Anche il settimanale di attualità India Today celebra l'avvento del potere femminile a Bollywood. Lo strillo di copertina: Return of the Sirens. Bollywood's women get better roles and bigger brands. A sottolineare l'affermazione, un'intensa Kareena Kapoor. Vi propongo Bollywood women: From beautiful barbies to power performers, l'editoriale di Aroon Purie:
'The Indian film industry has (...) lagged behind its American counterpart by decades in making movies which put a female actor centrestage. That may be changing at last. The Dirty Picture, based on the life of South Indian actor Silk Smitha, starring Vidya Balan in the lead role, grossed more than Rs 100 crore in December 2011. The film' male actors were in clear supporting roles to her lead act. Balan has done it before. She portrayed the late murdered model Jessica Lal' sister, in No One Killed Jessica. Balan is going to do it again in 2012, playing the lead in Kahaani, a story based on a pregnant woman searching for her missing husband in Kolkata.
Of course, in Bollywood, like in any other film industry, what matters most is the ability of an actor, male or female, to get the cash registers ringing. Kareena Kapoor has been ahead of her male counterparts, even the pathologically successful Salman Khan, in recent box office success. She has had four blockbuster hits since 2009 - 3 Idiots, Golmaal 3, Bodyguard and Ra.One - each of which grossed over Rs 100 crore. She was the one constant as the lead actors were different in each film. Balan and Kapoor are just two of a larger set that includes, among others, Katrina Kaif, Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone. Padukone showed the new financial might of female leads when her walkout from Race 2 led to a steep fall in the project's value from Rs 87 crore to Rs 65 crore, even though the film has Saif Ali Khan, John Abraham and Anil Kapoor in starring roles. Says Chopra, summing up the scenario, "This is the best time to be a female lead in Bollywood." (...)
Ultimately, the market is king. Filmmakers will make movies with women in important roles if they make them profits. That has started to happen more regularly in the last two years. We haven' yet reached a stage where the heroine-dominated film has stolen a march over the hero-led film but at least heroine-led films are commercially viable. The leading ladies are also climbing in the endorsement stakes. According to Television Audience Measurement (TAM), Kaif and Kapoor rank second and third among celebrity endorsers in terms of advertisements on television, only behind Shah Rukh Khan. Chopra is 10th on that list. The top female actors can now command Rs 50 lakh to Rs 1 crore for just a five-minute-long item number. The coming to the fore of female actors was only a matter of time. As Indian society evolves and gender roles get redefined, women will compete on an equal footing with men, no matter what the profession. And that' a very welcome consequence'.
