#BigStory: Has B’wood opened doors for married actresses?

Gone are the days when celebrity weddings were a supremely guarded, secret affair. With the booming paparazzi culture coupled with the ever-so-evolving nature of social media, star weddings are no more (possible to be) kept under the wraps. Talk about all the hype that the recent B-Town weddings like Vicky Kaushal-Katrina Kaif, Rajkummar Rao-Patralekhaa, Varun Dhawan-Natasha Dalal and others created in the year 2021.
Amidst the fan frenzy for pictures and videos from the ceremonies, there was also a lot of chatter on the internet about whether Katrina Kaif will quit films after marriage. Although the discussion stemmed from Katrina’s old interview wherein she had said she would quit films after marriage if she felt like prioritising it, this does raise a pertinent question about the existing norms in the Indian entertainment industry. Time and again, the film industry has been called out for its misogynistic attitude. No denying, the perspectives are undergoing a shift, but has the film industry truly opened its doors for actresses post marriage and pregnancy? We explore the answers in this week’s #BigStory.

The story then and now

While actresses taking a backseat on career post marriage were common earlier, we’ve seen the trend evolve with more actresses in today’s times going back to the sets soon after their big day. Actress Dia Mirza who got married to Vaibhav Rekhi this February, says, “I started working in the industry in the year 2001. Back then, the only married female actor playing big lead parts was Juhi Chawla. Kajol too was doing films, but fewer films. Ageism, sexism and patriarchal attitudes were prevalent. With time and the choices female actors are making, along with a more progressive audience, producers’ mindsets are changing. But we are still not completely accepting of married women leading films. The producers’ mindsets continue to be that if a woman has crossed 35 years of age and is married, she becomes unappealing to the audiences. I think actors like Kareena Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Deepika Padukone and Sonam Kapoor are helping with dispelling this myth.”

Actor Manoj Bajpayee finds it difficult to speak from the perspective of his female counterparts. But he emphatically says, “Things have changed. Not because of anything else, but because the world has changed. And the world has impacted globalisation, the liberalisation; and everything impacted the society, the world at large.”

Bajpayee attributes the 90s’ actresses who took the first step to bring about this change. He adds, “The actresses took the first step of getting married and still decided to work and tried to throw themselves in the risky situation in the 90s. The late 90s or the early 2000s I would say… The person who comes to my mind is Kajol and others. And later on Vidya Balan happened.

And the directors who came in the early 2000 or the late 90s, were the directors not stereotypically chauvinist, their thought process was not very conventional. So, it happened both ways. Some of the successful actresses decided to get married and still continue to work; at the same time, some directors came who were not at all misogynistic, who were not looking at women or their female characters conventionally.”

Talk about the times when we came across incidents of a female actress being replaced with another after she got married, Manoj Bajpayee agrees that it existed. “That was in the early 90s, yes. There was a rule that people would not accept a married actress, they would not like to see a married actress playing a heroine. But that was true for the heroes too. They wanted to push the romantic image. But then came Shah Rukh Khan who got married in the beginning of his career itself. Later on, in the late 90s, creative people came for whom marriage didn’t decide their casting,” Manoj Bajpayee reveals.

In the 90s era, Juhi Chawla’s pairing with Shah Rukh Khan had become a big hit; and she kept her marriage hidden, so that her stardom does not take a hit. Film Historian, Dilip Thakur recalls, “She was rated as the number one heroine and was competing with Manisha Koirala and Madhuri Dixit; and her pairing with Shah Rukh Khan had become a big hit. They were staying as neighbours, but she never declared officially that she is married to Jay Mehta.”

“But then there were actresses who joined the industry after marriage and Moushmi Chatterjee was one such actress. Sharmila Tagore and Nutan got married when they were in top form, even Mala Sinha for that matter. It didn’t make any difference to their career in the 70s. They used to make social films. Dimple Kapadia returned to films after marriage and was accepted,” he adds.

In today’s corporate era, actresses get married and it’s no big secret. Cinema has evolved too. “But actresses like Kajol and Deepika Padukone are not going to play college girls now. I feel this generation of actresses are much more mature. And if anything happens, they turn producers and make films for themselves. Earlier we did ask questions to heroines if she would work after marriage and it doesn’t matter anymore. Shilpa Shetty’s career is going fine even today,” concludes Dilip.

Does marital status affect casting?


“Married actresses are never successful in Bollywood – this has been an old saying which has been going on for a long, long time,” says casting director Kunal M Shah adding that with the boom of the OTT culture, things have changed and to quite some extent.

“But yes, there are still a lot of filmmakers, who do not prefer to cast actresses who are married and the usual demand is to cast a face that is not normally attached or is married to somebody else. I think a lot of producers or directors believe that in our industry, an actress has to be desirable and the masses who run the maximum number of ticket sales in India want, or see the actresses, or dream about the actresses to be desirable. Just to cut it short, the masses want the actresses to be desirable and then when they are married, the mind knows that she is married to somebody else. This is what is the general reasoning or an opinion that a lot of filmmakers have as far as casting married actresses is concerned,” reveals Kunal.

The boom of OTT has brought about a change in the age-old norm. “If you see the success of ‘Aarya’ or the new show of Raveena Tandon, ‘Aranyak’, or even a lot of other ones… Karisma Kapoor did ‘Mentalhood’, Dia Mirza did ‘Kaafir’, all of them have been successful. I don’t think as far as OTTs are concerned, that is a question. But in films it is still there, obviously not at the level of what it used to be probably 20 years back. But still a section of filmmakers does believe that casting a married actress as a leading lady means it’s a doom at the box office. And I don’t know how and when it will change, but it still prevails,” Kunal adds.

The brand perspective


Brand strategist Karan Taurani believes the question is very subjective. “If you asked me this question five years ago, it used to matter a lot because fan-following and other things working in the industry, all these things would really change. But I think in today’s times, actresses despite marriage, are able to be actively involved in the industry. We’ve seen the likes of Kareena Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty… I think after marriage, their brand value has gone up rather than coming down despite not being active in the movie business. It depends on what the actress’ engagement on social media platforms with the public is, and the people’s perception about her that matters, and it’s not just about actors being married or not married,” reflects Karan.

On the other hand, Karan thinks celebrities (couples) working together in advertising is the best thing that can happen. He says, “Of course, it would come at a very hefty cost, but the kind of fan-following it would bring, of the actor and the actress put together, would be really high. So we’ve seen examples like Virat Kohli-Anushka Sharma, what they have done to their brand value and to Manyavar as a brand when they got engaged with their advertisement. So, it was a big advantage for the advertiser because the following or the fan-followers literally doubled. This is a big win-win for the advertiser and for the celebrity who is endorsing it, because it gives you a perfect blend in terms of male followers as well as female followers. It is a perfect strategy for someone who wants to go for a very large target audience and go very massy typically.”

What’s in the future?


Filmmaker Ramesh Taurani who has been a part of the industry since the 90s has been a witness to this change. His film ‘Merry Christmas’ features the newlywed Katrina Kaif, and Taurani believes such mindset is a thing of the past.

“I was never sceptical about casting married actresses. Maybe this was the reason 20 years back, but not now. There was an impression that if the heroine is married, then their craze will come down. There was no social media back then. Now it’s not the case,” he asserts.

Adding that the thinking and perspective of the audience has now changed, Ramesh Taurani says, “Back in the 90s, actors refrained from disclosing about their wedding. Aishwarya Rai set the trend of married women working in the industry. And it was further cemented by Kareena Kapoor Khan. Katrina Kaif being married does not matter to me. Anushka Sharma, Deepika Padukone, all heroines are now getting married. Now people don’t see it that way. They are actors doing their job. People are loving it. All producers and directors treat actors and actresses as equals and professionals.”
West vs us


Besides marriage, even pregnancy and childbirth have been a factor impacting film projects for actresses. Lately, filmmakers have been accommodating; we’ve seen how when Kareena learnt about her pregnancy after signing ‘Veere Di Wedding’, Rhea Kapoor and Shashanka Ghosh decided to change the script by showing her character six months pregnant. Kareena shot for ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ when she was pregnant with her second baby. She credited Aamir Khan for looking after her on the sets.
The West is known to have detailed clauses about marriage and pregnancy in the contract while signing up an actress for a project. Producer Tanuj Garg, who had cast Vidya Balan as lead in his 2017 film ‘Tumhari Sulu’, says, “We haven’t incorporated any pregnancy clause in our contracts so far, but this isn’t an uncommon norm in the West to safeguard one’s interest and investment.”

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