Much has been said about the scarcity of dominant female roles in modern cinema, including the complicated portrayals of women in many recent movies. However, the prior two decades have contributed plenty of counterexamples. While the accountability is on writers and directors to compose sharp female characters, it is the female actors themselves who draw these figures to life.
Has Something Changed?
An elevated sensation in women starring in prime movies shows the curtailing gender gap in steering roles from 2011 to 2020. A 2020 summary found that 47.8 percent of lead entertainers in movies that year were female, up by more than ten percent in just two years. Despite men still taking the majority of lead acting roles, the figures from 2020 demonstrate a real divergence from previous norms. Looking back to 2011, women made up only 25.6 percent of lead actors in dramatic movies, and little shifted until 2016 when the percentage began the rise in women functioning as movie directors, although the share of women serving these roles is disproportionate.
Study Finds Fewer Lead Roles for Women in Hollywood
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I,” “Gone Girl” and “Maleficent” are powered by memorable female protagonists and rank among the massive films of last year. In the face of this success, yet, women are still treated as second-class occupants when it comes to most Hollywood films, according to a new review. This gender rift is reported in new research by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University. It said that females encompassed a paltry 12% of protagonists in the top-grossing pictures of 2014.
Over the past decade, the dilemma has gotten worse, not generously. The latest figures exemplify a decline of three percentage points from 2013 and a fall of four percentage degrees from 2002.
The On-Screen Gap In Bollywood
As the passing decade from 2010 started patching up the barriers for storytelling and the sort of topics/issues that could be dealt with, it broadened the scope for entertainers across the board. The roles and the performances got more courageous, their character bends had the spectrum to be more grey, and there was an expanse for sharper and more influential women to exist in those tales. As an uphill, we got some incredible performances from our prominent ladies to glow through these characters.
The best way to talk about these executions and appreciate them is to go and re-watch them because enough has been said and assessed about all these characters. Cinema is subjective and hence the preferences of films, performances and music will also have a personal standpoint. Often some characters and performances relate more because of personal relatability and at times good achievements will also appear distant because they don’t talk to you. Hence, everyone will have their favorites, and it would be great to know what you would want to revise in the list. For now, let us look at what we thought.
Honorable mentions:
Neetu Singh as Kusum Duggal (Do Dooni Chaar, 2010), Deepti Naval as Arati Mishra (Memories in March 2010), Kareena Kapoor as Rosie (Talaash, 2012), Dimple Kapadia as Rosie Eucharistic (Finding Fanny, 2014), Surveen Chawla as Bijli (Parched, 2015), Ratna Pathak Shah as Sunita Kapoor (Kapoor & Sons, 2016), Kirti Kulhari as Falak Ali (Pink, 2016), Tabu as Simi (Andhadhun, 2018).
In a mostly male-dominated, patriarchal film industry, barely do powerful women-centric roles get composed in every language film. However, now and then, our actresses depict such intense roles that it makes us sit up and give away all the attention. Not to mention, it gives us a much-needed drive to be free, autonomous, and liberated.
Image courtesy: Third Vantage Point
Udisha Srivastav is a Freelance Content Writer with Femsay.com