BOLLYWOOD’S POWER WOMEN
Female leads are tearing through the male bastion that the Hindi film industry once was — they’re winning both money and praise
The popular notion about Bollywood has long been that it’s mainly driven by the leading men, who smash through every problem fist first, while the female leads supply the glamour and dance moves.
All that was changed when two films — back-to-back Vidya Balan-starrers, The Dirty Picture (2011) and Kahaani (2012) — brought in awards and revenues in equal measure. They made ₹117 crore and ₹100+ crore, respectively, worldwide, and Vidya won the National Film Award for Best Actress in 2012 for a role that had been seen as merely ‘sexy’ before the film’s release.
Now, one female-led film after the other is raking it in — in 2018, Hichki (starring Rani Mukerji) made ₹76 crore); Raazi (starring Alia Bhatt) has made ₹116 crore so far and is still running; and Veere Di Wedding (starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam K Ahuja, Swara Bhasker, and Shikha Talsania) has beaten the dayone earnings of films such as Akshay Kumar’s Pad Man and Ajay Devgn’s Raid. In 2017, it was Vidya’s Tumhari Sulu (₹51 crore). In 2016, Sonam’s Neerja (₹135.5 crore, plus a National Award for Sonam the following year). And in 2014, Rani’s Mardani (₹57 crore).
Hichki, about a teacher with a speech impediment, has a plot that’s as out-of-thebox as it gets. Director Siddharth P Malhotra says, “It took me six years to come out with Hichki, because no one was encouraging me to do a female-led film.” Now, the film is going to the Shanghai International Film Festival this month. Malhotra says, “Such films doing well is a big slap on everybody’s faces, [showing] that a good story does well, be it a male- or female- or child-led film.” He believes that if the budget is well-managed, any film with good content can do well.
Recalling the resistance he faced over The Dirty Picture, director Milan Luthria says, “There were massive [trade] apprehensions after I had just released a big hit, Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai. I was told to go with another herooriented movie.” There were allegations of the Vidya film being a “porn film”. Luthria says, “We went ahead with not much encouragement.” It was only after its first promo release that the film was sold.
The mould-breaking is still going on. Veere... producer Rhea Kapoor says that the film “just had to be made for so many reasons”. She adds, “The support the film has got is overwhelming, and the numbers reiterate that the future is female!”
Trade expert Atul Mohan’s opinion is that “it’s the content doing the talking”. He also believes that films like Raazi and Veere... have the perfect marketing strategies.
Other heroine-led films to come this year include Kajol’s Eela and Happy Phir Bhaag Jaayegi, starring Diana Penty and Sonakshi Sinha, the sequel to Diana’s film Happy Bhag Jaayegi (2016). Diana says, “To know that the first part did well enough for the makers to consider a sequel is a matter of pride to me.” *All figures are estimates