Opinion Men of a certain age
Bollywood’s superstars turn 50. Where are the middle-aged heroines?
Shah Rukh Khan.
It might be a coincidence, but Shah Rukh Khan, the second of Bollywood’s reigning Khan troika to turn 50, marked his birthday with the announcement that he had been cast alongside 22-year-old Alia Bhatt in a new movie. Of course, SRK may not be her love interest, but it says something of Bollywood casting conventions that the film would be more revolutionary if he isn’t than if he is. SRK is not the only Khan to play romantic hero to a woman half his age. Aamir, the first of the Khan troika to hit 50 earlier this year, was last seen with Anushka Sharma, then 26, in PK, and Salman, who officially joins his contemporaries in late middle age in December, will bring in Diwali with Sonam Kapoor, 30, in Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Sure, this longevity speaks to the tremendous charisma and work ethic of these men.
But it also reaffirms that, despite all the changes in Hindi cinema in the 21st century, some things remain the same: The unspoken rule that a female love interest cannot be over a certain age.
This ageist double standard afflicts film industries around the world. In June, amid a public conversation over the lack of equal pay for women and sexism in Hollywood, Maggie Gyllenhaal spoke about how astonished she was to be told that, at 37, she was too old to play the lover of a 55-year-old man. A Sridevi, 52, can return with a bang in 2012’s English Vinglish, but there is little chance she will be cast as an age-appropriate love interest to either SRK, with whom she starred in Army (1996) or Salman, opposite whom she appeared in Chaand Kaa Tukdaa (1994).
Still, there’s hope that one day in the future, middle-aged women will be able to romance much younger men as a matter of routine. Over the decades, the industry’s unofficial ceiling for a woman to play a love interest has evidently risen, and there are even actors like Kajol, who is making a movie with SRK at the ripe old age of 41.
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