Madhuri Dixit on Bollywood: then vs now

"There are women everywhere, and that's what makes me proud!" says Madhuri Dixit Nene as she talks about how Bollywood has changed over the years.

Transcript

00:00There are women everywhere and that's what makes me feel proud, you know, and I'm like, yeah, we have it right now.

00:05Sexist, you know, it's very sexist.

00:09The set culture, the acting culture from, of course, when you had started and the actors that are giving their performances now,

00:17there's so much more training. How do you think that's different now?

00:21It's different because initially it was a very, it was not an organized industry, it was very disorganized.

00:28When I came into the industry, we didn't have very many acting schools and all that. There

00:32were one or two. And we learned on the job. So we made our mistakes, everything in front of the camera

00:39and we learned as we went along. So that's the difference. Today they are much more prepared.

00:44They are, you know, taught certain things. They are prepared to be in front of the camera.

00:53But we were not, we just learned as we went by, made our mistakes and learned from that.

01:00And then that worked too at that time, you know, we had hit films too and we had very successful

01:06films, successful songs, everything. But today it's much more organized. So we have vanity vans

01:12and everything today. We didn't have that. We didn't have those, you know, good things.

01:19Also like a team of 10 people, you know, the social media team, the makeup team.

01:24Yeah, I see that now. I mean, I have one around me, so I know what's going on because you have

01:29to be everywhere. You have to be on the social media. PR is very important and, you know, all

01:35those things. At that time we just had a very small group. Another difference I have to tell

01:40you about is that when I started, the only women on the set used to be the actors, co-actors

01:49and the hairdresser. That's it. No other women on the set. Everything was managed by men, like

01:56camera man, makeup man, you know, all that. But today when I walk onto the sets from the 80s

02:03to the DOPs to directors, writers, producers, there are women everywhere and that's what

02:11makes me feel proud, you know, and I'm like, yeah, we have it right now.

02:15Absolutely. Very well said, Madhuri ji.

02:17More democratic.

02:18100 percent. Cancel the patriarchy. But I do want to ask you, since we were on this topic of women,

02:25I want to ask you, a lot of paps nowadays, they capture women very differently and they capture

02:31males very differently with the captions they use or with the texts they write or if they're

02:36taking, let's say, for example, Hrithik Roshan, it's very different in the way that they portray,

02:41oh, Hrithik Roshan going to the gym. Here it'll be Disha Patani in a red mini.

02:47Sexist, you know, it's very sexist.

02:49Exactly.

02:50Yeah, I mean, we go through all these things and I think what we have to learn from that

02:57is that we have to be a better society, you know, especially for women.

03:01And we are getting there. We are baby steps.