Nikkhil Advani comments on gender roles in Bollywood’s HMU department; says, “When a man touches a women’s… sexual things are aroused”

Vedaa director Nikkhil Advani talked about the misogyny in Bollywood and revealed why women makeup artists are often fired on movie sets and not the women from the hair & makeup department.

Nikkhil Advani opens up on how gender plays a part in hair & makeup in Bollywood

Nikkhil Advani shed light on why Bollywood hires a hair didi and a makeup dada. Talking about the same in O Womaniya’s roundtable panel on Prime Videos, he said, “When a man touches (the back of a woman’s neck), there are sexual things that are aroused. That’s why there is a hair dada and a makeup didi. The union did not allow this.”

He also explained the reason and stated that when a woman touches a woman actor’s hair, there is no risk of arousal. He said, “I was like, ‘What?’ When we started working with Mickey Contractor, we had to get him to hire a woman. But suppose there was someone from the union there, the hair didi had to stand quickly.”

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Nikkhil stated that when he was studying budget-related documents for a project, he was shocked to know only nine jobs are considered relevant for women. He also revealed that in projects there are 15% women on crews. The Batla House director added, “There are 169 line items, above the line and below the line. Do you know how many are considered relevant jobs for women? Take a guess. Nine. Nine are relevant jobs for women. Everything else is considered unsuitable for women.”

On the work front, Nikkhil recently directed the series Freedom at Midnight and the film Vedaa.

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