Bollywood actress Taapsee Pannu is currently making headlines for speaking up at the 50th edition of International Film Festival of India (IFFI) 2019 about pay disparity and gender in-equality in Bollywood. A video Taapsee Pannu is making rounds social media in which the Badla actress is being asked to speak in Hindi as she was talking to Doordarshan anchor in English.
In the viral video, a person can be heard requesting Taapee “Taapsee please thoda Hindi mein bol lo, kyunki Hindi filmein aap karti ho.” (Taapsee, I request you to talk in Hindi, since you do Hindi films)
To which Taapsee said, “Main toh bahut Hindi mein baat karti hoon.” Adding that she said, “I am a South Indian actress also.”
You can watch the video here:
Speaking about her working experience in Bollywood, the Pink actress said that the amount that actresses get in Bollywood are “not even half of (what) the leading men (get paid)”, and added: “It is way less than one-fourth at times — to be honest, even less. Half of the salary of the leading hero is the entire budget of a female-driven film of an A-list actress.”
The actress further added that even top female leads were paid one-fourth of the remuneration paid to a male star.
She said that only box-office success of women-oriented films would end the sexist lopsidedness.
“I hope it changes in my lifetime. That can happen when more and more people walk into a female-driven film in theatres. Only box-office can change this. Yes, women-driven films have increased drastically over the last four to five years but the big difference will happen when the (box-office) numbers come in. There is no other way,” she concluded.
You can watch Taapsee Pannu’s full season here: