New Delhi: Javed Akhtar recently took a dig at a dialogue from Yash Chopra's last film 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan'. The popular lyricist and screenwriter has written iconic films like 'Sholay', 'Mr India' and several more to his credit in collaboration with Salim Khan.
On Sridevi & Madhuri Dixit
In a recent interview, the writer-lyricist was asked about the concept of modern woman and why there is a lack of strong female characters in films. To answer the same, the veteran writer drew examples of films and dialogues and blamed our society for not being clear with the concept, because of which talented actors like Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit never got a chance to play larger-than-life roles.
On lack of strong women characters in films
Akhar told We Are Yuvaa, "When you are not someone you are pretending to be, you tend to exaggerate. There was a film of Yash Chopra–Jab Tak Hai Jaan–the film had two heroines–one of them had a dialogue who said ‘I will marry only after I sleep with guys from every nationality in the world.’ My point is, ‘Why will you put so much effort?’ You are empowered, modern, forward-looking, I accept it. You don’t need to work so hard. There are too many countries in the world. Don’t waste your time on that. What do you mean by this dialogue? And this is a Yash Chopra film. Because they want to fake this is an empowered girl and they are not clear what is an empowered girl so they are exaggerating.”
“There is debris there. The old structure fell. The self-sacrificing Indian women whose husband would come home drunk from the bar and would fall on the bed and she would take off his shoes. She doesn’t exist anymore. But what is a modern woman? I think people are not clear about it. Society itself is not clear about the concept. The talented Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit were ruling for almost 10-12 years. In their whole careers they never got the role of a larger than life woman. However, Meena Kumari did get one. But, Meena Kumari got it because the morality back then was clear. Nutan also got larger-than-life roles in Bandini and Sujata when she was a victim.”
Modern women characters representation in Zoya Akhtar's films
“The ones who are conservative believe if they will define the modern woman then they will lose a lot of territory. The liberal is scared that if he defines it then somebody will out-liberal me. So the problem is that it is vague right now. However, the female characters in Zoya’s films are today’s women. Be it Luck By Chance or Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara or Dil Dhadakne Do, they are all modern women”, Javed Akhtar concluded.