4 gay & transgender Msian movies Buzz Lightyear can take notes from to get approved

Guess what guys: we won’t be going to infinity and beyond.

In case you haven’t heard, the animated film Lightyear – a prequel to Toy Story – has been canceled from being shown in Malaysia. No official reason was given but it’s speculated that it’s due to a kiss between a same-sex couple in the movie. Disney is refusing to cut the scene, but we think there’s a way they can bend things to get the movie approved in Malaysia.

Previously, LGBTQ characters weren’t even allowed to be shown on screen – but a change in rules does allow them albeit with some requirements: As long as there’s a cautionary outcome for their lifestyle where bad things happen to them or they repent, then it’s a-ok.

For this article, we’ll be focusing on mainstream films and TV shows – ones that you probably would have seen or at least heard about, so apologies to the smaller indie shows that didn’t make the cut. SPOILER ALERT: We’ll be talking about the endings of these shows, so keep this in mind in case you plan on watching them.

So first up, we’ll go with the first outcome they’re allowed in order to get screentime, which is:

 

1. Taubat – they prayed the gay away

It’s okay to be gay… if you repent and change your ways. This is the common moral lesson required in these types of movies. It will usually involve the taboo character enjoying their immoral, hedonistic life; something bad happens to them related to their lifestyle; and then either they find the light of god, a loved one helps them, or an ustaz monologues enough for them to reflect, or a mixture of all the above.

This is what happened in the 2022 TV3 drama Suamiku Lelaki Pendosa, adapted from the bestselling Malay novel Imamku Lelaki Pendosa. In this story, the main character Dean Ilyas, who seems perfect in all aspects, is actually *gasp* gay and is in a secret relationship with his ‘best friend’ Izfairin. He ends up getting married to Cahaya, in part forced by his family to cover the fact that he’s gay, and after revealing his dirty secret to her tries to change his ways with the help of his wife.

Of course, they need to show that being gay is bad for you. After a video of him having sex with a man was leaked online, Dean ended up losing his job and ostracized by everyone except his loving wife Cahaya. In the end, Dean finally leaves his sinful past behind and commits to his wife, and dumps his ‘best friend’ who is distraught – because if you decide to stay gay you will be unhappy. Dean even has a baby in the end with Cahaya to further show he has now bertaubat and is now ‘straight’. Also cue an inner monologue scene where he reminds himself about the traditional male gender role before the credit rolls to reinforce the show’s message.

 

2. Regret – they end up being really unhappy

Not everyone who is sesat will end up on the straight and narrow, so if you can’t, well, a lifetime of emotional suffering is for you my friend – at least, that is what is allowed in our movies.

This is the fate of the characters in the movie Dalam Botol (originally titled Anu Dalam Botol) released in 2011 and is Malaysia’s first gay movie. Rubidin and Ghaus are a gay couple in love with each other. While playing at the beach topless and making sand boobies on Rubidin during a nighttime beach campout, Ghaus said, “Kalau you perempuan, best lah”, and said he’s calling him Ruby now.

Because Rubidin thinks that being a woman will make Ghaus happy, he undergoes a gender reassignment surgery. Surprise, surprise – turns out this isn’t what Ghaus wanted (because urgh men, they never know what they want 🙄) and couldn’t accept Ruby as a woman now and breaks up with her. After that, Ruby’s testosterone started amping up somehow and he decided to turn back to Rubidin. He then marries a nice girl in his kampung, but is filled with regret because his anu is now in a bottle so no hanky panky fun.

There’s a scene where Ghaus goes to the kampung during Rubidin’s wedding day and showing something in a basket to Rubidin’s mom. They didn’t show the content, but we’re gonna speculate that it’s Rubidin’s dismembered member causing Rubidin’s mom to break down.

According to the director, this movie is based on a real story, and at the end there’s a quote from the real person about their regret. So there’s a mix of taubat in this ending, but basically the message is once you undergo gender-reassignment surgery, you’re going to regret it.

 

3. UNO reverse – they could have been the opposite gender in the first place

This one is less of their fate for choosing to be one of the LGBTQs. Rather, it’s about them being fated to be that way which makes it somewhat okay to our censorship board.

In Waris Jari Hantu, a 2007 mystical horror film, Tok Wan Rimau, a lady bomoh wants to pass down her tiger saka which is controlled by a ring on her jari hantu (middle finger). In case you don’t know, a saka is a spirit that’s bonded to the owner as some sort of supernatural all-in-one butler/jaga/bodyguard that can do magic things, and is usually passed down to the next kin.

Enter her two grandchildren Ari, who’s an effeminate man, and his cousin Tina, who is in love with him and wants to marry him. Cousins in love is sorta taboo, but the movie seems okay with the fact probably because straight cousins in love > man turning into woman.

Ari offered to be the heir instead of Tina, the next one in line but was turned down because Tok Wan only wants to pass it down to female heirs because to paraphrase her dialogue, “women stay at home while men go and seek fortune”.

Ari and Tina both move to the city, where Ari starts to embrace his identity and starts presenting as a woman. When she returns to the kampung, she was ridiculed but finds out that she was born intersex (born with a penis and vagina) so she could have been a woman since birth. Wanting to be legally recognised as a woman, she goes to Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara but they declined her request to change the gender on her IC so she just gives up and reluctantly accepts being a man.

That might sound straightforward but the rest of the movie is actually quite bizarre, so skip the next paragraph unless you’re a masochist.

Towards the end Ari was attacked and was heavily injured by some gangster loan sharks because his fellow transgender friend borrowed money from them. To heal him, Tok Wan goes through a ritual where she becomes one with the tiger saka and licks his wounds. Somehow that saps Tok Wan’s powers so now she’s an invalid. In the end, it wasn’t made clear who ended up inheriting the saka, but the cousins decide to part ways, with Tina getting the ring but Ari’s eyes can turn tiger-like rawrrr.

We’re not sure if the movie implies that bad things happen to him because he was trying to be a woman, but he does eventually settle on being a man due to bureaucratic roadblocks. There’s also that extra caveat where his journey is actually okay because he could have been either gender anyway.

We know the summary is confusing BUT THE MOVIE IS EVEN MORE CONFUSING WHAT DID WE JUST WATCH.

 

4. Plot twist – they aren’t real

We’ve seen a few fates of those from the LGBTQ community onscreen, and how certain moralistic outcomes need to happen to them for it to be approved for the screen. Interestingly, this could be the one time when nothing bad happens to them.

This is what happened in the movie Spilt Gravy / Ke Mana Tumpahnya Kuah, which debuted recently on 9 June 2022 and was adapted from the late playwright Jit Murad’s play, Spilt Gravy on Rice.

We’re not gonna give too many spoilers cause this is a new movie – but a simple summary is: A father wants to have a last dinner with his five children after angels of death appear and inform him that his time is near. Not all of his children made it there in time, and two of his sons – one gay, the other a no-good drug dealer – went on a drug-fueled party in the city, where they watched an extremely fabulous drag show with drag queens doing their thing.

Nothing bad actually happened to the gay and transgender characters in the movie – unless you count the gay son missing a last meal with his father as a bad fate. After the drag show, the performers weren’t shown to suffer from their deeds either which is probably a first of the many movies we went through.

But there’s a reason why it passed the censors. If you stay past the post-credits scene, you’ll see a scene implying that MAYBE none of this was real. So the drag show never happened and his son probably wasn’t gay – all of this was just the father’s imagination or possibly hidden fears.

This movie actually went through censorship hell – where it was rejected multiple times since it was first completed in 2012, and only received approval in 2020. And then the pandemic happened, delaying the release, so after 10 years, this movie will finally debut in our cinemas.

We managed to catch the media preview for Spilt Gravy, and despite being 10 years old, the movie is pretty darn daring in what they’re doing, especially in terms of characterisations on screen.

 

Reality – it’s different than the movies

Situations where people from the LGBTQ community regret their choices – such as participating in their lifestyle or undergoing gender reassignment surgery – aren’t always the case in real life. According to activist Pang Khee Theik in reference to the movie Dalam Botol,  “Many of us… have absolutely no regrets being who we are”.

So even though there isn’t any fully fair mainstream representation of them on Malaysian screens, there is at least some inclusion of them in our stories. There is still a taboo in our society depicting them as there are fears it will encourage the LGBTQ lifestyle, so we’ll have to see if the LPF are willing to bend their ways further to tell a different story about this community in the future.