Sandeep 'ANIMAL' Vanga Vs Illiterate Audience

 Arjun Valley ne Pair jod k gandasi mari. The first time I listened the line in pre teaser of Animal I got it on loop. It is so intimidating and energetic and is something which we didn't expected from bollywood as it was raw Punjabi not that bollywood's own crafted hindi mixed punjabi. 

The teaser dropped followed by the trailer and the buzz for Animal just reached to top but the main source was the statement that Sandeep Reddy Vanga gave on Anupama Chopra'a interview about showing violence in his next venture after Kabir Singh and that it will be a hell more. 

Animal released, flooded theaters with folks and grab money in huge sums but also faced a lot of criticism from certain sections of society and Sandeep found himself in the exact situation where he was after the release of Kabir Singh and he was ready for it and went all guns blazing on his critics. Let's see whether the critics and certain sections of audience are illiterate as mentioned by Sandeep or is Vanga really an Animal whose view point is not suitable for society. 


Sandeep 'ANIMAL' Vanga Vs Illiterate Audience


Let's come straight to the main point. The main backlash Vanga is facing is about wrong treatment of female characters in Animal and that the movie is filled with misogyny. I watch the movie after a week of it's release and in the week social media was filled with the things like Ranbir's character Vijay is a bad husband he joked about Rashmika's mensural cycle, he made a girl licked his shoe,he commented on Geetanjali's pelvis etc. But when I watched the movie I don't found most of the scenes normal and unproblematic. 

Now hold don't close this article by assuming me as a Vanga fan boy or a sigma male edits influenced boy. Just look it in a deep way. Coming to scene by scene the scene in which Vijay confronted Geetanjali about her mensural cycle there he was just expressing his struggle by comparing his pain on a scale with which she can relate. He had to go to a lot of mental frustration and physical pain during his recovery and he just to make Geeta understand his state of mind made that comment. 


He didn't made Zoya lick his shoe when he was in love game with her. First of all in proper presentation she didn't licked his shoe and if we came to the scene Vijay outsmarted Zoya and was in a way telling and expressing Zoya that what sort of feelings he in real had for her and as she was from enemy camp she was not the one who deserved Vijay's respect or love. 

Yes I admit that the Pelvis remark was wrong but it is shown that they were in a small time relation in school time and in a way it was a witty remark of Vijay which Geeta had no major problem as she knew from childhood what sort of person Vijay is. How his way of thinking is different from others as in the school scene when other children were normalising their love with father Vijay compared his love as a competition in which the final result will decide whether he was at par with love for his father or not. 


Vijay was in fact showed as a careful husband as in a scene Geeta confronted her parents when they were criticizing Vijay. He had no ego in doing Geeta's help and Geeta told that he assisted her as a nurse in her hard times and Geeta was very powerful in front of Vijay. She could scold him in front of his brothers, could throw his laptop and when she found about Vijay's cheat on her she slapped her and divorced her. What else we expect from a strong woman and the only time Vijay got physical with her was when she triggered him on his dad and that was normal like Vijay was shown highly obsessed with his duties as son and in the heat of moment he did that thing. 

So in all I don't see Animal as a problematic movie in that way. In fact it was not criticized for what it should be. The whole Arjun Valley sequence honestly couldn't hit even to a small extent. There was no emotion in the action of movie apart from the Vijay killing Abrar Scene Or Vijay killing his brother in law scene. The movie was shot cinematically well and Man Vanga had a good ear for music. 


Album of Animal was a step ahead of Kabir Singh. Vanga exactly knows that at which scene what music should be played and most importantly his songs play in background which make them more real not that his hero is lipsing the song which doesn't seems real. 

Vanga showed the Punjab to it's core. Not like Jug Jug jeeyo's Punjab. The culture representation is his strength. He goes raw with his representation and doesn't want to appease anybody. 


But this doesn't make Vanga right. His offscreen statements and interviews are a bit problematic like he sometimes support his conviction to a somewhat further extent. Like in Animal even till today I didn't understand what was the need of Zoya's track in story. Like Vijay already knew that she was fake and even then he made love with her and on the other hand he could use other simple ways to get information from her and what special information she gave her. All he had to do was to collect information from his brother in law by his ways and ask his family history from his grandfather. 

Sometimes it feels that Vanga first get some brilliant songs and to add them in movie write unnecessary sequences in his movie. Otherwise there was not any need for this movie to be such longer. 


But in one case Vanga rightly calls the critics and audience illiterate. People are in hurry to defame any movie or art work without seeing it fully and it definitely hurts an artist and Vanga is not an exception. People after years of release still criticize PK that it targeted Hinduism alone and movie was anti hindu but if we see the movie was a satire on all the religions equally. 

But Vanga's views are not right and in my view there was not any innovative or brutal violence in Animal as he proclaimed. Apart from the scene in which Abrar breaks the eye of his man in marriage there is no single very violent scene in movie. Killing 100's a people is not violence. Leave Hollywood in Bollywood in Murder 2 there was much more scarier and brutal violence. Even yesterday I watched a South Indian movie Bimbisar it had more impactful violence than Animal. Animal's violence was like normal Punjabi Haryanvi Music video in which for looking cool some random killing and mass shooting is shown without any emotion or impact. 


So in conclusion Animal is not any way a masterpiece but it is criticized in wrong way which will not help in any way as Vanga would not realize his filmmaking mistakes and after cracking this controversial formula he would replicate this in a bigger way in his future films. 


Vanga had started to giving provoking statements for Animal Park as he had cracked the formula. 


Ps:- Animal k post credit ne izzat bacha li uski varna movie kuch zyada khas nhi h. 

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