In Pic: Javed Akhtar
âAnimal' has been in the news for the longest time. The Sandeep Reddy Vanga directorial, starring Ranbir Kapoor, is one of the biggest Indian blockbusters of 2023 and has earned close to Rs 900 crore worldwide.
The movie recently caught the attention of screenwriter, lyricist, and poet Javed Akhtar. He spoke about such films achieving success, and it looks like Akhtar's comment didn't sit well with the makers of Ranbir Kapoor's film. In response to his comment, the team of âAnimal' took to their official account and tagged the filmmaker and wrote, "Writer of your calibre cannot understand the betrayal of a lover (Between Zoya & Ranvijay) then all your art form is big FALSE... Let love be free from the politics of gender... (sic)."
The team further wrote that if it were a female who had asked a hero to lick her shoes, then the whole world would have celebrated it in the name of 'Feminism.' "If a woman (betrayed and fooled by a man in the name of love) would have said 'lick my shoe' then you guys would have celebrated it by calling it feminism... Let's just call them lovers. LOVER cheated and lied. LOVER said lick my shoe. Period @Javedakhtarjadu," the post read.
Speaking at the 9th Ajanta-Ellora International Film Festival in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Akhtar talked about the film and said, "The image of a hero should be created with an awareness of what is right and how it should be. Today's writers need to think because confusion has increased among them. The reason for this is that society is in confusion. Society does not decide what is right and what is wrong, but it is reflected in cinema. There was a time when the poor were good and the rich were bad. But today, we only have one thought in our head, âKaun Banega Crorepati?' So we can't make the rich look bad now since we ourselves want to be rich."
The filmmaker further went on to highlight one of the scenes from the movie and said, "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 the film is a super hit, that's dangerous."
Animal also features Anil Kapoor, Rashmika Mandanna, among others. The movie released on December 1, 2023, and has been in the headlines for the longest time for its story, dialogues, and more.
