Bhagyashri Borse has called out the practice in the Telugu film industry of labelling an actress as ‘iron leg’ if a film doesn’t do well, pointing out that actresses have no control over the script, editing, or final cut and therefore it is unfair to hold them responsible for a movie’s financial outcome.
“I heard such comments after my Kantha and Andhra King Taluka did not perform as expected. It is common for people to blame heroines after consecutive failures, but such judgments are not justified,” the actress said.
The ‘iron leg’ is a derogatory term frequently used in the Indian film industry, particularly in Telugu cinema, for actresses who are considered to have brought bad luck to a project, or blamed for causing a film to flop at the box office. If a high-budget movie fails, the blame is frequently pinned on the heroine’s ‘bad luck’ rather than on script issues, poor directing, or the performance of the male superstar.
Bhagyashri is not the first actress to be foisted with such a label. Long before Nayanthara won the sobriquet of ‘Lady Superstar’, she was given the ‘iron leg’ handle following a string of commercial failures in Telugu and Tamil cinema.
Once celebrated as Tollywood’s ultimate ‘golden girl’ or lucky charm, Sreeleela faced intense social media trolling and the ‘iron leg’ label after 7 out of 9 of her films unexpectedly turned into box-office disasters.
Early in her career, Shruti Haasan suffered consecutive commercial flops, leading the industry to stamp her with the tag. She went on to shatter this perception by delivering massive blockbusters like Gabbar Singh and Balupu.
Keerthy Suresh faced similar rough patches in the Telugu film industry and was dubbed ‘iron leg’ by the media before bouncing back with massive hits and a National Award.
Taapsee Pannu spoke out about her early struggles in Tollywood, noting that when three of her big-budget films failed, the blame was placed entirely on her supposed ‘bad luck’ rather than on the male stars or directors.
“They have these tags for the female actors — golden leg, iron leg and so on. None of male actors are ever labelled in this way. I wish I had saved all those articles calling me those names. But they were too hurtful to save back then.