Year Ender 2022: The end of the road for the shero?

Every portal needs traction. We get that. But to pitch Ajay Devgn’s Drishyam 2 against Kajol’s Salaam Venky just because there is an inviting spousal glint to the headline is akin to demolishing the David –Goliath myth.

Salaam Venky is a very small-budgeted film, under Rs 10 crores. Everyone, including Kajol , took huge remunerative discounts to make Revathi’s dream project come true. She so wanted to tell this story of a brave dying boy and his even braver mother.

Sadly, female heroes are not favoured by our audiences. Not even Kajol. Her last three author-backed films were in Helicopter Eela , Tribhanga and Salaam Venky. Two of them flopped, while the third (Tribhanga) was an OTT release. Taapsee Pannu ’s nine releases since the pandemic have either gone straight to OTT or have flopped miserably on movie theatres ( Shabaash Mithu , Dobaara ).

The saddening truth is, the audience does not want to watch female heroes, or sheroes on the big screen. The only shero film to do really well in recent times is Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Gangubai Kathiawadi , and if we add Netflix’s Darlings to this then, Alia Bhatt is the only shero in 2022 with box office clout.

All the other shero movies have underperformed or not performed at all. The cold response to Kangana Ranaut in Dhaakad clearly indicated that the audience was done with the chick flick, at least in the action genre. Kangana who had scored a resounding success in the shero genre with Queen has been at the receiving end of a cold shoulder in film after heroine-centric films, like Rajjo, Revolver Rani, Simran and Panga.

Dhaakad is her latest setback in the shero genre. But she need not despair. She has the clout to make the big heroine-centric films happen. Other shero films that fell flat on their face in 2022 include Nushrratt Bharuccha’s Janhit Mein Jaari , Pooja Pandey (excellent as a rape survivor) in Siya, Sanah Kapoor(Pankaj Kapoor and Supriya Pathak’s daughter) in Saroj Ka Rishta, Tamannah Bhatia in Babli Bouncer, Katrina Kaif in Phone Bhoot, Sonakshi Sinha-Huma Qureshi in Double XL, Janhvi Kapoor in Mili…

No film starring a female hero worked in 2022 except Gangubai Kathiawadi and that was such a hit because Gangubai displayed more machismo than all the men around her. I can just imagine her reaction to being called a shero.

“Abbey, shero kissko bolta hai? Hero hoon main hero!”

Three cheers to that.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based journalist. He has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out.

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