Bridgerton’s celebration of ‘brown women’ beats Bollywood, say delighted South Asians
- Netflix is providing a lesson to Bollywood about representation by casting ‘smart, sassy passionate’ actresses of South Asian descent in lead roles
- By casting under-represented woman, Bollywood can provide visual change in a society and culture that has a preference for light skin female roles
For millions of women in South Asia and from the diaspora worldwide, the casting has filled them with delight. Finally, there are women on screen who look like them in a major programme, where elements of Indian culture are also portrayed.
A dark-skinned actress in the lead romantic role is a bridge too far still for the Indian film industry. Art house cinema has featured brown actresses such as the late Smita Patil, but the mainstream Hindi film industry has shied away from experimenting, fearful any casting that tinkers with the universal Indian preference for light skin could result in a flop.
This is despite Indian cinema being more than a century old. While male actors with dark skin, such as Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Rajnikanth, have an easier time of it, the country still awaits a commercially successful actress who does not have a lily-white complexion.
I was so relieved to see smart, sassy, passionate women.
“For once, Indian women in Bridgerton are shown not just in the lead as the main romantic interest but they are shown as beautiful, desirable and sexy,” said social media marketing manager Sonali Maken in New Delhi. “I was so relieved to see smart, sassy, passionate women.”
