Hindi film industry has long had the reputation of not offering women over 45 enough roles in the lead, with female-driven plots and stories.
Although this has been changing for the past few years, with actors like Tabu, Raveena Tandon, Aishwarya Rai – still being seen on celluloid. But for long, mainstream cinema discarded female stars once they were married or had babies.
This notion around the gender-based ageism has now also been echoed by veteran actress and screen-icon Sharmila Tagore, who is firmly complained about the lack of good roles for senior female actors.
In a recent interview, Tagore stated how most meaty and powerful roles are taken-up by Amitabh Bachchan.
Here is what she was quoted as telling by PTI:
“We are still slightly ageist, especially with women because powerful roles go to the men. Like special scripts are being written for Mr Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher, but not for Waheeda (Rehman) ji and not for many other ageing lady actors.”
She made a strong argument citing examples from Hollywood, wherein plenty of females in their 60’s and 70’s are still doing wonderful roles in films as lead actresses (Helen Mirren, Judy Dench, etc). Ms. Tagore stated:
“Hindi cinema is not where Hollywood is in terms of offering roles to older women. There are wonderful, more mature actors, Neena (Gupta) for instance, she is a magnificent actor. There are many others… OTT is full of wonderful performers. It will take time but it will change.”
We couldn’t agree more with the veteran actress.
Sharmila Tagore is returning to the screen after a gap of nearly 12 years, in a heart-warming family drama entitled ‘Gulmohar’, which costars Manoj Bajpayee.
Watch the trailer of her new film below:
More power to her!