Queer Visibility in Mainstream Nepali Cinema: Between Stagnation and Progress

Abstract

Despite Nepal’s international recognition for advancing the rights of sexual and gender minorities, the relationship between queer visibility and cinematic representation in mainstream Nepali cinema remains insufficiently explored. This article focuses on commercially oriented films produced within Nepal’s domestic film industry and examines representations of queer and gender-nonconforming identities from the early 2000s to the present. Drawing on Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity and José Esteban Muñoz’s work on queer visibility, dominant publicity, and disidentification, the analysis considers films featuring cross-dressing characters, trans women, third-gender protagonists, hijra communities, and same-sex relationships. The findings indicate that queer representation in mainstream Nepali cinema has been shaped by both progress and stagnation. Although queer visibility has increased over time, these representations are frequently framed through humour, pity, melodrama, violence, and spectacle. Rather than indicating a linear progression toward inclusion, mainstream films often perpetuate familiar stereotypes and commercial conventions that limit queer subjectivity. The article argues that mainstream Nepali cinema reveals a movement from invisibility to stereotyped visibility, in which queer identities become increasingly present on screen while remaining constrained by dominant representational frameworks. By interrogating the relationship between visibility, representation, and social change, this study contributes to the limited scholarship on Nepali cinema and queer screen cultures in South Asia.