Telugu Actresses Reduced to Mere Glam Props in Movies

With much-hyped action film ‘Skanda’ giving a raw deal to happening actress Sreeleela who was confined to a few songs and scenes, it looks like male dominant themes continues to rule Tollywood. Even big names like Tammanaah (Bholaa Shankar), Shruti Haasan (Veera Simha Reddy,) Ritu Varma (Mark Antony), Anu Emmanuel (Ravanasura), Sakshi Vaidya (Agent) weren’t spared and had to be content doing dance moves with heroes and evoke a few laughs while hero takes centre stage and usurps most of the screen space.

“This is a sad situation for actresses since they are capable of delivering good performances rather than just looking pretty,” says Teja, who says he gave equal importance to Kajal Aggarwal in his hit film ‘Nene Raju Nene Mantri’, which tasted success.

“Even big stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikanth didn’t mind giving more space to female characters in their movies. For instance, in ‘Robo, Aishwarya Rai had a key role opposite Rajnikanth. Similarly, the massive success of ‘Baahaubali’ could be attributed to the roles played by both Prabhas and Anushka Shetty, not to mention Ramya Krishna. Even a film like ‘Atharantiki Daaredi’, which dealth with family subject, had an important role for Nadiya since women play a key role in real-life too. Hence, directors have to strike a balance between hero and heroine rather than holding bias towards the hero,” he adds.

However, producer Vishnu Induri, rules out any bias among producers and directors. “It all depends on a particular script and bias is just a myth,” he says and adds, “Industry is hero-driven, and directors tend to give more screen space to superstars. Everyone knows that stars are crowdpullers and need to cater to their fans and there's a lot of money riding on such movies. Of course, there are films where heroines had prominent roles, so male chauvinism ruling the industry is an unfair argument,” he informs.

Summing up the trend, actress Priyamani says, “Film industry has always been hero-driven, but heroines are also gaining their space. We listen to the scripts and only then step into the project. We clearly know the output and our screen time and relevance too.” She adds that times are changing and heroines are key roles these days. “Actresses work with big stars to reach out to a wider audience; Also actresses have proved that they are capable of more than just dancing and looking pretty, albeit, it is part of an actor’s job."

The new age filmmakers are changing too. "A heroine is not there for romantic scenes and we are also doing action and other stuff with ease. Tinsel world has changed, so let us shed this stereotyping business," concludes Priyamani.