Where have all the fierce on-screen women of Bollywood gone?

Why have women-centric narratives in Hindi cinema nosedived significantly in the last four years?

It is 2014, the much-anticipated Diwali release is Farah Khan’s Happy New Year, a heist comedy led by Shah Rukh Khan. Notably, Deepika Padukone is a key part of the star cast in the Bollywood film. The previous year had been stellar for Padukone, with all four of her releases ranking among 2013’s highest-grossing films at the box office. Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani and Chennai Express solidified her as a bona fide star, and although greater career highs awaited her, at the time, she had just broken into that elite club that is the “A-list”. Despite Happy New Year being a Shah Rukh Khan film and a late entry for Padukone (she appears after more than 50 minutes of the film have passed), the actor has approximately 40 per cent screen time (72 out of 180 minutes). The film earned ₹ 394 crore at the global box office, making it the second-highest Hindi worldwide grosser of that year. For those who think female leads and women directors can’t win at the box office, Happy New Year is evidence to the contrary.

Fast forward to January 2024. Padukone features in solo posters that are released as part of the promotional campaign of one of the most awaited releases of the year, Fighter. Despite being at the top of her game in 2024, her screen time amounts to only 26 per cent of the film—a 14 per cent pt. decrease from a decade earlier. Her face is used to sell the movie to audiences, but her role is almost non-existent, contributing nothing to the plot. 

Padukone has starred in some of the most significant films in Hindi cinema in recent times, including Piku, Tamasha, Bajirao Mastani, Padmaavat, and Pathaan. While web streaming has provided a space for women to articulate themselves, in mainstream cinema, the space for women has shrunk, despite many leading actresses becoming producers. And Padukone’s career over the last decade maps this decline.

The Peak of On-Screen Feminism

“I definitely think the shift started with Vidya Balan’s The Dirty Picture [in 2011] but then there was a new wave with Queen (2013) and Piku (2016),” says screenwriter and director Alankrita Shrivastava. Queen set a precedent by creating space and scope for a woman on a journey of self-discovery. Kangana Ranaut’s protagonist Rani, who embarks on a solo honeymoon abroad after being jilted, broke free of social norms, mirroring how the film itself broke away from the traditional male-centric bildungsroman. Ranaut commands almost every frame of Queen, occupying 74.3 per cent of the total screen time. Not only was Queen a hit, it remains one of contemporary Hindi cinema’s most cult-favourites along with Piku.

 “Piku really makes you sit up and take notice…It's not just about putting the woman at the forefront of the story, it’s about how she becomes the driving force,” adds Shrivastava. Padukone as Piku delivers a masterclass. She shoulders this film despite having two industry stalwarts—Irrfan Khan and Amitabh Bachchan—as her co-stars. Padukone is on screen 60 per cent of the time (71 out of 118 minutes), a 20 per cent pt. increase from Happy New Year. As a result, Hindi cinema gets a memorable, strong, messy, flawed, and deeply complicated woman. Remember how quickly she gets riled up by her father when she’s driving the car? She doesn’t have to compensate for that moment by being kind or loving immediately after. In Piku, there's space for complexity; she is layered, flawed, and unapologetically human. “Piku gets something really, really right about a woman's life,” says Shrivastava.

Piku, like Queen, marked a significant moment for female-led narratives in Bollywood, paving the way for more complex and nuanced roles for women. In the years following, the range of stories written for women in Bollywood expanded significantly. Raazi (2018) exemplified this shift. Alia Bhatt’s performance as Sehmat, an Indian spy married into a Pakistani military family, broke new ground for the young actor, and the film’s success laid the groundwork for Bhatt's subsequent role in Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022). 

The Shift and the Shrinking

Although 2018 featured strong female characters in films like Andhadhun, Raazi and Stree, the film that earned more money at the box office was Padmaavat. One can make a case for this Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed magnum opus shifting the status quo—Padukone was reportedly paid more than her male co-stars, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor, and had significant screen time. However, the importance of her role is questionable (at best) since the story centres on the conflict between the two men over the body of a woman. 

While Andhadhun earned ₹ 456.89 crore, the general trend in the highest grossing films of the year hinted at a shift in the tide. From 2019 onwards, the top three highest-grossing Bollywood films—War, Saaho, and Kabir Singh—offered little space for women’s stories or complexity. Vaani Kapoor's character in War exists only to die and further Hrithik Roshan’s plot; Shraddha Kapoor struggles to be noticed in Saaho; and the less said about Kiara Advani’s character in Kabir Singh, the better. “I don’t think 2019 was a good year for women’s stories, and then the pandemic happened and it just got worse in the theatrical space,” says Shrivastava.

Just a few years earlier, women-centric stories in cinema were finally finding the space to bloom.

Joshi points to how the Indian film industry started nervously falling back into tired patterns after the disruption and losses of the lockdown years. Between 2020 and 2024, women in Bollywood have increasingly been relegated to minor roles. Although they are prominently featured in promotions, their characters are becoming less integral to the actual plots. This trend reflects an industry that is unsure about deviating from its traditional formula: the hero’s story.

Case in point, Brahmāstra: Part One–Shiva, which was released in the same year as Gangubai Kathiawadi. In only one of these films, Bhatt is not reduced to her co-actor’s “button”. In only one of these two films she gets to say more than just “Shiva.” And while Gangubai Kathiawadi’s success gave hope for women’s films in the industry, 2023 was a swamp of testosterone—Jawan, Pathaan, Gadar 2, and Animal topped the list of Hindi-cinema hits. “The alarming lack of space for women at the box office is dictated partly by the rise of the pan-Indian film, the jingoistic nationalistic film (both dominated by men), and the third one that can be called the ‘pathological male’ film,” explains Joshi. 

Where does that leave women’s stories? It seems even the Hindi film industry doesn’t know.

“Apart from the fact that very few good roles are coming up for women from a casting perspective, I was also working for a production house where I was getting to read scripts. Right now, they're very scared to pick up female-centric films and shows. It's very sad that this is still happening,” shares casting director Nikita Grover. Looking forward, she does not see a bounty of good roles appearing for women in the theatrical space, “even for the A-listers,” she adds. 

One could argue this is a pessimistic take, especially since one of the bigger hits of this year so far has been Crew (making ₹ 150-plus crore worldwide). Another remarkable film that garnered mostly positive reviews and excellent word of mouth is Laapataa Ladies. Despite this acclaim, both Laapataa Ladies and Crew highlight a troubling trend: women's stories are shrinking in theatres. Laapataa Ladies struggled to generate sufficient revenue despite its extended run at the box office. And although Crew is technically led by three heroines, its storytelling doesn’t make space for women’s stories. . Instead, it makes a case for women performing men’s stories. As an eat-the-rich-themed heist comedy, it is half-baked and despite three A-listers (including two older women as charismatic as Tabu and Kareena Kapoor Khan), Crew manages the opposite of films like Piku, Queen, or Andhadhun. Rather than being examples of women’s stories, Crew is a film in which the female characters could easily be replaced by their male counterparts.

Just like the actresses in Crew deserve better, the audience deserves richer, more authentic stories that truly expand women's space in theatres.

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