Actresses deprived of their relevance in star-centric Tollywood movies

After overhyping the debut of Bollywood actress Janhvi Kapoor during the promotions of ‘Devara’, when you watch the movie, it was a big letdown, due her poorly-etched village belle role who looks for hunk to marry. “Of course, she got good mileage and publicity since she was doing a film with Telugu star Jr NTR. In the film, she disappoints in an ill-defined role and was confined to few scenes and chartbusters like ‘Chuttamalle’. Surely it wasn't a role that would showcase her talent,” says a producer. Similarly, even Kavya Thapar had nothing much to do in ‘Double iSmart’ and Priyanka Mohan also faced similar discrimination in her Telugu film ‘Saripodha Sanivaaram’ where she plays a cop yet she helps the hero in his mission. “This is a sad situation for many actresses in Tollywood since they are capable of delivering more rather than just looking pretty and showcase their dance skills,” says director Teja who admits that some Telugu movies are loaded in favour of heroes and their invincible feats. “With heroism buildups and action episodes taking more screen time, heroines are going to get a raw deal,” he adds.

Earlier, Sreeleela (Skandha), Tamannaah (Bholaa Shankar), Shruti Haasan (Veera Simha Reddy,) Ritu Varma (Mark Antony), Anu Emmanuel (Ravanasura) and others 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. “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 ‘Baahubali’ could be attributed to the roles played by both Prabhas and Anushka Shetty, not to mention Ramya Krishna. 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 crowd pullers 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.

Giving an actress perspective, Priyamani says, “The 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 know the output and our screen time and relevance too,’ she says and adds, “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 town has changed, so let us shed this stereotyping business," concludes Priyamani.