20th April 2015 is a landmark day for female make-up artistes in the Indian film industry. It’s the day Charu Khurana won a six year long battle against a six decade long prejudice to become the first enrolled female member of Mumbai’s Cine Costume Make-up Artist and Hair Dressers Association (CCMAA).
Watch her speak about her struggle and how she brought about a big change for female make-up artistes by making the film industry free their mind.
Sexism in Bollywood is not a new phenomenon. It’s an industry where female actors are seen, but rarely heard; male actors are revered enough to be treated like gods. But it’s not just the faces on the screen that face sexism.
For 60 years, women could not join the film industry as make-up artistes. Under an archaic and unconstitutional union rule, only men were entitled to be make-up artists while only women could be hair dressers. The bylaws divided permissible roles for the two, apparently to ensure equal opportunity.
Charu Khurana, had always been interested in the high quality make-up effects she saw in Hollywood films. Since her formal training at the Cinema Makeup School in Los Angeles, she worked in multiple shoots for advertisements and in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films like Raavan.
It was in 2009 while working on the Tamil remake of A Wednesday! called Unnaipol Oruvan, that she discovered the union’s rule that barred artists like her to work in the industry.
A raid was conducted on the set and she was fined Rs.25,000 for not being registered with the CCMAA. When she tried registering she was informed she couldn’t do so under the bylaws. Although the lead actor of the film, Kamal Haasan, supported her, she still had to quit the film.
It’s been a long battle for Charu, who fought against the union law in the Supreme Court along with eight other female make-up artists. She won the case on 10th November 2014 only to realise that the union had found another bylaw that didn’t allow a person to hold membership as both a make-up artist and a hair dresser. So she filed another petition in the court and won that too.
The CCMAA informed SC bench on Monday that Charu Khurana has been officially enrolled and would be getting her membership card soon, ending the male monopoly in the Association.
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