Actress spoke at a lecture on women in Indian cinema.
By Prabhav Hiremath
MUMBAI: When Sharmila Tagore took to cinema as an actor in Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar, in 1959, she was told to leave her school by the principal to prevent having a ‘bad’ influence on other girls.
Tagore, 68, who is also known as Begum Ayesha Sultana, reminisced about her past, speaking at the recently held 19th Justice Sunanda Bhandare Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, titled ‘Representation of Women in Indian Cinema and Beyond’.
Pointing out that women continue to face many challenges in today’s entertainment world – including lack of scripts for ageing actresses in Bollywood – Tagore said that unlike most other industries where women are at par with men, Bollywood is still a male dominated industry with only a handful of top notch young beauties at the helm.
She cited a Public Service Announcement ad featuring actor and director Farhan Akhtar, which has him saying “Be a Man, Protect Women”. The actress said that women are still considered inferior to men in some ways and they need protection from a man whom they trust.
Tagore said that the status of women in films was considered inferior dating back to the start of films in India. She spoke about how in 1913 when ‘The father of Indian Cinema Dadasaheb Phalke’ made India’s first feature film, Raja Harishchandra, the film-maker had to settle down for a man to don a womanly avatar for his film, as no women from any strata of society was prepared to work in what was considered a low status profession.
Today, when India is the largest producer of films annually in the world, little has changed about the cosmetic portrayal of women in Indian cinema, said Tagore. While scripts are written keeping some ageing actors in mind, like Amitabh Bachchan, Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah, women of their age are considered mainly for supporting roles. The cinematic life of a leading lady too in films is shorter than their male contenders, she opined.
The ‘Kashmir Ki Kali’ star however, did have some praise for regional cinema, which she said had examples to the contrary. Regional cinema has many a time portrayed women in a more realistic, equal and different manner as compared to mainstream Hindi cinema, said Tagore.
Tagore, the widow of the late Nawab Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, is the mother of three; two of whom are Bollywood actors – Saif Ali Khan and Soha Ali Khan. The 2013 Padma Bhushan awardee has headed the Indian Film Censor Board from a period of October 2004 – March 2011 and was chosen as an UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December, 2005.
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