Though Bollywood is definitely taking small steps towards being progressive, no one can deny there is so much more to do. Here are some things that Bollywood should stop doing, to give us better movies that we deserve:
1. Stop casting actresses only as ‘Hero Ki Girlfriend’ even though they deserve better meaty roles. Please start casting talented actresses in the roles that show their talent, rather than just romancing the hero!
2. Stop showing us women falling in love with their stalkers and marrying them! Stalking isn’t cool! Please stop giving us movies like Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya, Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein or Raanjhanaa!
3. Stop giving us characters that don’t understand the meaning of consent or what a ‘no’ actually means?
4. Stop showing babysitting a man-child as love! Neither women are rehabilitation centers for badly raised men, nor there is anything romantic about a man-child! Neither Ranbir Kapoor, in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil nor Saif Ali Khan in Cocktail are cute! We don’t want these characters!
5. Stop showing us that toxic masculinity is love!
6. Stop casting incredibly talented women in the ‘30s and ’40s as the heroes’ mothers! How could we forget Shefali Chayya at age of 28 played the role of Akshay Kumar’s mother, who was 38 then!
7. Stop giving us mindless sequels or remakes of South Indian or regional movies! We need more original movies!
8. We are tired of stupid and mindless romantic movies that distort the idea of love! Can we get some realism in the content that what love looks like!
9. Stop spending crores of money on clothes and locations for movies with poor storylines.
10. Stop indulging in convenient stereotyping of communities for the sake of entertainment! Neither we want gay characters for comic relief, nor do we want you to make fun of a community based on their beliefs!
11. Start offering roles to actors with talent, and not just a star kid that comes with a fancy surname or belongs to a Bollywood clan! Can we see more actors like Tillotama Shome, than actors like Jhanvi Kapoor, Sara Ali Khan, and Ananya Pandey, who have already received a lot of chances to show us what they got!
12. Stop showing us how men fall for women only after they start following society’s set beauty standards. From Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, we are tired of watching a guy rejecting a girl with specs only to accept her after a glam makeover! It’s high time Bollywood, grow up!
Don’t forget to add more items to the list that you would like Bollywood to learn!