Yash Chopra’s ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ was released almost 12 years ago. The film was praised for its portrayal of women characters. However, in a recent interview, Javed Akhtar bashed the movie and called it “ridiculous” for how it portrayed an empowered woman.
Speaking about Bollywood’s struggle to portray a modern woman, Javed Akhtar shared his two cents on ABP Majha. The lyricist said, “Who is the new woman? We are not clear about it. There are two reasons for it. Those who are liberal, if they define this as a modern woman, other liberals will question them. Those who are conservative, if they define it, they feel that they will lose a lot of their territory. So, they don’t want to do it.”
Javed Akhtar took the example of Yash Chopra and said, “A director like Yash Chopra, who made decent, maybe not great but competent films throughout his career, his film ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ shows the heroine saying, ‘I will sleep with men of all nationalities before getting married.’ To be empowered you don’t have to put in so much work. So, this is because it’s a debris and they are finding who is the modern woman in this.”
Taking the example of Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit, Javed Akhtar said that they did not get a big role in their career because people did not know what an ideal woman is like. Adding to it, he said, “When today’s filmmakers try to make an image of an empowered woman, they get ridiculous because they don’t know what is an empowered woman.”
‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ starred Shah Rukh Khan, Anushka Sharma, and Katrina Kaif in lead roles.
