Bollywood is boring for the female audience

If any women feel the same way as me feel free to share your thoughts. It’s obvious that most Bollywood films cater to men but it’s gotten to a point where i feel like I've lost all hope for women-oriented content in Bollywood. Of course every couple years there’s some “female-centric” film that comes out and then it’s hailed as groundbreaking and it ends up just being female trauma porn. I’m tired of that being the only time we get to see women as the leads, i just want to watch some women-led films that aren’t about some issue related to their gender. The last female-led films that I can remember that I truly enjoyed were Piku, Dear Zindagi, and Queen. I can’t really think of any more recent films so let me know if I missed out on some. Was looking forward to jee le zaara but now it apparently might be shelved so that’s disappointing.

Edit: I would also like to add that from a financial standpoint, appealing to the female audience has proven to be very profitable. If you look at K-drama and K-pop, the primary audience is female and that’s a whole craze now. Western pop culture and media also appeals to women, if you look at movies like the Twilight Saga, or the classic Hollywood chick flicks (Mean girls, Legally blonde etc.). Bollywood is missing out on a lot of potential profit from neglecting the female audience.

Yes I think you and some other posters have brought up this topic a lot.

Many factors at play including patriarchy. Lots of women only go outside as families with the man's wish and are usually busy and stay at home so tv is usually female centric.

Just walk in a busy street in most of India and count the number of women outside.

We definitely need more female centric films. Right now only multiplex films for the most part are female centric.

The movies I dislike are the ones that show some hero in God mode which has some random scene of a poor lady + kid being abused and he goes to save them. And in general cinema that depicts women as some passive love interests.

There is very few female friendship based movie counterparts to Dil Chahta Hai or Chichorre or ZNMD. Isn’t it sad that the audience doesn’t like to see women having fun and being imperfect, especially without prominent male stars ? Veer Di Wedding got bashed. These movies are dismissed as “man hating “ or “too woke “. Piku and Dear Zindagi were great but since Alia was being criticized for not being sexy enough on this sub itself …it made me think how everything is about the male gaze.

Even Hollywood conversations are touching on the lack of younger leading men, especially with Top Gun reminding people of how young Tom Cruise was when he became a major star. It's basically just Tom Holland and Timothee Chalmette for the under thirty's since no one is taking chances and older actors are getting the roles that could be breakouts for twentysomethings. Today's Bollywood is still more star- than brand-driven, so the 90s stars are even more firmly on top and even Ranbir is nearing forty.

K-entertainment has a ton of issues when it comes to things like working conditions, but it's guaranteed to promote young stars. Every few years there's a new generation of K-pop groups. While Archie's is nepo-filled and could well turn out to be awful, it feels like the only thing on the horizon that could offer some of the K-entertainment vibe to female audiences - content with good-looking boys that they can access safely at home.