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Missing from the frame: Bollywood’s female icons
We’ve got docu-series about the Roshans and Chopras. Where are the female Romantics and the Angry Young Women?
Noticed how Bollywood’s leading men are getting the full docu-series treatment lately? The Romantics went back to the chiffon-wrapped dreamscape of Yash Chopra’s cinema. The Roshans traced the legacy of a family that shaped both melody and muscle in Hindi films. And Angry Young Men, a series about Salim-Javed, debuted to over 2.3 million views on Prime Video in its first week, becoming the platform’s top non-fiction show.
Now, guess how many views the show about Padma Vibhushan Vyjayanthimala Bali garnered? None, because it doesn’t exist. You know what else doesn’t exist? A deep dive into Rekha’s decades of reinvention, a tribute to Waheeda Rehman’s or Asha Parekh’s craft, a rewind of Silk Smitha’s magnetism, a chronicle of Sridevi’s eras, or even a global lens on Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Despite more than a century of Indian cinema, no one’s telling the women’s side of the stories.
Film journalist Bhawana Somaaya, 69, has been tracking Indian cinema for almost half a century, and has written 20 books on the subject (including books on the Bachchans and a biography of Hema Malini). She knows there’s a bonanza in waiting for anyone who wants to put women’s stories on screen. It’s the streaming networks that don’t seem to be interested. “Netflix and Amazon Prime are the ones making the documentaries,” she says. “They think focusing on female power won’t work.”
Most decision makers believe that audiences want young faces, recycled plots, the comfort of endless sequels and stories about successful men, Somaaya says. “The audience is ready to embrace something new.” And done right, a documentary about Parveen Babi’s inner world or Helen’s impact on today’s item numbers can offer new insights into an industry desperately seeking to reinvent itself. The other hitch: Decision-makers in writers’ rooms and production houses tend to be under 40. “Nobody wants to hire anyone over 50. That’s a loss of wisdom, perspective and objectivity.”
Even if an idea slips past, a biopic centred on a woman tends to be underfunded. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, Mary Kom and Shabaash Mithu struggled to get made. Meanwhile, 35 industry heavyweights featured in The Romantics. Angry Young Men was championed by Salim-Javed’s children. The Roshans used their series to give their own brands a future. Somaaya says that women tend not to show similar ambitions. “Hema Malini also has daughters. They don’t have the time to push this,” she points out.
It means that the stories we don’t tell now, are the stories that the public won’t remember years from now. Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, 45, writer-director of Nil Battey Sannata and Panga, says women are still largely invisible in the filmmaking machinery, as they are in other spheres of life. “Even when a woman cooks a great meal, she’ll say that her husband or family liked it, so it must be good. Not that she made something great.”
She recalls how, when her first film, Nil Battey Sannata, came out, people assumed her husband Nitesh Tiwari had directed it. He was livid and had to clarify he wasn’t even on set. “For me too, it took time to say ‘Yes, I did this. I’m hardworking and good at what I do’.” That silence shapes how women see their own work and how the world sees theirs.
Iyer Tiwari won the Filmfare Award for Best Director for the romantic comedy-drama Bareilly Ki Barfi in 2017. She’s directing a film about the love story of Narayana and Sudha Murthy. But she routinely gets introduced as, “Nitesh Tiwari’s wife.” No wonder we’re not making documentaries about women, we’re not noticing their accomplishments in the first place.
From HT Brunch, July 26, 2025
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