Badhaai Do starring Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar is undoubtedly one of the most awaited movies of 2022. Ever since Badhaai Ho received immense love from the audience, people have been waiting to see what the makers come up with next. Sharing the silver screen space for the first time, Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar will be seen portraying a couple stuck in a lavender marriage.

As made clear by the trailer, a lavender marriage is a setup where opposite-sex homosexuals end up marrying each other. In such setups, a man and a woman enter a marriage of convenience to conceal the real sexual orientation of either one or both partners.

YouTube

Needless to say, the practice of lavender marriage is a result of society’s stigmatization of same-sex relationships. Since same-sex relationships only recently became legal in India, this has become a common practice that people indulge in, out of fear of society’s judgement and/or ridicule. 

Pixabay

The term lavender marriage was widely used back in the 1930s when people were too scared to come out of the closet, often because the result of doing so, was public persecution. 

Pixabay

Earlier, lavender marriages were apparently used to ‘preserve’ the public image of a celebrity. In 1920, a number of closeted Hollywood actors allegedly contracted marriages of convenience to protect their public reputations and their careers.

BBC

Even today, India does not accept same-sex marriages and though Article 377 has been scrapped, society, at large, has still not accepted the LGBTQ+ community and their relationships without judgement. And unfortunately, lavender marriages continue to be a sad reality of our society.

Pixabay

We are glad that the tinsel town is finally talking about issues that matter!