Can’t Daughters Succeed Dads on Screen?

It is an open fact that Telugu Film Industry is under the influence of  a few families.Heritage is a common thing in the  industry. Actors, who become successful in their film career, tries to keep their mark on audience by introducing  their sons as heroes on silver screen.  Akkineni Nagarjuna,Nandamuri Balakrishna,Mahesh Babu and Ramcharan  could have their foothold  in Tollywod, because of their fathers’ patronage .This legacy, however,  been  limited to their sons and seldom extenede to their daughters. Crores have been invested on their sons as heroes but not a pie was spent on their daughters to become heroines. Interestingly, they haven’t encouraged daughters of  other Telugu families either. Only the girls from mostly northern parts of the country are given the chances to be the heroines here. 

There are several fan groups for the families centering around heroes in the TFI. They are not ready to accept their hero’s daughter to pair with any boy on screen . They  see the stars as  not just actors and demigods . They feel they belong to the family of the star too. They consider the stars daughters as their own sisters. In a patriarchal family,  daughters should confine to their homes. They can’t  digest if their daughters are found dancing with boys on screen.

But from Tamil Nadu,  Sruthi Hasan daughter of Kamal Hasan broke all the jinx and emerged as a leading actress in South India.She even faced a lot of criticism in the initial stages.Her 1st film LUCK was a flop in Bollywood but she tried hard and proved herself.She once said in an interview that her father backed her always and gave her freedom to build her career. Even in Bollywood there are many heroines whose fathers are popular heroes .

There have been a few attempts in Tollywood in the past . In TFI Manchu lakshmi from Mohan Babu family tried to prove herself as an actor. She  faced a lot of criticism in initial stages but now she  has built herself a career in both film and TV industry .She  even played some guest roles in English TV series. Niharika Konidela from Mega family tried  to prove herself as an actress but her first film didn’t go well in the Market.

We can find many success stories of daughters of stars in Bollywood but here we can’t find a single success story.Here we find many cases of launching sons of star heros and they were pushed onto the telugu audience even they were good at nothing.Even the audience were ready to accept them but not actresses.The pattern of Telugu cinema must be changed .Heroine should not be confined only to skin show and glamour roles.They should get equal priority as lead male actors.

–telugoos Film Bureau

(Third Sunday of June happens to be Father’s Day)