What happened when screenwriter Gazal Dhaliwal, known for her feminist outing Lipstick Under My Burkha, sat on a table with Saurabh Gupta, the dialogue writer of one of the most polarising films of recent times, Animal? They had a debate. The two writers spoke about the Sandeep Reddy Vanga directorial, defending specific scenes in the film and the possible impact of the Ranbir Kapoor starrer on the viewers.
Released in December last year, Animal divided the internet as well as the film industry, with a section lapping the violent drama thriller while the other calling it out as a deeply problematic film which does disservice to women.
Also Read | Karan Johar defends loving Animal, says he saw it as ‘character film’: ‘Didn’t go deep into its moral communication’
In a video shared by Brut India from FICCI Frames, Gazal and Saurabh were seen on stage dissecting Animal, which co-starred Rashmika Mandanna, Triptii Dimri, Anil Kapoor and Bobby Deol.
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“Ranbir Kapoor, the hero, can behave like this, can say that, ‘You change four pads a month and do so much drama.’ If the hero can say stuff like that, the man who is watching can very well think it, even if he won’t go ahead and say it. He can say in his jobs, ‘She is doing so much drama, she wants a leave today because she is on her periods,'” Gazal noted.
Saurabh countered, “Using cinema to teach men the importance of sanitary napkins to tell them that smoking is bad, alcohol is bad… There’s so much pressure that cinema has buckled under it. Let’s have some fun.”
Also Read | Sargun Mehta defends Sandeep Reddy Vanga on misogyny in Animal, says if people want to learn lessons from films, ‘Let’s shut down schools’
Gazal then touched upon the film’s apparent Islamophobia and said Animal does a “certain legitimisation towards that as well,” referring to the character arc of Bobby Deol. Saurabh said the team “logically felt” that Bobby’s character Abrar Haque would go through that transition and added, “Because there was an old divide in their relationship, so his grandfather left, changed his religion.
“For us these things moved logically, from one to two. Now we are realising, ‘Ok so there is a view that…’ But the hero is also just as big of a demon as the villain. And he’s Hindu, but no one said, ‘You have portrayed a Hindu in such a way.'”
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Gazal argued that it is one thing to say that “this is a story, the character did this” but one has to stop and think that this character “was made by you.” She said the writers decided that story for that character so “what is it about you that’s making that character do that?”
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“You are saying that his brother went abroad and changed his religion. You have decided that the character is going to change their religion and become a Muslim– a very stereotypical Muslim who is going to have three wives, be aggressive, beat up the wives, pounce on her in front of 100 people.”
Saurabh agreed that there is a “larger problem” with how a community is being “portrayed in our cinema of late and the films that are coming out” but these are questions to be had at a broader level. Gazal added that the film is cruel to women and noted how Rashmika’s character is the one to lose everything. “She left her family and said, ‘My husband is my mother, father everything.’ She has nothing. He still has his family, cousins, a flourishing business. So I don’t think the character had a very sad ending.”
To which Saurabh countered, “We didn’t make this films to establish that women are lesser. I, in fact, felt that the hero’s wife in the film, had a lot of rights. Ultimately, she leaves him and goes… He loses everything. This used to be enough, but it is no longer enough.”
Also Read | Sandeep Reddy Vanga was ‘sad’ with Javed Akhtar’s Animal comments, says people will puke if they watch Farhan Akhtar’s Mirzapur
In her closing remarks, Gazal said Animal is an “extremely well made” film and she is not surprised it has been lapped up by the audiences. “The craft is great, the performances of course, the music, the writing, in my opinion, has great shock value, which really appeals to audiences. It is definitely really well made and I cannot take that away from the audiences. An intelligently made problematic film is what is more problematic than…. (audience applause).”
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Saurabh, in his closing remarks, said they made the film because it had a story and they wanted to show the character in a “specific” way. “There are many types of movies in Hollywood like Tony Montana, Scarface, The Godfather, which we praise a lot. Maybe we can let this film remain a film. You said ‘chill,’ which I think is a great word. Just chill.”
Despite the intense social media debate, Animal emerged as one of the biggest hits of Hindi cinema grossing over Rs 900 cr globally.
