Sonakshi Sinha
Sonakshi Sinha

On The Front Row with Anupama Chopra, Sonakshi Sinha and Anupama will discuss the double-standards of Bollywood tonight. They will look at the paradigm wherein a male star can proceed to romance a woman twenty years his junior on screen whether he is married or not, but once a woman is married, she’s often considered to be “written off”, and no longer eligible to be cast in such roles.

The most recent example of this was when Sanjay Leela Bhansali allegedly dropped Kareena Kapoor from Ram Leela because of her upcoming wedding. Here’s an excerpt from tonight’s show, where the two use Madhuri Dixit as an example of married woman acting in films.

Anupama: It’s interesting that the men you’re working with have all been around for 20 years but the women they started with are no longer around.

Sonakshi: I guess because there is a point of time where one wants to sort of get married, settle down, after which people don’t want to see you on-screen.

Anupama: Do you think that’s still true?

Sonakshi: I guess, because you’ve not seen many of these women. I mean, Madhuri Dixit is beautiful, she still dances better than any one of us out there. You know, she’s got two kids, she’s married and all but we don’t see her playing roles opposite any of the actors.

Anupama: But do you think that might be a function of industry attitude?

Sonakshi: Not industry attitude, it’s the attitude of Indian men on the whole. I think once the woman is married, the husband wants her all to himself. So I think that whole mentality is still…..

Anupama: So if you’re an Indian man, then a married woman can’t be sexy?

Sonakshi: I don’t know, ask them. To me, Madhuri Dixit is very sexy.

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What do you think about this issue? Personally, I think it’s absurd that once a woman is married she’s considered to be ineligible for typical heroine roles, while men have no such issues. I mean Shah Rukh Khan is deemed to be one of the biggest romantic heroes, and he’s been married almost as long as he’s been working. Emraan Hashmi is another example – very much married, but it’s still acceptable – actually, encouraged – for him to kiss every woman he works with. So why the double standards?

Watch “The Front Row with Anupama Chopra” on August 24th at 8:30 pm on Star World for the full conversation with Sonakshi Sinha, and for reviews of ‘The Expendables 2’ and ‘Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi’.

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