A 2017 study looked into the disparities between the male and female characters in over 4,000 Bollywood films. It found that male leads are most described as “wealthy”, “strong” and “successful”, whereas female characters are “attractive” and “beautiful”. Men are introduced through profession-driven descriptors, but women, through their appearance or relationship to a man. And while male leads get to beat, kill and shoot, the verb most associated with females is “marries”68!
