Javed Akhtar slams 'Animal' again, says 'Ranbir Kapoor's character was a caricature, someone who asks a woman to lick...'

Veteran writer and lyricist Javed Akhtar has taken a jibe at Ranbir Kapoor and Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s 2023 blockbuster Animal again. In a recent interview with We Are Yuvaa, Akhtar said, “In the 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.”

The tug-of-war between the legend and the makers has been going on for a while.

Akhtar , who along with former writing partner Salim Khan, is known for penning films such as “Zanjeer”, “Deewar”, and “Mr India”, recently said the commercial success of films with problematic scenes was a “dangerous” trend.

While he didn’t mention the name of “  Animal ”, the screenwriter cited the example of the film’s controversial bootlicking scene featuring Ranbir and Triptii Dimri, who play Ranvijay and Zoya.

In response, the “  Animal ” team on X tagged Akhtar 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).”

At an event earlier this year,  Akhtar had expressed concern about the current state of cinema taking an apparent swipe at Vanga’s movie but didn’t take its name. The swipe, however, didn’t go down well with the director who in turn called Akhtar’s art “false”.

Starring Ranbir Kapoor as a violent man desperate for his father’s approval, “  Animal ” received criticism for its graphic content and misogyny. Notably, the film was one of the top grossing Hindi titles of 2023 earning Rs 900 crore at the box office.

“When he or his team retaliated, I was extremely flattered. I was honoured. In 53 years of my career, he could not find one film, one script, one scene, one dialogue or one song, that he could say ‘See, this is what you have written and you are talking about my film’,” Akhtar, 79, said in an interview to digital outlet Mojo Story.