Bollywood actors overpowers actresses

Thursday, August 16, 2007
In Bollywood, there has always been an actress behind every hero on screen. She may not have a big part to play, but nevertheless she is there, prancing around trees and acting damsel in distress. These days, multi-starrers are the order of the day. So reasoning suggests that for half-a-dozen actors there must be an equal number of actresses in the movie? Wrong. Present-day comedy flicks have not one, not two, but more than three actors playing lead, with hardly a heroine to boot.

Sajid Khan's directorial debut Heyy Babyy has over a dozen Bollywood beauties dancing to the promotional item number, but in the lead is just Vidya Balan against Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh and Fardeen Khan. Then here is also Shahrukh Khan in a special appearance, with a strong probability of Salman Khan appearing in a frame or two as well. The male-female ratio in Heyy Babyy is 3:1.

Going a step further is the laugh riot from Priyadarshan's stable, Dhol, showcasing Tusshar Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Khemu and Rajpal Yadav. Like in Heyy Babyy, here too, Tanushree Dutta is the lone actress in the center of attraction, though Payal Rohatgi too has a good part to play. The male-female ratio in Dhol is 4:1.

And leading the charts is Indra Kumar's Dhamaal, with as many as five actors playing protagonists -- Arshad Warsi, Ritiesh Deshmukh, Javed Jaffri and Ashish Chaudhary and Sanjay Dutt. Interestingly, there is no actress playing the lead in the film at all. Hence, the male-female ratio in Dhamaal is 5:0.

Now we can safely conclude that women in Bollywood don't get to take on lead roles in comedies. Whether it is bias or lack of talent needs to be pondered upon.