Apart from acting prowess, Bollywood star Vidya Balan is known for speaking her heart out. She is someone who does not shy away from calling a spade a spade. In a recent interaction at Film Companion’s roundtable conversation for actors, Balan called out the patriarchy and sexist notions that still exist in the film industry.

Giving example of Gangubai Kathiawadi, Vidya said that it’s ridiculous how the success of the movie was mainly credited to its filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali when it was a woman-centric film led by Alia Bhatt. She asserted that the film is referred to as a ‘Sanjay Leela Bhansali film.’

In the presence of actors like Anil Kapoor, Rajkumar Rao, Ayushmann Khurrana, Varun Dhawan among others, the Dirty Picture actress voiced out how a woman-headlined movie becomes a director’s film if it does well on box-office. She also said that she loves how more and more actresses are leading films post-pandemic because men’s films aren’t working. “They suddenly turn around and say that the women’s films aren’t going to work all the more. How ridiculous? I really want to say, ‘What about Gangubai?’ It did more than most male-driven films,” stated the actress.

Dhawan, who was also there agreed to Vidya’s opinion and pointed out how Tabu met a similar fate. He said that the actress was a major contributor to the success of Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 and Drishyam 2 but these films are tagged as a ‘Kartik Aaryan film’ or an ‘Ajay Devgn film.’

For the unversed, Gangubai Kathiawadi is one of the highest grossing movies of this year. It also starred Ajay Devgn and Shantanu Maheshwari.