Actor Alia Bhatt, who has been drawing significant attention for her appearance at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, has questioned the film industry’s continued obsession with catering to male audiences. The actor admitted she often wonders why conversations about cinema are still centred on creating content for men rather than on storytelling that speaks to everyone.
For Alia, stories should be “gender-agnostic,” with content taking precedence over targeting a specific audience.
Alia on Indian cinema
During a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter India on the sidelines of the film festival, Alia questioned the focus on a single gender in box-office hits.
She pointed to the success of films such as Barbie, Wuthering Heights and The Devil Wears Prada 2 as examples, and questioned why Indian cinema still largely caters to the male audience.
“When I look at the landscape, I think we’re in a very fascinating time today… If you take a look at the box office, you’ll see the films that have done phenomenally well: Barbie, Wuthering Heights, and The Devil Wears Prada. These are a few; I am sure there are way more, and their main audience, perhaps, was women. Women were showing up, watching these films, which have now become massive hits,” Alia said.
Talking about Indian cinema, Alia mentioned, “But in India, when we talk about box office and numbers, there is a conversation that comes up pretty often, which is 75% of the movie-going audience is male, so we need to cater to the masses. This conversation comes up quite a bit. I wonder if we are catering just to the men, then what happens to the women? I am saying the alineate the men, but why do we have to alienate anyone? Why do we have to cater to one gender? Why can’t we make movies that are gender-agnostic, where the storytelling takes centre stage? So, whether it stars a man or a woman, that should not matter. It is the storytelling that should matter. I’m just hoping we have more of that.”
Alia at Cannes
After making her red carpet debut at the Cannes Film Festival last year, Alia is back at the festival as the global ambassador for beauty brand L’Oréal Paris. The film festival started on May 12 and will run till May 23.
For her first red-carpet outing, Alia opted for a custom haute couture piece by Tamara Ralph. She paired her blush-toned gown with a necklace featuring a composition of 168.27 carats of rare pink coral. She was styled by Rhea Kapoor.
Before this, Alia was seen wearing a landscape-print ball gown by Yash Patil. The gown featured a classic, romantic silhouette with a corseted sweetheart bodice and delicate spaghetti straps that highlight her toned frame.
On the film front, Alia will soon be seen in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Love & War. Apart from Alia, the film stars Ranbir Kapoor and Vicky Kaushal. Love & War will release in theatres on January 21, 2027, arriving a few days ahead of the Republic Day window. She also has spy thriller Alpha in the pipeline. Alia was last seen in Jigra (2024).