Actress Dia Mirza Admits That Her Debut Film ‘Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein’ Had Sexism In It

Actress Dia Mirza Admits That Her Debut Film ‘Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein’ Had Sexism In It

A casual walk down Bollywood’s memory lane should be enough to make us realise that there were a lot of movies back in the day that promoted broken concepts like that of misogyny, sexism and for the lack of a better fitting phrase – utter nonsense. Selling us stereotypical storylines, most of which furthered the kind of sexism us women have spent decades fighting, it is only now that we look from a woke point of view that we are able to spot these male chauvinistic movies that reeked of our biased society. One of them being the hit movie, Rehna Hai Terre Dil Mein starring Dia Mirza, R Madhavan and Saif Ali Khan.

Released in the year 2001, the movie was an instant hit on the box office, more so because of the dreamy songs that it featured in the movie and stole our hearts. The storyline of this romantic drama, was just another run of the mill plot, where a guy (Maddy) falls in love with a girl merely by looking at her for the first time and does about everything at his disposal – from lying to manipulating, to win her over. Only to be called out on his charade by the guy she was actually supposed to be marrying AND Maddy’s old college rival (because, plot twist).

Recently talking about the movie, the lead actress of this film Dia Mirza didn’t just recall the time that she shot Rehna Hai Terre Dil Mein, but also the apparent sexism that reeked from the making of it too. Admitting to it, she said, “People were writing, thinking and making sexist cinema and I was a part of these stories… Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein has sexism in it… I was acting with these people. I was working with these people. It’s crazy. I will give you small examples. A makeup artist could only be a man, could not be a woman. A hairdresser only had to be a woman… When I started working in films there were at best about four or five women on any given crew with a unit strength of over 120… sometimes 180 people.”

Also Read : Dia Mirza Was Asked Why She Kept Her Pregnancy A Secret Before Marriage. Why Does It Matter?

She went on to point out, “We live in a patriarchal society and it is an industry largely led by men. So there is rampant sexism. And I think for a large part it is not even conscious sexism because there are so many men who are writers, who are directors, who are actors, who are not even aware of their sexist thinking,” and we couldn’t agree more.

However, here is hoping that with the present culture where such sexism is being called out from miles away, people won’t find it all so easy to escape this kind of subconscious sexist thinking.

Meanwhile, Dia Mirza who debuted with the movie Rehna Hai Terre Dil Mein, has recently tied the knot with Vaibhav Rekhi and is expecting her first child with him.

Also Read : Dia Mirza Had A Woman Priest For Her Wedding And We Love How She’s Smashing Patriarchy

Sadhika Sehgal

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