Hindustan Times (Lucknow) - Hindustan Times (Lucknow) - Live
FRIDAYS ARE NOW RULED BY WOMEN O
Expect a spate of films fronted by female stars over the next several weeks — this is a sign of the new Bollywood
ver the next several Fridays, a number of films fronted by women will be released. The list includes: Anushka Sharma in Phillauri; Taapsee Pannu in Naam Shabana; Swara Bhaskar in Anaarkali of Aarah; Sonakshi Sinha in Noor; Vidya Balan in Begum Jaan; Shraddha Kapoor in Haseena: The Queen of Mumbai; and Kangana Ranaut in Simran.
With so many powerful roles being written all at the same time, strong female stars and characters are the new normal. Recently, actors Sushmita Sen and Sonakshi Sinha said that this was a great time for female actors. Director Vikram Bhatt was also quoted as saying that Bollywood was opening up to strong female leads.
From the start of this decade, there have been films led by women that swept everyone off their feet — the explosive fictionalised biopic The Dirty Picture (2011); the out-of-the-box thriller Kahaani (2012); and the touching self-discovery of Queen (2014). But they were exceptions, not the norm. This year changes all that.
Proud to be a part of this change, Taapsee Pannu of Pink fame says, “The quantum and the quality of the films and scripts have certainly improved. We definitely have a new Bollywood to look forward to.” Acclaimed for her roles in Fukrey and Gangs of Wasseypur, actor Richa Chadha says, “Today, even mainstream actors are opting for scripts that are challenging… and proving themselves at the box office. I do hope this trend continues.”
Even when a womancentric film does only modest business, as did Sonakshi Sinha’s Akira (2016), the fact that it was released big is noteworthy.
However, budgets for women-centric films still aren’t comparable with those for films with a big male lead. Actor Swara Bhaskar of Nil Battey Sannata fame asserts, “This new trend of female lead films doing well at the box office is picking up, but we’re still very far from pay and budget parity.”