Fair pay, Fair play

Bollywood’, has influenced daily life and culture in india for decades now. In fact, movies are the mainstay of entertainment and almost a religion in the nation. Bollywood has surpassed Hollywood in the number of tickets sold annually. But it still lags on the grounds of gender based equality. The issue of pay parity in hindi film industry is not so secret now. Many female and male actors have given their take on it. Most are of view that the fee for a similar set of skills and amount of work should be equal across the genders.

There is no country on earth where women make as much as men for the same work, according to the Monster Salary Index 2016, women still make 25% less than men, and as many as 68.5% of women in Indian workforce feel they have experienced wage inequality. Actresses like Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone are paid much less than their male co-stars, despite having high critical acclaim and box-office reputations.

Marathi actress named Durgabai Kamat was the first women to enter Bollywood. Working in movies or in the theatre was a taboo for women at that time, so Dadasaheb Phalke who was called as the father of Indian cinema introduced Durgabai in his second movie Mohini Brahmasur, as the leading lady of the movie as Parvati in 1913.Years have passed but representation of women in cinema has not improved to the level it should have. Though, in this new age many actresses have opened up about their idea on gender pay gap.

Deepika Padukone earned more than her male co-stars in Padmaavat made it to the headlines. Speaking about it she said, “You can feel a sense of – am I stepping over the line, or do I deserve it? But if you feel you deserve it, than you do. For years we’ve been made to feel that we should be okay with settling for less, with a promise of getting more the next time.”

Priyanka Chopra said,“I feel it every year, especially when you are doing movies with big actors, whether it’s India or America. I’ve been told straight up, it’s a female role in movie with big male actors attached, your worth is not considered much.”

In the past Kareena Kapoor demanded the amount of money as Shahrukh Khan in “Kal Ho Naa” Ho and it resulted in her being replaced by Preity Zinta. Of course this was not connected with Shahrukh rukh directly but he has many times spoken about this topic and also taken a step to put name of female leads of his movies before him in the credit. This step felt like tokenism to many. Yes we all agree, Change needs time and constant efforts. We do see a shift in the scenario, but our main question should be is getting paid on the basis of your sex the right thing? Shouldn’t the pay depend upon the efforts and hard-work you put into your work, irrespective of the gender?

We should begin by asking why do women get paid less than men in the film industry in the first place? Is it because of the culture of sexism or male star reverence? Partly yes, but we as audiences also play a very important role in the current gender dynamics in Bollywood .

Cinema is the most powerful media for Mass communication . Impact of cinema and Bollywood on Indian culture cannot be ignored , Bollywood has the power to influence and create awareness among a large number of population . For eg : Outfit by an actor or an actress in a hit movie immediately become a trend . Bollywood had created movies related to many topics which were considered taboo . Bollywood had successfully created awareness and had broken the myths and superstitions, helping the Indian society to develop . Like for eg : Widow remarriage (“Babul”), voice against corrupt politicians and politics (“Rang De Basanti” ), etc . That’s why Bollywood can help in bringing a revolution, in India everything starts with Bollywood if they can show how the Indian actresses are not getting the honor and money for their hard work and efforts after that things might change and it’s not only about Bollywood even after “The equal Remuneration act of 1976” still there are many women in different fields who are putting equal efforts and input compared to the male workers but the outcome is not equal, they’re still getting discriminated on the basis of sex. This has to stop, treating someone differently on the basis of their sex and not giving them the opportunity/honor/money/services they deserve is very demotivating and wrong on so many different levels .

- Sourabh Upreti

Reference- https://www.forbes.com/sites/suparnadutt/2017/08/30/in-india-the-gender-pay-gap-extends-even-to-bollywood/