Javed Akhtar, who had earlier criticized Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal for being mysoginistic in nature, has once again epressed his opinion about the film. In a new interview, when the veteran writer was asked about the idea of angry young man in films, the writer said, "In south also, he (the hero) is turning into a caricature . Now he is the kind of man who wants a woman to lick his shoe. He is already starting to turn into a caricature of an angry young man or a strong man.” For the unversed, the reference made by Javed Akhtar was in connection with a scene in Animal where Ranbir Kapoor asks Triptii Dimri to lick his shoe.
On being asked if he had seen Animal and the writer said, “I have not seen Animal. People told me about it, and I read in the news that he asks her to lick his shoe. She bends down, but thank god they cut it right there.”
For those who do not know, it all started at the Ajanta Ellora International Film Festival, Aurangabad, in January, where Javed Akhtar expressed his concerns about the present state of cinema. It is worth noting that he did not mention the name of Animal.
The lyricist had said, “I believe it's a testing time for the young filmmakers today as to what kind of characters they want to create that the society will applaud. For instance, if there's a film in which a man asks a woman to lick his shoe or if a man says it's okay to slap a woman, and if the film is a super duper hit, then that's very dangerous.”
In response to Javed Akhtar's statement, Sandeep Reddy Vanga raised questions about Mirzapur, a series produced by Javed's son, Farhan Akhtar. During an interview with Siddharth Kannan, Sandeep remarked, "Why didn't he tell the same thing to Farhan Akhtar when he was producing Mirzapur. Duniya bhar ke gaali Mirzapur ek show mai hai and I haven't watched the whole show. When the show was translated to Telugu, if you watch that, then you will feel like puking. Why is he not checking his son's work?”
Animal was released in December last year. The film was jointly produced by Bhushan Kumar, Pranay Reddy Vanga, Krishan Kumar and Murad Khetani.
