Last Saturday, March 8, the world celebrated ‘Women’s Day’.
Not surprisingly, at least two of the three major Hindi releases last week, Queen and Gulaab Gang (with Total Siyapaa being the third), were what the trade calls ‘womencentric’ films. These are typically films that have women as the central protagonist/s and/or address issues thought to be relevant to the female audience.
Filmmakers are famous for trying to cash in on current trends, events and fads – inserting a song relevant to the time of release like a festive Diwali song or a colourful Holi track; or bringing out a cricket-based film during a cricketing world cup; or as we are witnessing now,films or marketing campaigns around the theme of elections/politics to ride on the poll fever that has the nation in its grip
However, one feels that last week’s releases, Queen and Gulaab Gang, are symbolic of a much larger churn and shift that has been underway for some time now, and cannot be categorised, or brushed away, as an event-based, one-off.
There was a time, not very long ago, when even the most popular leading ladies of the industry had to restrict themselves to just looking pretty, shaking a leg and literally be a supporting act to testosterone-driven actioners that essentially revolved around larger-than-life male characters. Indeed, one cannot say that that trend is totally over and out, and one still finds examples of films that fit that template.However, going by just the circumstantial evidence of the kind of films that have released in the last few months, one does sense a welcome change that has slowly but surely been ushered in.
Besides Queen and Gulaab Gang last week, we have also had Highway, Hasee Toh Phasee and Dedh Ishqiya hitting the marquee this year, and we are barely into the third month of the calendar year. What was common to all these films – and to some extent even for Gunday and Shaadi Ke Side Effects – was that they were promoted as films where the leading ladies were, at the very least, projected as being on equal footing with their male counterparts; and in many cases featured even more prominent than the male leads. The same was true also for some of last year’s releases like Ram Leela, Gori Tere Pyaar Mein, Rajjo, B.A. Pass and Shuddh Desi Romance.
Change is most often not an event but a process, an evolution and not a revolution. So if today, women-centric films are being seen as increasingly viable, the ground for this was laid by the success of films like Fashion, Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica, Tanu Weds Manu, The Dirty Picture, Kahaani and English Vinglish in recent years.
It’s not that female-oriented films were suddenly discovered by our industry in the last few years. Indeed, the 1957 classic, Mother India, is still remembered as a Nargis film despite the presence of such stalwarts as Raaj Kumar, Sunil Dutt and Rajendra Kumar. Similarly, films like Aandhi, Arth, Umrao Jaan, Damini, Chandni Bar, Kya Kehna and Astitiva have sporadically made a strong commercial and critical impact from time-to-time.
However, one would argue it’s the rising frequency, and success ratios, that these odes to women power have notched up in recent years that has been a game-changer for this genre and allowed it to blossom from a one-in-five-year to a five-in-one year phenomenon.
The good news is that the momentum seems all set to intensify in the near future. For proof, we need to look no further than the release calendar of upcoming films that features Ragini MMS 2, Revolver Rani, Kaanchi, Finding Fanny, Mardaani, Mary Kom, NH10 and more.
And that is a very welcome trend indeed. Not only from a social justice and gender-equality point of view, but also because it widens the narrative scope of our films and also expands the roster of commercially viable talent (read lead actors) that aspiring filmmakers can hope to green-light projects with.