Vidya Balan and Shefali Shah recently featured in Suresh Triveni’s Jalsa. The movie revolved around the life of a journalist Maya (played by Vidya Balan) and her househelp Ruksana (essayed by Shefali Shah). While the film is being tagged as ‘female centric’ and is being widely appreciated, Shefali and Vidya talked about their views on the same in a recent interview with News18.com.
Shefali said that a few years ago she never thought about playing the lead in a movie because there was no such concept of women being a hero. However, she added that things have changed over a period of time. “Well, it’s not just me, Vidya has proven that repeatedly, that a hero does not necessarily have to be a male. But there’s a place for a male hero and a female hero and it can happen in a film together as well. But I can say, touchwood, some years ago if I would have sat and thought in my 40s would I be playing the core of a film, I would probably have laughed upon it. A lot of people would have and it is not a concept that was there earlier but something like Jalsa or Delhi Crime or Human sort of solidifies the belief that women are at par. It might take a little more time to translate but it will translate onto screen,” she said.
Shefali also cites Vidya Balan’s The Dirty Picture and Alia Bhatt’s Gangubai Kathiawadi and points out how these movies are changing perspectives. “When you talk about The Dirty Picture or about Gangubai (Kathiawadi) what is the face on the poster? Who are the heroes of these films? It is changing, of course, it is changing and after a point of time you won’t even need to underline that it is a female-centric film,” she added,
Vidya Balan also joined her in talking about these female-centric movies and mentioned that she hasn’t just witnessed but experienced this change in Indian cinema. “I have already been doing these so-called female-centric films for a long time. So, I don’t know how to answer these questions because I haven’t done the other kind of cinema where… I definitely think that… I don’t think I have witnessed it, I think I have experienced it. A lot of these films have done really well and they have only paved the way for more such films to get made,” Vidya told News18.
Talking about if working on such films makes her feel empowered, Vidya says that she is lucky to be working in Bollywood at a time when this change is being inflicted. “Firstly, I think we feel empowered and which is why we make these choices and which is why we tell these stories. Of course, the work we do empowers us further but I primarily feel that it has to start in your life as an individual before it can actually translate on-screen. I am very grateful to be working in cinema at this time when this change is being inflicted when there’s so much change in the world around us, cinema is bound to reflect it,” the actress explained.
Shefali Shah also recalled films of the past that presented female actresses in a stronger role. She went on to say that gone are the days when actresses used to be only an accessory for the films. “There have been films which have been very powerful films for women in the past, whether you talk about Anuradha or Aradhana or Ghar or ChaalBaaz or Lamhe or so many of these films. But there were phases and now over time, I think it’s changing to become perpetuity where women will be as powerful as men and it’s ridiculous that we have to even underline that because it’s always been like that but yes, it’s great to be where I am today, where I am playing the kind of characters I want to play, where heroine is not just an accessory to a film, she is a full-fledged character and thank god it’s changing,” she concluded.
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