Sunday, 1 December 2024

The Age of Innocence: Bollywood's leading ladies and their plats: Sridevi, Juhi Chawla to Jaya Prada

The Age of Innocence: Bollywood's leading ladies and their plats: Sridevi, Juhi Chawla, Tina Munim, Poonam Dhiloon, Hema Malini and Jaya Prada


In the age of IMDB and Wikipedia, today, every actress' date of birth and age is public knowledge. Until the turn of the century, no actress ever admitted their real age in print! For decades, you'd have to guess the age of Rekha, Jaya or Sridevi based on when their films were roughly released. Every figure and number was up for speculation. 

Anytime a lady was seen as being mature, they'd suddenly doll up in plats and baby pink colours to infuse a modicum of youthful zest on their screen personas. There was a stage when any leading lady would never want to portray the role of 'mother'  as they'd be bracketed as older - no matter how good the role was. 

In First Wive's Club, Goldie Hawn famously said, "There are three stages to an actress in Hollywood; Babe, District Attorney, Driving Miss Daisy!" 

In Bollywood, "Its college girl, Bhabhi, Mother to your Own Co-star of five years ago!" 

Hema Malini, Raakhee, Mousmi Chatterjee et al fell into that trap. Playing the mother role to stars who were either similar age or even older! Aging women out is common till date. 

Bollywood is that living contradiction; the more things change, the more they stay the same. 



 

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