The Misogyny of Time: Why Equal Hours Don’t Mean Equal Work in Bollywood

The Indian film industry’s new 12-hour workday rule exposes old hierarchies while rendering gender parity in Bollywood as purely performative.

Based on the false belief that women in the Bollywood film industry are putting in less working hours than men, a new circular is imposing a 12-hour work schedule applicable to both men and women in Bollywood. Women, led by Deepika Padukone, have objected to this 12-hour shift stating that not only is this not feasible for working mothers with small children, but also, by implication, suggested that male actors hardly if ever, stick to the now-existing legal 8-hour work schedule. Neither are they pulled up for breaking the rule, nor are there any complaints about how, quite casually, they decide their own hours of reporting for shoots. 

Deepika Padukone is at the center of this debate around work hours in the film industry. She previously spoke about the need for fixed working hours, overtime pay, and healthy food for film crew. Padukone also stressed the importance of mental health support for both actors and technicians. She was summarily dropped from Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Spirit’ and Nag Ashwin’s ‘Kalki 2898’ sequel, the actor faced massive trolling for reportedly demanding shorter working hours. 

The discriminating approach in male actors about reporting for shooting, quitting the studio according to their personal choice and not according to the demands of the shoot by the director, can be seen from a few examples. Salman Khan never reports for a shoot before 9.00 pm. No one in Bollywood can ever dream of expecting Shah Rukh Khan to report for a shoot in the morning. Akshay Kumar sticks to the eight-hour work schedule quite religiously, not as his duty to the film he is working in, but as his duty towards his personal health schedule. He reports at eight in the morning and leaves exactly eight hours later and never reports on weekends.

Unequal demands

In this scenario, who is Deepika Padukone to put her foot down on a 12-hour work schedule? The result of this demand cost her two big projects at once. The question asked of her is, “Why did her priorities change after motherhood?” Whose business is it anyway? Is she not the mother of a small child? Besides, it is considered inhuman to force both men and women in the film industry to put in 12 hours a day in front of dazzling lights on a studio floor with heavy make-up, heavy costumes, doing electrically charged action and stunt scenes, irrespective of gender. This includes the members of the technical crew who are overworked, underpaid and lack a positive work environment to work within. 

Add to this the location shoots where they might need to work in extreme climatic and geographically hurdle-filled terrains and keep shooting for extra hours. Then why is there no clear mention of this new rule being made applicable to every single person working in films, irrespective of gender, age, caste, class and stardom? The men do not bother in any way. Then why must women be segregated for this work rule?

Legal oversight

According to the Factories Act 1948, the standards are set at nine hours per day and 48 hours per week for adult workers. Overtime is permitted but is paid at twice the ordinary rate of wages and the total is spread over the day (including breaks) cannot exceed 10.5 hours. Then, add to this the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Code 2020, the new code that supersedes the Factories Act aligning with these limits. 

According to the Indian legal system, there must not be any discrimination whatsoever on grounds of gender in matters of – evaluation of professional efficiency, income for work, time limits of duty. Sadly, the reins of control in every field in the mainstream film industry lie in the hands of the men – producers, financiers, directors, actors, technicians. Women are secondary. And perhaps, this is the first time for an actress, and a top one at that, to openly question this gender discrimination between men and women in the industry. 

But once upon a time, the picture was quite different. Rekha once was paid higher than her male counterpart. The same rule applied to Madhuri Dixit and Sridevi when they were at the top of the box office ladder. The billboards placed their names above the names of their heroes. Suchitra Sen is still known for demanding and getting higher fees than her actors and her name right on top on the billboards. But this was Bengali cinema where Uttam Kumar was so confident of his ability to pull the audience that he did not give much importance to these things. 

The Bollywood film industry today has come to be dominated entirely by men. The heroes decide who their leading lady should be in a given film. At times, they decide not only their own fees but also what fee the leading lady should be paid. The top hero, depending on his ranking in the industry, is also known to play a significant role in the publicity, marketing and distribution of his new film along with the producers. Women have no say at all in these matters.

Cinephiles may have noticed that top male actors often shy away from acting opposite famous actresses and choose young and new female actors to romance them on screen. Aamir Khan, Salman Khan are two good examples of this practice. Even Shah Rukh Khan followed this in some of his films from his own production house. One example is Dear Zindagi with Alia Bhatt which was not a normal romance the Khan is famous for and the other is Raees which featured him opposite Mahira Khan in her only role in Bollywood. 

Working hours in Bollywood are typically long and demanding, often exceeding 12 hours per day for many on-set staff and actors, with some male stars previously working on an 8-hour schedule. Recent discussions, spurred by actress Deepika Padukone, have highlighted work-life balance. However, the film industry's production nature, with factors like weather and multiple takes, makes it challenging to have a strict, universal 9-to-5 schedule for everyone. But the entire authenticity of these facts comes under severe questioning based on gender discrimination. 

However, top stars like Deepika Padukone need not worry in the least because they are already multi-millionaires several times over. The brands they model for are rooted in eight to ten figure contracts. They have become producers too or are said to demand a percentage in the profits like their male colleagues. So, money is no problem in a country where thousands cannot afford one square meal a day. 

But this in no way takes them away from their right to equality in hours of duty. If Akshay Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan are never questioned about their hours of duty, on what grounds should Deepika Padukone be? Hours of duty also imply reporting for work at a scheduled hour and leaving similarly at a fixed hour. It is not linked to hours of work. But does this practice exist?

(The author is a noted film scholar who writes extensively on gender issues. She is a double-winner for the National Award for Best Writing on Cinema. Views personal.)