In the beginning of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” we witness Freddie Mercury celebrating his birthday.
As his then-serious girlfriend learns Freddie’s birth name for the first time, Rami Malek, who plays the late Queen frontman, sits at his parents’ dining-room table. His bandmates are also told that their lead vocalist was not born and bred in London.
Mercury, who suddenly begins serenading himself on piano and informing everyone of his new last name, nearly drowns out his parents’ quick and bullet-pointed corrections. His news perplexes and offends his father, who replies, “So now the family name is not good enough for you?”
Mercury’s ancestry and religious background are just two of the many (many) issues that the musical drama, which opened in theaters on Friday, addresses at a “multitasking” pace, according to Times film reviewer Justin Chang. Nonetheless, the biography leaves spectators eager to learn more about its subject, Farrokh Bulsara, who was born Farrokh Bulsara.
Critics have also pointed out how the film treats Mercury’s sexuality lightly, only implying relationships with males and paying very little screen time to his longstanding and final boyfriend, Jim Hutton.
According to Chang of the Times, “There is something woefully reductive, even pernicious, about the narrative shorthand used to elide Freddie’s sexual relationships with men: a glimpse of leather here, a truck-stop montage there.”
Malek himself responded to the controversy.
“He had a beautiful relationship with Jim Hutton, and there was a finite period in which we wanted to tell this story,” Malek recently told USA Today. “Believe me, there were discussions all over the place about how to incorporate more of that story into this film.”
“Freddie Mercury is a gay icon, and he’s an icon for everyone.” I hope people don’t think the video is a disservice to the community, and if I were making it, I would have included more.”
What about Mercury’s ethnicity and religion? Where did this mysterious artist originate from? Who are his biological parents? And, as the aforementioned incident hints, did he alter his name because he was ashamed of his roots? While such aspects of his life are mainly absent from “Bohemian Rhapsody,” they are extensively covered in other biographies.
Mercury’s ethnicity has been hotly contested since his death from AIDS-related illnesses at the age of 45 in 1991. “Farrokh Bulsara was Freddie’s true name. “Whether it’s Persian, Indian, or British — everyone’s going to claim him,” Malek, an Egyptian-American first-generation American, recently told GQ Middle East.
However, the video plainly and concisely states that Freddie Mercury and his family identified as Indian Parsi. Bomi Bulsara (played in the film by Ace Bhatti), Freddie’s father, was born in British-ruled India. He and his seven brothers, like many other young men from western India’s Gujarat area, departed for the British colony of Zanzibar in quest of work.
He obtained work as a cashier for the British High Court, which frequently sent him back to India, where he met his wife, Jer (played by Meneka Das in the film).
Farrokh, their son, was born on September 5, 1946, in Zanzibar. He was transferred to St. Peter’s Church of England School, a prominent all-boys boarding school in Panchgani, India, after attending primary school in the vicinity. Though he was a great student and athlete, his grades dipped as his passion in music grew, and he chose to continue the remaining two years of his studies at the Roman Catholic St. Joseph’s Convent School in Zanzibar.
Farrokh, their son, was born on September 5, 1946, in Zanzibar. He was transferred to St. Peter’s Church of England School, a prominent all-boys boarding school in Panchgani, India, after attending primary school in the vicinity. Though he was a great student and athlete, his grades dipped as his passion in music grew, and he chose to continue the remaining two years of his studies at the Roman Catholic St. Joseph’s Convent School in Zanzibar.
Farrokh Bulsara gradually transformed into Freddie Mercury. His boarding-school professors and classmates nicknamed him Freddie, which his parents later embraced. In 1970, the fabled Mercury that the world has come to know began to take shape. Brian May, a member of Queen, has stated that it is connected to the words of their song “My Fairy King,” which mentions a “Mother Mercury” in the last seconds.
“He said, ‘I am going to become Mercury, as the mother in this song is my mother,'” May told Lesley-Ann Jones in her book “Mercury: An Intimate Biography of Freddie Mercury.” “And we were like, ‘Are you mad?'”
According to Mark Langthorne and Matt Richards’ book “Somebody to Love: The Life, Death, and Legacy of Freddie Mercury,” naming oneself Freddie Mercury was part of the process of developing an onstage character. “I think changing his name was part of him assuming this different skin,” May said. “I think it helped him be this person that he wanted to be, and the Bulsara person was still there, but for the public he was going to be this different character.”
Nonetheless, the film makes it clear that Freddie Mercury was more than simply a stage moniker. The denial of his familial surname might be called whitewashing, as part of his overall career plan.
Queen was created during a decade when “a rock star, by definition, was ideally American, and hailed from California (the Beach Boys), New York (Lou Reed), Florida (Jim Morrison), Mississippi (Elvis Presley), or Washington state (Jimi Hendrix),” Jones said in her biography.
“Liverpool was also cool, thanks to the Beatles, as was London, courtesy of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones,” Jones stated. “White Anglo-Saxon was the favorite, but black Americans were nearly as good.” It was typical for musicians back then to obscure the details of their backgrounds in order to provide beauty and mystery.”
Furthermore, Queen was formed two years after Conservative Party MP Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech, which inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment across the United Kingdom. This subtext is referenced in the film when other characters use the slur “Paki” to address Mercury.
Even though Mercury himself wasn’t formally religious, he was always fiercely protective of his parents and deeply respected that they adhered to the Parsi community’s Zoroastrian faith, which traces its roots back to ancient Persia.
At age 8, Mercury took part in a Navjote ceremony, the religion’s intricate coming-of-age ritual that is similar to Judaism’s bar and bat mitzvah traditions and Catholicism’s confirmation sacrament. Before he died, he left specific instructions for his funeral to keep with Parsi tradition and be officiated by two white-robed Parsi priests.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” touches on Mercury’s reverence for his parents’ beliefs by lifting a signature line — “good thoughts, good words, good deeds” — directly from the faith’s “Three Good Things” ethos, as stressed in the Avesta, the religion’s sacred text.
But the strict faith also condemns homosexuality, considering it a form of demon worship. Mercury’s decision to change his name might have been a way to distance himself from the guilt and shame associated with his sexuality.
Mercury’s choice to alter his name might have been a strategy for him to disassociate himself from the guilt and humiliation connected with his sexuality.
“Freddie had been far from being actively opposed to anyone’s religion or faith,” writes Peter Freestone, Mercury’s close friend and former assistant who assisted with the singer’s burial, in his book “Freddie Mercury: An Intimate Memoir by the Man Who Knew Him Best.” The trappings and hypocrisy inherent in the different ecclesiastical and institutional parts of organized religion disturbed him.”
In his book “Freddie Mercury: A Kind of Magic,” author Mark Blake quotes drummer Roger Taylor as saying, “Freddie talked to me about being a Parsee Indian and about his family.” But it was all extremely personal. The Parsee culture was totally different, and he felt he wasn’t a part of it. His mother was always lovely to him, but he could tell there was a huge difference in their lifestyles.”
We’ll never know why Mercury felt forced to leave Farrokh Bulsara behind because he never spoke to the public in great depth about his personal life, upbringing, or childhood.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” makes no attempt to solve the riddle. Already short, sanitized, and even slightly fictitious, the film reduces the singer’s ethnic and religious identities to a few asides in a single, quick scene. Even so, the conversation is interrupted by a loud birthday ballad Mercury performs while looking in the mirror.
Farrokh Bulsara was not “not good enough,” as his father asks in the film. But, like many people who grew up in different areas than their parents, it’s possible that the family name just didn’t feel like his.
Instead, he shifted the spotlight on Freddie Mercury: the captivating performer, vocal acrobat, and innovator who combined genres and wrote the megahit “Bohemian Rhapsody.” This is not just the character he displayed to the world, but also the person he discovered in himself after years of jumping continents and suppressing his sexuality.
And when he announces his new identity in the film, he says confidently, “No looking back.”
