Women's Day 2026 | Screen Power: Why Representation Of Women In Films and OTT Matters For Young Audiences
On the eve of Women’s Day 2026, a look at how visual storytelling influences young audiences, as films, web series, and social media move beyond stereotypes to portray women.
By Minal Rudra
Published : March 7, 2026 at 5:42 PM IST
Ever stumbled upon the Instagram page of Anubhavi Yadav? She goes by mononym. Scroll through her page, and you will meet one of her most loved characters, “that one wife who doesn’t hesitate.”
Picture this. A wife telling her husband she has called an ambulance because the moment she leaves for her parents’, the mother-in-law will fall sick. To spare anybody the trouble, she has already arranged for it. Clad in a pink chiffon saree, looking like she's straight out of a Yash Chopra film, Anubhavi delivers the lines with a straight face, which makes them land even more because the humour is quick and her satire sharp. Her character does not swallow her words like the idealised bahu we have watched for years on Indian television. Do not be surprised to spot likes and comments from Zoya Akhtar, Neeraj Ghaywan, Arjun Kapoor, and more on this page by the digital creator based in Gurugram, Haryana.
Anubhavi’s character stands in stark contrast to the dutiful daughter-in-law of TV with eyes lowered, saree pallu over her head, patience endless, and sacrifice unlimited. She questions. She argues. She laughs at the absurdity of it all. And how does she do it? All that she watched onscreen and around would have stayed in her subconscious.
Even if Instagram loses its charm someday, like many platforms before it, this character will survive somewhere. In forwarded clips. In inside jokes among friends. In conversations about relationships.
That is the power of visual storytelling. Once a character enters popular culture, it rarely leaves.
As playwright Oscar Wilde once said, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” Remember the Ganesh idols striking Allu Arjun's iconic Pushpa pose in 2022?
What appears on screen often reflects society. At the same time, it also influences how society thinks and behaves. Especially the young ones who are still in the process of finding their voice and building a sense of self.
Visual media leaves a deep imprint. Scientists often point out that the human brain processes images far faster than text. Almost ninety percent of the information that reaches our brain is visual. A moving image triggers emotions before logic even steps in.
Ask any millennial and watch the nostalgia unfold.
“Do you remember Shanti?” someone will say at a reunion.
“I wanted to be like her,” another might reply.
The ambitious journalist played by Mandira Bedi in the 1990s show Shanti was one of the earliest women on Indian television who chased her dreams unapologetically.
Then there was Tara, another show from the 90s that felt unusually modern for its time. The women were urban, outspoken, flawed, and real. This was, of course, the pre-Ekta Kapoor era.
Indian television also gave us villains who became legends.
Komolika was iconic with that bindi, that walk, that background music. The glamorous antagonist from Kasautii Zindagii Kay became a pop culture reference point. People copied her style. Mimicked her dramatic expressions.
Another unforgettable face was Pallavi Joshi as headstrong Cadet Nikita Sachdev in Aarohan. And for millions of Indians, Dipika Chikhlia is still remembered as Sita from Ramayan. Such is the influence of television that sometimes the actor and the character merge in public memory.
Storytellers know this power very well. Speaking with ETV Bharat on the eve of International Women's Day 2026, producer and filmmaker Abhishek S Vyas, founder and CEO of AVS Films Productions, says, "Storytelling has always played a powerful role in shaping how societies see themselves."
“Films and web series today reach millions of young viewers across geographies,” he explains. “And the way women are portrayed in these stories can influence how the next generation understands strength, identity and equality.”
For a long time, mainstream entertainment kept women in narrow spaces. The loving wife. The sacrificing mother. The moral compass for the hero, etc.
“For decades women were written within stereotypes,” Vyas says. “But over the past ten years we have started seeing a shift.”
Today’s female characters are often written with agency and ambition. The global entertainment ecosystem is also evolving in this direction. This year's O Womaniya report also substantiates the fact that there is a rise in female representation on screen, and streaming platforms are leading the change more than the big screens.
"When a young person watches a narrative where a woman leads a business, solves problems, challenges social expectations, or simply owns her voice without apology, it quietly expands what feels possible in the real world," shares Vyas.
And that humanised representation of women is what matters for younger audiences.
Screenwriter and producer Amir Rizvi agrees. “What we watch when we are young shapes our aspirations,” he says. For generations, popular culture made sacrifice the most celebrated quality for women. “We taught women that perfection, especially physical perfection, was something they should constantly strive for,” Rizvi says. “Supportive roles were glorified as virtues.”
But storytelling is slowly moving beyond that.
“When we write women as people with needs, wants, dreams and even flaws,” he says, “we give young audiences confidence.” Sometimes the impact is deeply personal. “You start believing that your voice matters,” Rizvi explains. “You see ambition not as arrogance but as possibility.”
Sometimes these characters also create invisible communities. “Even if the character is fictional,” he says, “young viewers feel they are not alone. It becomes a kind of imaginary tribe they draw strength from.”
Actors who played such roles saw this connection long before social media existed.
Actor-director Mita Vashisht remembers the letters she received while playing Devika in the 90s television drama Swabhimaan.
“I used to get so many letters,” she recalls. “Many of them were from young women studying in medical colleges, especially from Assam and the northeast.”
Mita says that for her the surprising part is that Devika was written as an antagonist. But viewers admired her. “They would say they loved her because she was honest and independent,” says the National School of Drama (NSD) alumna.
Devika did not apologise for wanting control over her life. “She was fearless,” the actor says. “And even when she failed, she picked herself up without self-pity." And that resilience, according to Mita, is what struck a chord with young viewers. “They admired her honesty and her ability to stand on her own feet,” Vashisht says.
The response also revealed something about the audience. “Young people connect to qualities of the mind and heart,” she says. “They enjoy glamour, yes. But what truly inspires them is courage, honesty, and self awareness."
Perhaps that is why the young audiences today embrace women characters who are messy, ambitious, stubborn or vulnerable or simply have the courage to start again, just like Konkona Sensharma and Pratibha Ranta in Accused, the movie at the top 2 spot on the Netflix global chart now.
