Should Women’s Day be the next Diwali, Eid, Christmas for movie releases?

Releasing their films on public holidays and sometimes even blocking the calendar two years in advance is a very common practice in Bollywood. The superstars of the Hindi film industry make sure that all the prominent holidays are under their wings as that ensures maximum business for their films.

Salman Khan makes sure to give his fans Eidi by releasing his films during Eid. Mr. Perfectionist Aamir Khan has Christmas allotted for his films. Independence day is marked for Akshay Kumar or John Abraham starrer. Although Akshay keeps releasing his films throughout the year. So with every major holiday marked by the A-listers actors, where does that leaves our actresses?

I am sure some of you would laugh at me when I say that our actresses should also start blocking specific dates for the release of their films. That sounds absurd, right? But when day and night we are discussing issues like female empowerment, feminism, gender pay gap then why is it so difficult to even think about the possibility of that day when our actresses will have a specific holiday marked for their films?

I know that a good film will work irrespective of the day it releases on but if you look at the bigger picture all I am trying to drive home the point that when that day will come when instead of two male stars clashing at box-office, we have a male & female actor vying for releasing their films on the same day. When we will get to witness that kind of healthy competition between an actor and actress?

Over the last few years, we have witnessed the shift in the outlook towards women-oriented cinema. Actresses these days are vying to have that one ‘Pink’ or ‘Thappad’ film feature prominently in their filmography. Then don’t you think every year the ‘Women’s Day’ slot should be a window for the best female-centric film to hit the silver-screens?

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Imagine every year, filmmakers trying their best to release their respective films on ‘Women’s Day’ the way others fight to release their films during Diwali or Christmas. Is this even possible or is my dream seem too far away? This year we don’t have any film releasing around or on Women’s Day. Bollywood is a male-dominated industry and there’s no doubt about it. But it’s 2020 and its high time we start looking at our actresses as a star rather than an eye-candy or damsel in distress waiting to be rescued by the prince charming.

This year itself we saw ‘Chhapaak’ and ‘Panga’ – two powerful women-centric films releasing in the first half of 2020. And actresses like Kangana Ranaut, Deepika Padukone and Taapsee Pannu have already proved that they don’t need a hero to make their films work. Just like their male counterparts, these actresses are equally capable of carrying a film on their own shoulders. When a movie with a strong female lead and a great story releases on Women’s Day, it does well. It has been proven in the past with Kangana’s ‘Queen’. The film turned out to be one of the best female empowerment.

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Recently Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra were seen hanging out together and netizens were all excited about it. Some of them even urged the actresses to collaborate. Now just imagine a Hindi film made on the lines of iconic films like ‘Charlie’s Angels’ (or any other genre), headlined by two actresses! Wouldn’t that make for a great watch?

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Priyanka already owns a production house and Katrina is too willing to jump the bandwagon and start her own production company. Power-house performers like Kangana Ranaut, Anushka Sharma and Deepika Padukone already have their own production houses. With their own production house, these actresses can pick the release dates on their own films and Women’s Day can be a great option. So that cinephiles know which Friday look forward to.

So all these actresses need to do now is make films that they never got offered or lost out to their male counterparts. After all, when will Hindi films have Super-hero, action-drama, social drama solely lead by an actress?

Now if only these actresses sit together and collaborate on hard-hitting content-driven films or adhering to the formula of ‘Women telling Women stories’…Oh My God…that would be the happiest day of my life. After all, this is the only way a balance can be brought in the industry where both the male and female stars enjoy equal status. That’s what empowerment aims at…right?

Also Read: Why are Bollywood actors still romancing actresses half their age? It’s 2020, for God’s sake!

Pooja Sharma

Cinephile. Bibliophile. Pluviophile. Selenophile. Autophile. Aesthete. Blood group- Tea positive. Poetry lover. Sucker of rom-coms.

PS: Sharmaji ki Ladki sucks at writing bios.
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