Bollywood Is Male-Dominated, Older Men Like To Be Cast Opposite Younger Women: Dia Mirza

Mumbai: Actress Dia Mirza recently opened up about gender discrimination in Bollywood and how female actors run out of work after a certain age.

In an interview with ETimes, Dia revealed that while male actors continue to get work as scripts are written for them, female actors struggle to get work as no one makes films keeping them in mind.

“The industry is male-dominated. Older men like to be cast opposite younger women to extend their own shelf life. It is bizarre that a 50 plus something actor is acting opposite a 19-year-old actress,” Dia told ETimes.

“The unfortunate truth of the matter is that stories are not written for the female older characters as much as the male ones. It is even more unfortunate to see an older man playing younger parts,” she added.

Dia is happy that as the industry has switched on to digital platform during this crisis, more female-centric movies are being made.

Talking about the positives of OTT, she said, “I think stories and opportunities for female characters have opened up significantly. There are more female representations now, more than ever. We have more female directors, DoPs, and editors. The number is lagging far behind even now but it is definitely more from the time I started working. It is that representation that has opened up the narration but I think that the advent of the OTT platform has truly given narratives that are driven from a feminine lens are increasing manifold. I am grateful for it.”