Sara Ali Khan and Janhvi Kapoor address the media’s skewed portrayal of their friendship, revealing how the media still pits successful women against each other.
Pitting successful women against each other has been an age old practice, but one that should have no place in 2019. Headlines recently surfaced about Sara Ali Khan and Janhvi Kapoor, two new entrants in Bollywood with an impressive lineage from the industry. This positioned them perfectly as a pair mainstream media could ‘create’ a feud between. Unfortunately, they aren’t the first two female celebrities who’ve been equated, purely fueled by the desire to attract readers.
Sara Ali Khan addressed the rumours recently, proving that women can be friends in the entertainment industry irrespective of publications stating otherwise. Janhvi Kapoor also said in an interview that she was not in competition with Saif Ali Khan’s daughter, Sara Ali Khan. “It’s sad that sometimes we make it about how only one of the girls can be successful - we are very capable of being happy for each other.”
More recently when Sara was asked about what she thinks of her contemporary in a recent interview with Filmfare, she replied, “This whole rivalry about Janhvi and me is so funny. We’re both extremely comfortable and confident in our skin.”
This implies a serious issue in mainstream media portrayal of female celebrity relationships. While conflict certainly isn’t reserved solely for women, it does beg the question: how often would one see headlines about Fahad Mustafa and Danish Taimoor not getting along or about which male artist is jealous of another’s success? Men may fight all the time but it’s not as exciting to read about so the media doesn’t create stories where there are none.
Locally, there are so many leading actresses and models that are friends but women uplifting each other are rarely highlighted.
There is a belief that girls are born hating their own gender and thrive off drama, a perception that the media feeds.
In local dramas, they will still show women targeting other women usually within domestic or personal settings. Archetypes will include a scheming mother-in-law, the seemingly friendly neighborhood aunties who make humiliating observations about your reproductive status or girl friends who maliciously gossip and start rumours. Serials that reinforce this are automatically feeding into a narrative that girls should be vicious to one another and jealous, based off the assumption that there is only a certain amount of room for accomplished and talented women in the world. Local TV examples include plays such as Koi Chand Rakh Meri Shaam Par (Areeba Habib), Kamzarf (Nadia Khan), Baba Jani (Saba Hameed) and Khudparast (Asma Abbas).
We need to teach our children that this assumption is false and that women can coexist peacefully and be successful at the same time. More celebrities need to address this matter in the news and set the record straight. There is power in numbers - more powerful and inspiring women out there will only make it better and easier for one another. Rather than tearing each other down and allowing the media to do the same, women need to actively take a role in not allowing these ideas to be perpetuated any longer.
