“Bias Against Female-Oriented Films”: Is Keerthy Suresh Right?

Recently, Actress Keerthy Suresh made interesting comments on the lack of popularity and interest among audiences for female-oriented films. She opined that Indian audiences have grown up in such a way that they would always want to watch their favourite hero’s film first day first show even when their favourite heroine’s film releases on the same day.

Keerthy’s statements suggest that Indian cinema is a male-dominant industry where a star hero’s film gets more attention than a star heroine’s female-oriented movie. Whatever she said is mostly true, but there are also some rare instances where female-oriented films dominated star hero films at the box office.

Back in 2009, Arundhati created a storm at the box office by collecting more than ₹70 crore. Such numbers were a dream for many star-heroes back then. Very recently, we have seen Kalyani Priyadarshan’s Lokah become the highest-grossing Malayalam film ever. It also did well in Telugu. Both films did wonders at the box office and boosted the stardom of their respective heroines.

In a similar vein, Bollywood Star Shraddha Kapoor’s Stree 2 turned into a mammoth blockbuster: it collected around ₹600 crore domestically and made close to ₹880 crore globally, becoming one of the biggest hits in recent Hindi-film history.

Although it’s almost true that audiences generally choose hero-oriented films first when both hero-centric and heroine-centric movies release on the same day, the final result always depends on the content and the audience’s acceptance. Good storytelling will ultimately win, regardless of who leads the film.

Currently, Keerthy Suresh is awaiting the release of her upcoming film Revolver Rita, which is slated for simultaneous release in Tamil and Telugu tomorrow (November 28).