you had to talk to people about it in the community, both the South Asian one and the Oklahoman white community?

Rita: I didn’t really truly come out until I moved away from Oklahoma and after college and all of that stuff. So it’s really more of my experience in the past, like, few years of that. So I can’t really speak to it in the sense of being in Oklahoma, but definitely with my family and stuff. I’m out to my immediate family. I don’t hide my relationship or what I believe in on social media. So if any family members follow me they know I’m gay as fuck. Of course, there was a struggle with my parents personally. For almost a year or so, my mom could not even say Kelly’s name or all of that kind of stuff.

But when I first came out to my mom, she was like, “Oh, why can’t you just be friends who are girls?” But when I actually dated a boy in high school, she said the same thing. She’s like, “Well, why can’t you have a friend who’s a boy?” So I feel like it doesn’t really matter. What was interesting, when she called her “her roommate” actually, when I was quarantining in the suburbs of Ohio with Kelly and her mom, her mom is super accepting. Very cool, very chill. Obviously, we stayed with her for three months, during the quarantine. But there were times because, you know, the older generation, where sometimes she would refer to me as Kelly’s roommate instead of her girlfriend or a partner. I don’t have any ill feelings towards her mom. But I feel like there is this kind of generational thing where it is like “Oh, it is just easier to say roommate or friend.”

I know with my parents personally, I don’t know if it is because I haven’t been around them. I haven’t had Kelly around them in a public setting. It’s always been very private. They’ve never referred to her as anything but Kelly. Sometimes my dad is talking about my future. They will say “whoever your partner is.” He’ll say things like that, which is really cute. Did that answer your question?

Aditya: That’s what I want to talk about with you. The really interesting thing that I find having these conversations is less “Here’s all the really cool things about the movie” and more “This is the importance of representation and seeing ourselves on screen.” It’s so cool to hear that these little details that Nisha Ganatra — obviously is drawn from her real life — are consistent with your experience and are not made up. They’re very drawn from the everyday. In the movie, Lisa and Reena’s relationship eventually becomes strained because of that. It’s interesting to think about as someone who has never had to worry about that. I’m a heterosexual man, which is the easiest thing to be as an Indian person.

I don’t have to worry whether or not my parents accept someone is going to affect our relationship. Even though there’s obviously worries about that with race and things like that. There are moments in the movie where the way that Meenu reacts to Lisa strains Reena and Lisa’s relationship. There are also moments where Meenu is like, “It might just be easier for you to get married and have a kid.” I’m curious what your thoughts are on the portrayal of that relationship and how you feel that reflects either other kinds of modern cinema or just your own experience.

Rita: I think that still rings true today. I think not necessarily just in the queer sense, but I think as any…Immigrant parents, they just want the best for their kids. Whenever there’s always these classic struggles of, “I want to be an artist versus a doctor, engineer or whatever.” I think it’s always steeped in the parents’ love for their child of, “All I want is the best for you. I came to this country to make your life easier.” Meenu saying things like, “This could just be easier if you married men or had a husband or whatever.” I think that all just comes from definitely that immigrant parent perspective.

I know with my dad… I don’t actually know if he actually said this but he definitely meant it, “It would maybe be easier.” It’s hard to be gay in America and life is more difficult for you. Things will be more difficult for you. I just remember him saying, “This is my life. This is just who I am and that’s what it is.” I think it comes back to not necessarily hatred or anything like an ignorance of who you are. It is more like, “All I want is the best for you.” So, I definitely do feel like that rings true, but not necessarily in the queer sense too. Even her as an artist, I’m sure Meenu… I don’t think they explored this in the movie as much. But I’m sure she’s like, “Oh no, she does a little photography stuff,” like not saying it’s like a real career and things like that. I think that stuff is still very true today.

Aditya: As both of us being artists who went to good schools and studied not art. I actually have a corporate job, but you know, I could have easily just gone down the corporate path that all of our college friends went down. There’s definitely something that resonated with me in the way her sister and her mom are like, “Oh, just the pictures that she takes.” The kind of hobby-ish way that they describe what she is super passionate about. I think my parents are kind of fully on board now after a couple years, and not that they were ever trying to stop me. I work at Capital One. They were like “You can just keep working at Capital One and keep making movies. You like what you’re doing now. It’s a good balance.” I’m like, “No, I want to quit and do other stuff.” It’s really hard to do the thing full time.

Rita: For sure. I think it’s funny because for me, I felt like when I decided to pursue acting full-time, I felt like I almost had to come out to my parents. It was like, “An actor too?” I came out to my dad as an actor before I came out to him that I am gay. I was like, “These are baby steps.” I always like to relate the way that I did those things with my parents to like, Hasan [Minhaj] has a bit in his Netflix special. I can’t remember the name of it now but you’re playing cards with your family and you are like, “Okay, I’m gonna deal this card now. I’m an artist, let’s see how that works. Play it out for a couple years. Now I’m gay. How does that work? Don’t do it all at the same time.”

I definitely feel like I did that with my family, too. It’s funny because when I tell my dad about auditions that I get or anything like that I can see him trying to get it. He still calls them

interviews because he’s like, “I’m gonna try to make this as professional as I can. How are your interviews doing?” I’m like, “Oh, you mean like my audition?” Yeah, it’s kind of funny.

Aditya: You also had a corporate job right out of college before you decided to go fully into acting? How did that kind of thought around playing that first card drive your decision-making when you decided to move to New York and be an actor?

Rita: Yeah, I mean, I think my parents’ practicality, that immigrant practicality is definitely steeped in my blood. It’s when I had like a nine to five normal job, I worked at a startup. Then, I started acting more on the side. Then when I decided to do it full time, I very much was like, “Okay, I need to make sure I have all my ducks in a row. How much savings do I have? What is my plan? I’m going to be a freelancer — I need to make sure I have clients booked up so I can still work.”

I remember when I told my parents that I am moving to New York to do acting. I had a whole two years of where I was planting the seed in their mind. So while I had my corporate job, I’d be like, “Oh, I’m taking acting classes after work. I love it so much. It is great.” They’re like, “I’m so happy you’re doing something that makes you happy.” Then after a year I would be like, “Oh, by the way, I just got booked on this commercial job. They’re flying me out to go shoot.” They’re like, “Oh, okay, like you’re really doing this thing.”

Aditya: Could you take time off of work?

Rita: Yeah. I would slowly introduce it to them to the point when I decided to move to New York, they got it. They understood and were like, “Okay, this is feasible, she knows what she’s doing and we’ll figure it out.” I was doing freelancing for about three years. With the whole quarantine and Corona and everything, my clients started to leave me. So I was like, “Alright, let me actually be stable.” That’s so important for creativity too. Honestly, something that I’ve learned as an artist is having that financial stability. Stability is really important for me and my creativity. I would probably like to piggyback off your parents and say like, “Aditya, keep your Capital One job and just make movies on the side until you absolutely can’t.” I got a remote job, which is honestly perfect for still pursuing this acting and comedy stuff.

Aditya: I kind of have the same thought when people ask how I do Capital One. I say, “If you’re hustling all the time, it makes it actually pretty hard to do your artist stuff.” We have so many friends, I’m sure you do too, in the city where they work really flexible jobs. They can go on acting auditions, they can write and they can spend their days however they want to spend them. But those jobs don’t provide the level of stability that you need.

In a situation like this, it becomes really hard to make it in New York. Always being stressed about that stuff I think can take a toll on your creativity, as you just said. Having this super safe, stable, and also interesting and fulfilling job, I think there’s a clear path to what life will look like if I just stay on that. It’s a path I don’t hate. But also knowing that it gives me the freedom to come home at six and be like, “Alright, put it away. I don’t have to worry about how I am going to eat or pay rent. I can just worry about film, music, podcast, whatever,” is super helpful.

Rita: I definitely felt that way. That’s something that I’ve learned because when I first started freelancing I very much was like, “I can control my time. I control my money. I’m going to auditions or sets whenever I want.” But also controlling your time and money means that you also may not make a lot of money. That’s just something that I’ve learned and realized that doesn’t always fit in for me personally. Some people are really great at it and it’s awesome, but I’m not one of those people.

Aditya: I am 26 next year and if I end up leaving my job at some point next year, I’m gonna have to figure out my own insurance. I’m like, “Alright, if I end up becoming a writer full time, when is the moment that I join the WGA and then quit my job so I always have health insurance?” It’s those things that, like you said, are just really steeped in the way that our parents probably thought very similarly when they moved to the U.S. and were trying to plan out their future. Which is a much bigger job, frankly, than moving to New York to be an actor or a writer. My parents moved from Bombay to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. That must have been a lot. Bringing it back to the movie a little bit, the most nineties thing about it to me is that Reena can just live in her apartment and I don’t know how she makes money? I have no clue. I have no idea.

Rita: I don’t know. Was it that salon? I was curious about that, too. I was like, “Is this salon thing that you work at?” I couldn’t tell if it was an art gallery also where she put her photos up? I feel like that is also just like New York. People just make money somehow and you don’t always question it. You’re like, “They probably are doing something.” I don’t know.

Aditya: What are some other things about the movie that you found really compelling or really resonated?

Rita: Something that was really interesting and kind of different in the queer perspective to was that it kind of explores this topic of natural birth and biological child birthing. I don’t know if we’ve really talked about the plotline of the movie. People are probably like, “What is this movie about?” In the movie, Reena ends up being a surrogate for her sister and her husband. Obviously, which also feels taboo in the South Asian sense, as well. I just felt like that was really interesting too. I feel like a lot of queer movies don’t always talk about that biological childbirth thing because they make a lot of comments of like, “Oh, my lesbian sister’s having my baby” and stuff like that. I felt like that whole thing was just so interesting. Reena is depicted as this person of like — she is not the perfect Indian daughter and like her sister, Sarita…

Aditya: I think Sarita, yeah. The names are very close to yours and to each other.

Rita: Yeah, I know, Reena and Rita. [Sarita’s] like the perfect one. So I do love that Reena can do the one thing that Sarita can’t, which is obviously really heartbreaking too. I thought that the whole aspect was really interesting. I don’t feel like it’s talked about in a lot of queer cinema. I don’t know, I’m not an expert in cinema. I just like if there is something gay that comes on Netflix, I will try to watch it.

Aditya: I’m totally with you there. I mean, there’s that line you called out, is really notable because I think it speaks to this kind of feeling from the mom and the sister that underpins this whole movie. Reena’s ability to have a kid is wasted on her, which feels really upsetting and nefarious. But I think that’s what drives Reena ultimately to be like, “No, I can do this for my sister.” But what about this particular portrayal of it was interesting to you?

Rita: Just the fact that I haven’t seen it before, which is not very poignant I guess. We talked about how representation is so important, because it helps us see ourselves and what our futures could look like. As someone who is in a long term relationship, I mean, we’re not going to be having kids anytime soon. But definitely down the line, just to see how this South Asian woman and her white girlfriend are dealing with this. It’s a very obviously different situation that they’re having a child in. It’s just interesting to see that. Not that I feel like I’d ever had a surrogate for my brother and his wife, but it just makes me think like, “Oh, like, it’s really cool to see this South Asian woman be pregnant because that could be me potentially.” I think it was just simply the fact that it’s just represented on the screen. I was like, “This is cool.”

Aditya: You mentioned Kelly, and the fact that you’re in an interracial queer relationship. This is obviously a very central part of the story. I felt it was a refreshing take on an interracial relationship for me because I thought that both moms were pretty accepting of the other people. For me, it was less about her not being Indian and more just about the fact that she’s a woman and that whole thing is kind of weird. But then the white mom is super supportive and is like, “You got to get Reena back.” I felt like that was also pretty unique just you know, regardless of queer cinema, just for cinema on interracial relationships. The other day I talked about Get Out which is like the polar opposite of this, obviously, but it’s nice to see a movie like that.

Rita: Right? I think this goes back to what we’re talking about in the beginning where when we see an interracial relationship like The Big Sick for example, it’s all about the other culture. You know what I mean? Whereas like, they just like happen to be an interracial relationship. They don’t need to talk about it. Her girlfriend isn’t like… I’m so bad at names. I don’t remember what the girlfriend’s name is… Lisa? Lisa wasn’t just like, “I don’t understand your culture. Explain it to me. Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?” They just happen to be together and they come from different cultures.

That’s kind of what I love about, even just like the queerness of the movie, it’s like Reena just happens to be a lesbian. It’s not overtly about it. This is what I want queer film and TV to be like going forward. The storyline isn’t about them being gay or lesbian. They just happened to be it, like a gay superhero. It’s not about them being gay but they just are a superhero that happens to be gay. That’s what I want for film and TV going forward. But this movie was made in 1999. I love that.

Aditya: The tough thing is, the film was made in 1999 and we haven’t really seen another film like this in the time since. Even Nisha Ganatra has gotten a bunch of stuff, directed a bunch of TV shows, and just had another movie come out, but they have lately tended to be more studio formulaic movies. I’m wondering if she’s gonna get back to telling stories like this. But I do think the reception that this got was pretty warm. But it didn’t make a ton of money and launch a ton of careers.

To me, it hasn’t changed all that much in the sense that people are still looking. I don’t know if you’ve seen this when you pitch things to people or when you’re trying to get things made. People are still looking for a little bit more of that culturally based drama. You’ve read Up North. Up North, which is a script that we’ve written, is really centered around familial drama that just happens to be an Indian family and it’s informed by their Indian experiences. A lot of people who have really liked it have been like, “I’m not sure that the story sells” because the Indian aspect of the drama isn’t fully there. It’s just like a family drama. I think people expect different things from a movie like this.

Rita: Yeah, you make a good point. Like, I don’t know why we haven’t seen it. It’s so cool that it would happen in 1999. I don’t know if it’s like me, just not being educated about these movies. I didn’t know about this movie until two years ago. I feel like these exist, but you kind of have to seek it out.

Aditya: I do feel like we’re getting to a place where these movies will start to be elevated. Maybe it’s just that people are open to having these conversations now. Or that indie movies with Netflix and things are a lot more accessible. You talk about you want a queer movie to be in the future. How in the movies that you’re writing and the shorts that you’re writing does your queerness play into those movies? Is it like this or is it a bit more explicit?

Rita: Honestly, it’s exactly like what Nisha Ganatra did. I’m just like, “I don’t need to do this if she’s going to be Kiba.” If she keeps doing this, I would absolutely love it. I think we both are artists, because we want to see more of ourselves, right? You just want to write just a family drama. They just happened to be Indian. That’s all it is, I assume. I just want to be an actor who plays different characters but I don’t necessarily want it to be about me being South Asian or being queer. I just want those things to just come out naturally. We see Reena’s culture and we see the Indianness with her doing henna. We see it with the reception, the clothing they wear and the food they’re eating, but it’s not about them being Indian, you know? It kind of just infuses it in the storyline.

Aditya: Yeah, definitely. You’re primarily an actor, but you’re also writing and you do stand up comedy. Nisha Ganatra is not an actress, but acted in this movie. I read somewhere it was out of necessity, both out of budget and just an ability to find other queer Indian actresses.

Rita: Yeah, I actually just read about that too, because I was like, “Oh, I’m just curious to know more about the reception to this film when it first came out.” She actually had another South Asian actress lined up. Apparently, that actress pulled out at the last minute because her family was not feeling great about all the queerness of it. The queer undertones. Which, quick note about that, I also loved that the sex scene was very tasteful. I don’t even want to call it a sex scene. It’s just like a nice romantic scene. It was such a tasteful PG-13 scene. I was like, “This is the kind of movie I can watch with my family and not feel uncomfortable about it.” Then I think the actress who plays Lisa was like, “Nisha, you should just play this. We have great chemistry. You should do it.” It was awesome.

Aditya: How do you think about writing about your own experience and then playing a character that’s based on you or based on things that you’ve experienced?

Rita: I am writing and producing a short film with one of my friends. It’s been a year and a half process for us. Corona shut things down a little bit or put things on pause. Initially, I wanted to do a mother-daughter story about a queer daughter and her religious mother, which is very similar to my life. My mom is very religious. Actually, the first draft of it was actually a drama. My friend is a comedy writer. I’m a comedic actor and it was first a drama. We were both like, “This kind of feels one weird for us. We’re out of our elements.”

Personally for me, thinking about playing that, it almost just felt too real. I just personally wasn’t at a place where I don’t think I can act this out. I feel like I’m dealing with this too much in my own personal life. I need to get into a different world. It eventually evolved into more like a comedic magical realism short film, it’s still kind of TBD. I don’t really want to give a synopsis because it’s probably going to change, but it is about a queer daughter and her relationship with her mother. I’m more excited about it now. It’s not exactly about my personal life, but there are elements of my life that for sure will filter into the story.

Aditya: I feel like as someone who also writes obviously from personal experience, it just makes it a little easier to build a cohesive and strong story around if you’re writing yourself. First of all, you get too attached to the character. It always hits too close to home. Like you said, I think the interesting thing about writing for yourself is we have to write for ourselves because nobody else

is writing for us. That’s something that has been pounded into me in every conversation I’ve had about filmmaking since I graduated college. But there is definitely a line where we are still trying to tell different kinds of stories and it’s hard not to draw entirely on our personal lives.

I think Chutney Popcorn is a great example of there being so many elements of this that are so obviously personal to her. I’m pretty sure now at least… She just had a kid a year or two ago with her I think life partner, and she’s obviously queer. She obviously has an Indian family. I think all of these things except maybe surrogating her sister’s baby, are really drawn to the experience. I think that detachment allows the movie to be more effective rather than it being her story of living and coming out and things like that.

Rita: The story is interesting, you know what I mean? It’s weird, you don’t hear about this stuff in real life. It’s more like engaging because real life may not necessarily be like that. We didn’t talk about the plotline. I don’t know how much we want to give away, but whatever. We see later on her sister eventually leaving her husband and not wanting to have the baby so then Reena now is like, “Oh, this baby is mine and it is also my brother.”

Aditya: Yeah, it’s super bizarre.

Rita: It makes a really weird turn in this very bizarre way, which when I first watched the movie it didn’t sit well with me. I was like, “I don’t know how much I like this. This feels too bizarre.” But when I rewatched it I was like, “Oh, this is just bizarre and interesting and fun.”

Aditya: We’ve talked a lot about the themes of the movie that really sat well with us. I think that there are definitely things that haven’t aged well. It’s a critical conversation about the movie. For me, actually, I think I like the mixed family of it all. There’s that scene at the very end of the movie where they do the puja and Meenu, the mom, is like “Dad, Mom, I’m not sure everyone just get in the picture and the puja. I’m not sure who to do the arti to. But I do think it skirts over that drama a bit too much for me. I don’t know about how you feel about it. I feel like there were too many montages that screwed over things that I really would find interesting.

Rita: There’s too many of her in a motorcycle drive down the street. You’re like, “Okay, yeah, you’re driving your motorcycle again.” I think I definitely felt that the first time I was like, “I want to understand this a little bit more like what happens.” I did read an article about how that was like a big criticism of the movie, how it’s very ambiguous and not resolved. Nisha Ganatra did say that’s very purposeful. I like things buttoned up, tied and just give it to me, but that’s my personal preference when I consume things. I wouldn’t say it didn’t age well but it just fits a little bit weirdly with me because I’m just like, “I want to know what happens. Do they end up back together? Do they not? Do you keep this baby?”

Aditya: Who raises it? I still don’t know what you do? How are you raising it?

Rita: Yeah, how are you raising it? Does your girlfriend stay with you? If Kelly all of a sudden was like, “Oh, I’m gonna be a surrogate for my brother’s baby,” I’d be like, “What?” And then all of a sudden she’s like, “Okay, this baby is ours now,” and I’m like, “Hi, well, I did not sign up for this. What is this?”

Aditya: Yeah, the movie skips over that drama a little bit. I think you definitely get that lived-in experience but I think maybe at the expense of some of the drama. Maybe out of a desire, to what we were talking about earlier, to not make it… Movies about minorities and about queer people are always about the dramatics of their life and less about the carefree existence that you have sometimes as a person like that. Enjoying who you are and loving who you are. This movie does a great job of that part but maybe at the expense of some of the drama and that would have made it maybe have a longer lasting legacy.

Rita: In terms of things that didn’t age well, I was trying to think of other parts. Maybe this is different because it was back in the ’90s. The scene where the family friend comes over and is like, “Want to have a threesome?” and all that. But I mean, those are also real things that stupid people have said to me before and in relationships and it’s that kind of stuff. It is annoying. Mitch, the white husband/brother-in-law also says things that are questionable. I don’t know if they didn’t age well but they’re just like, eyeroll. I would be curious to know if this movie were to be remade in 2020, what some of those characters would look like.

Aditya: You know, the thing where the guy comes over and is first trying to get set up with Lisa, and then is like, “Well, we could all…” I think it’s reflective of the way that people think about queerness, especially in relation to women and especially in relation to South Asian women. It is generally a bit more fleeting and hand wavy than in many other subcultures.

Rita: I came out to my mom first and I’m definitely sure she was like, “Oh, this is probably just a phase.” Then a few years later when I was like, “Oh, I have another girlfriend or you know, a new girlfriend,” She’d be like, “Oh, wow, okay, this is still happening. This isn’t a phase.” I do feel like this is something that’s definitely still resonant and relevant.

Aditya: Maybe it’s just my ignorance, but I feel like we get a lot of gay male movies, but not a lot of movies about lesbians. Lesbian cinema is pretty limited. The only movie I can think of getting a big play in the last few years was Carol.

Rita: I feel like it’s starting to make a comeback. Portrait of a Lady on Fire came out this past year or so. That is a big thing with queer representation. A lot of it is not just gay men, but white gay men, you know? I think with any underrepresented group that it’s always usually if it’s not white, that they’re the first people to tell the story. If they’re not white, then it’s men.

We even see that with South Asian culture.We see Hasan [Minhaj] and Kumail [Nanjiani]. We really just have… Mindy [Kaling]? There’s obviously a lot more that we know, but it’s a lot of the men that are shown. Their stories are generally shown first. Definitely being a queer Asian woman, you definitely don’t see a lot of stories. They’re not going to be the highlight and then slowly that starts to pass along to the other parts of that minority community.

Aditya: I think that’s super true, Rita. The thing that’s interesting about this movie, I think especially in comparison to some of the other movies that we talked about in this podcast, even though it was kind of a landmark representation, the first movie with a queer, Indian American woman protagonist. It’s been 20 years and we haven’t really seen anything like that. It’s almost as if the lasting legacy is just that it was one in a sea of many movies that didn’t really come after it. Why do you think that is? What do you think that says about the lasting legacy of this movie?

Rita: I think in the most simplest terms, especially for queer South Asian women, the lasting legacy of the movie is that it just simply exists, right? I can count on my hand the number of queer South Asian movies that have come out in the past 20 years and Chutney Popcorn is almost always on the top of that list two decades later. There almost seems as though there’s been this lack of a lasting legacy. I don’t think that’s anything wrong with the film per se. I feel there’s a lot of external reasons with Hollywood and society, it’s a combination of all of that. I can say that, even though it hasn’t maybe spurred a lot of other queer South Asian content, maybe it has for the few that have existed.

I think that because I can watch this movie 19 years after it was made and it very much encapsulates all the emotions and feelings that I have with my own relationships with my own mom, my sibling, my brother, my girlfriend. I think that it can encapsulate all that means a lot. I think that is that lasting legacy. Before I watched the movie, I had all these internalized emotions of what it was like being gay, and how that affected all my relationships with my family. I felt like this was something that was a rarity. I was going out on my own, it was something that other people didn’t get, feel or whatever. When I watched the movie, I saw the shit that I was feeling played out on screen. I think that ultimately, that is the lasting legacy of this film. Nisha Ganatra explores these relationships and all of these things, and it’s still completely relevant and alive two decades later.

Aditya: Yeah, that makes sense. It speaks to this idea that it doesn’t necessarily have to be a wave of movies that come as a result of something in order for it to have a legacy and to be impactful. It’s the only movie in the last 20 years that represents your experience kind of in totality. That is enough of a legacy as you start to create, build your own body of work and your

own personal contributions to queer South Asian cannon. What do you think that you have taken away from this movie, or the impact of this movie’s themes and success and everything has been on your work as you start to delve into writing your own stuff and creating your own kind of stories of the world?

Rita: I think the way that Nisha Ganatra tells a story, she explores a lot of serious issues but in a lighthearted way. I think for me watching the movie, it almost gave me permission to tell the stories I want to tell in the way I want to tell them. For me with my artistry, I really like talking about serious issues in a comedic way. That’s obviously one of the reasons why I really enjoy stand-up because humor is a great way to talk to people about serious stuff. From sexuality to… I’m trying to think of what other bits I used to do… colonization, immigration, things like that. Especially some of these topics that are difficult and misrepresented. I think that she’s really reinforced that way of storytelling for me.

Aditya: Not every story about the queer experience has to be as dark as Moonlight.

Rita: Yeah, exactly. She deals with serious things. A traditional Indian mother who disapproves of her daughter’s lesbianism or whatever. That’s obviously a very serious issue. But you know, it’s not an hour long ABC drama. There’s still a lot of humor between them. I think we talked about this earlier. There was that moment when they’re on the bench. They’re talking about their grandmother being a lesbian and the two of them are laughing about it. That’s great.

Aditya: Thank you so much for being here.

Rita: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Aditya: You have been listening to Token Theatre, a podcast about representation on film. We are proud to be part of MediaversityReviews.com, a website dedicated to film criticism that takes diversity into account. Today’s guest was actor, comedian and writer Rita Sengupta. You can find her on Instagram (@ritasengupta). My name is Aditya Joshi (@aditya.mov) on Instagram. Our producer is Amanda Llewellyn and we watched and talked about Chutney Popcorn by Nisha Ganatra. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you guys next week.

Mediaversity Reviews is a project that grades TV & films on gender, race, LGBTQ, disability, and more. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to join the conversation!