Do you remember when Javed Akhtar criticised Animal for a scene where Ranvijay (Ranbir Kapoor) asks Zoya (Triptii Dimri') to lick his boots? Oh, and, following that, the film's director, Sandeep Reddy Vanga, responded by pointing at Javed Akhtar's son Farhan Akhtar's involvement in Mirzapur. Now, in an interview with Mojo Story, Javed Akhtar addressed Sandeep's comments, expressing his feelings towards the situation. He stated, “When he responded to me, I was honoured. In 53 years of my career, he could not find one film, one script, one scene, one dialogue, one song. So he had to go to my son's office and find a TV serial, which is neither acted, directed nor written by Farhan. His company has produced it. Nowadays, these big companies like Excel are producing a lot of things. So one of them is this. He mentioned that. It flattered me to no end.”
Javed Akhtar continued, “53 years ke career mein tum kuchh bhi nahi nikaal paye [You couldn't find anything problematic in 53 years of my career ?] What a shame. I was not criticising the filmmaker at all. I think in a democratic society, he has the right to make one Animal, and many Animals. I was concerned about the audience, not about the filmmaker. He has the right to make any film.”
In case you missed it, 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.