Unicorns is a love story from Sally El Hosaini, an Egyptian-Welsh filmmaker from Swansea, and co-director James Krishna Floyd. It is among recent movies like Joyland and upcoming documentary India’s 1st Best Trans Model Agency, as queer South Asian stories on the big screen. Unicorns and India’s 1st Best were both created by Welsh talent.
In Unicorns, lead characters Luke (Ben Hardy) and Aysha (Jason Patel), a mechanic and a drag queen respectively, couldn’t be more different. Yet together they both find some liberation from their community’s toxic masculine expectations. The film highlights the ever-present gender and sexual fluidity in South Asian culture through Aysha’s character. Aysha’s gender fluidity is clear without her ever needing to label or explain her gender, even in answer to Luke’s question, “What are you?”
Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna worked with Asifa Lahore on the film. As the ‘UK’s first Muslim drag queen,’ Asifa was an inspiration for elements of the story.
Asifa has publicly spoken about some of the struggles she has faced as such a visible queer Muslim figure, including receiving acid attack threats. Cardiff-based drag artist and author Aida H Dee has also recently received similar threats in a worrying trend. After Aysha shows Luke the real-life inspired abusive texts and emails she receives, his eyes open to his own violent upbringing. It reminded me of stories from gender non-conforming friends about the struggles of loving cis men stuck between upholding their oppressive conditioning and breaking free from it. The Netflix movie ‘Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui’ and the BBC series ‘Pose’ tell similar stories except featuring trans women with their cis male love interests rather than a gender ambiguous drag queen.
The real-life inspiration is why, despite Unicorns showing us the ‘Gaysian’ scene through Luke’s eyes, there are plenty of moments just for the queer South Asian viewer to appreciate. My personal favourite Easter eggs were the Princess Diana references: South Asians and the Welsh love our Lady Di!
The Mujras Aysha performs in are also a nod to South Asian queer heritage. Mujras were performed by skilled courtesans or dancers for wealthy patrons. Despite the British criminalising and destroying this art form during its occupation of India, it lives on through the gender non-conforming community in South Asia and her diaspora.
Bollywood is the artistic muse of many gaysians, the community which Unicorns is dedicated to. Ironically, a lot of mainstream Indian music and dance can find its roots to South Asia’s contemporary and historical queer community. Aysha’s performance sequences share aesthetics with Bollywood item numbers, like the costumes and dance moves. Rightly so, as an audience raised on Bollywood cannot be satisfied without some sparkling, colourful outfits and jewellery!
For a Welsh South Asian audience, Unicorns increases the already growing appetite for our stories to be told on screen. We are shown Aysha’s life as a new, exciting adventure. However, to some of us Aysha’s world is already very familiar and we crave more than an introduction. For instance, we see Aysha pray alone for her own faith as well as with her family. These powerful scenes are rare for the big screen but show what we already know very well: that being queer and being a Muslim aren’t two separate things.
It is refreshing to see a family that is neither unconditionally accepting nor irredeemably awful but somewhere else entirely: loving and caring in every way they understand, but not in the way Aysha needs. This is a more realistic representation than the extremes.
Complex and emotionally gut-wrenching relationships with mothers are common in the queer South Asian community. The scenes of Aysha doing her mother’s kohl, listening to music together and watching Bollywood films could be a movie in and of itself. Aysha’s friends reminded me of the bold, ‘out there’ gaysians who show baby queers, just by existing, that living as our authentic selves and being loved by a community is possible. A movie which starts so many conversations made by a successful Welsh director brings with it an excitement that more works that delve deeper into such relationships will follow.
Unfortunately, our representation often falls far too short from the stunning and infinite variety we exist in. As our society battles against increasing Islamophobia and queerphobic violence, the need for good representation and participation in the arts also increases
Unicorns will be in UK cinemas from the 5th July 2024.
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About the writer: Aiman Rahim, (she/they) is a Pakistani writer, performer and community organiser based in Cardiff.
This article was commissioned by Film Hub Wales as part of our Made in Wales strategy, which celebrates films with Welsh connections, thanks to funding from Creative Wales and the National Lottery via the BFI.
