Yes

Just a pretty face

When it comes to commercial Hindi films, women are still depicted as fragile characters with no back story. Unlike the hero, the heroine never has much to do. And the few films in which she has a substantial role get labelled as “woman centric” even when they are nothing of that sort.

Rajannya Banerjee, 
Class XI, Gokhale Memorial Girls’ School, Calcutta

Same pay

Bollywood’s portrayal of women’s empowerment is often unrealistic and absurd. Bollywood can perhaps take the first step by ensuring that men and women get paid the same amount for their work.

Ankita Sen, 
Class XII, Auxilium 
Convent School, Dum Dum, Calcutta

Lessons to learn

A majority of Bollywood films have a hypersexualised song-and-dance routine that has nothing to do with the story — an “item number”. The Hindi film industry is also guilty of showing eve-teasing as cool — something that the hero does to win over the heroine —  giving young people the wrong idea. Very few films such as Kahaani, English Vinglish, Mom, Queen (pic right) and Hichki are women-centric films. The interesting thing is that each of these films have been immensely popular. Perhaps the audience is trying to tell the Bollywood filmmakers something? 

Piyush Nawalgaria, 
CA Foundation student, Calcutta

Not empowering

Women’s empowerment means giving equal opportunities and equal footing to men and women. In the past few years, Bollywood   has churned out many women-centric movies but the messages they carry are not always empowering or correct. 

Aishwarya Roy, 
Third year, SOA National Institute of Law, Bhubaneswar

No

Brings change

In a situation when education fails to teach modern ideas of woman empowerment, cinema has successfully brought about a change in the mindset of the orthodox. Bollywood’s women-centric  films make society aware of how girls want to live their life.

Angelina Banerjee, 
Class XI, Sudhir Memorial Institute, Madhyamgram

Baby steps

Women’s empowerment is a hot topic these days and Bollywood is also buying into that trend. Films such as Piku, Kahaani, Neerja and Veere di Wedding (pic top) have women-centric plots or female leads who are independent, self-assured, responsible and live life on their own terms. So I guess Bollywood has started taking baby steps towards depicting the concept of women’s empowerment. It’s a start. I hope this concept is taken up in a much bigger way in the future such that it puts an end to all misconceptions around feminism.

Ankita Mondal, 
Second year, Jadavpur 
University, Calcutta

Earn leadership

In recent times, Bollywood has become more sensitive towards all social issues but particularly about women’s empowerment. Well-known actors, singers and filmmakers have all fronted or run campaigns to fight social ills faced by women. Some celebrities have also taken to the social media to put across their ideas on women’s empowerment as well as support women who are standing up for themselves. Thus, although Bollywood films have a long way to go in properly depicting the subject of women’s empowerment, we cannot really say that Bollywood’s idea of it is flawed.

Pallavi Banerjee, 
Class XI, Loreto Convent, Asansol

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