In mainstream Bollywood today, heroes in their fifties romance women half their age onscreen, while actresses of the same age are quietly phased out of love stories. This imbalance is no longer a whispered truth. Leading voices like Dia Mirza, Kajol, Twinkle Khanna and Neena Gupta are naming it, challenging it and demanding to know why women are not allowed to age on their own terms onscreen.
Dia Mirza echoed the contradiction with sharp clarity at the We The Women event: "I find it interesting that I’m cast opposite actors in their late 50s, 60s and even 70s, and we're meant to be seen as romantic equals on screen. Yet, you never see a 60 or 70-year-old woman cast opposite a man in his 40s, playing a contemporary romantic lead. That pairing simply does not exist for woman."
Her critique reignited a conversation the industry has avoided for too long: why do men get to age into romance while women disappear from it?
On their Prime Video show Two Much with Kajol & Twinkle, Kajol asked Salman Khan and Aamir Khan why they avoid romancing their contemporaries onscreen: "When a hero romances a younger heroine, it's called cinema magic. But when an older heroine romances a younger man, it's called 'bold.' Why do you think that is?" Both actors dodged the question.
Twinkle added another truth the industry rarely admits: older women usually get "relegated to motherly roles," as if cinema has no imagination for a woman's life beyond 40. Her point echoed Neena Gupta's earlier comment to GoodTimes: "Koi kaam nahi karne ko ready hai (No one wants to work with me). Most of them want to work with younger actresses." The result? Older female actors find themselves excluded from the same romantic arcs men can access at 55.
This persistent gap raises a more profound question: is cinema erasing crucial parts of women's lives? Middle-aged desire, rediscovery, and second chances are rarely shown on-screen. Is Bollywood acting like romance has an expiration date for women alone?
So far, OTT platforms have resisted this trend by highlighting powerful roles played by Madhuri Dixit, Sushmita Sen, Shefali Shah, Raveena Tandon and Kajol, but the template for mainstream romance remains heavily skewed towards older men paired with younger women in commercial cinema.
Will Bollywood finally move beyond ageism, or does a woman's worth still depend on the number of candles on her birthday cake?
