Speaking at a session on women leaders impacting entertainment and cinema at Film Bazaar, organised by NFDC Film Bazaar on the sidelines of IFFI, TV and film producer Ekta Kapoor, Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) member Vani Tripathi Tikoo and producer Srishti Behl Arya discussed how women have made inroads and broken glass-ceilings in the industry. They also spoke about the opportunities that exist for women in cinema today and shared their experiences, too.

Ekta Kapoor said that when she had started out, she was told that “films are a male medium and women are sort of dancers and they don’t get meaty parts”. She said, “When I started in television, first accidentally, and later deliberately, we started taking female-driven narratives. Then TV became an anti-thesis of films on a much larger medium, where women were empowered, their fashion sense became a talking point. Men were there, but they had to look good. It was no longer their narrative. The protagonist was a woman.”

She added, “If you create content with women wearing sarees, people call you regressive, if they wear swimsuits, they call it sexual. And I call them judgmental. I was telling someone the other day that I am probably the only person who has been criticized for being overtly progressive and at the same time, (for being) regressive and conservative. I can be one of the two, maybe I am both! This is what we need to fight – the terminology.”

Vani said that she thinks the glass ceiling in the cinema industry is cracking. She said, “All over the world when I go and talk about women in cinema, the mention of The Dirty Picture crops up. The movie was actually the beginning of the breaking of the glass ceiling. There were so many lessons learnt in that narrative. The first was that the more you judge a woman, the more she will turn around and give two hoots about it. That is the kind of judgment Ekta is talking about and that is the kind of judgment we face each day.”

Vani emphasised that in the last decade, The Dirty Picture has been the cusp of change. She said, “The propaganda used to be that if the protagonist of the film is a heroine, the film is not going to get financed, it is not going to get released. Ekta proved all of that wrong. So did Vidya (Balan, the protagonist of The Dirty Picture). From there came so many other films. So this decade belongs to this very narrative and this was the first huge crack in the glass ceiling; one kick more and it will be gone.”

The panelists discussed that some of the best directors, best cinematographers are women. Ekta said, “So many times I have girls working with me and I make one point to them – if you want to train with me, I have no problem, you can leave this job and go anywhere. But I don’t want you to tell me after four years of training that you left your job because you got married. Don’t waste these four years and somebody else’s seat. It is sad that (for women), a job is considered a hobby, and ambition is considered bad. If you have a hard-nosed attitude towards your job, you are considered a freak or temperamental or tyrant.”

Producer Srishti added, “The first battle is in our head and the first battleground is our home. We just don’t want ambition in a woman to be considered negative. We need to reach a point where we don’t need to tell the gender of the CEO to talk about parity.”

Vani emphasised how on-screen portrayal of women changed in the last decade. She said, “The realistic side of women, their ambitions and desires are portrayed. Earlier, it always was beautiful chiffon sarees and hero coming to rescue her. This has changed now.”