Rewind 2023: With Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal a success, toxic masculinity rules Bollywood

Is this what the theatre going audiences want to watch on big screen with extreme level of misogyny. I was taken aback when one of my friends mentioned that though it is violent with a lot of abuses and disrespect towards women, they found it to be entertaining. And I ask myself is this the level cinema has gone down to? Look at the level filmmakers can go down to make films a box office success. But my question is that how can a movie like _Animal_ which glorifies misogyny can entertain people.  We are all aware of Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s filmography. When the movie was released in USA, Sandeep Reddy Vanga recently attended a promotional event for Animal in Dallas, Texas (USA). After the event, Sandeep said on stage, “What I really like about this crowd is that I didn’t hear any questions on misogyny. I’m so happy, you are the right crowd. You saw _Animal_ as a film.” A video of the same has gone viral on Reddit. In an interview after the release of his another misogynistic film, Kabir Singh, Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s mentioned that those women who are calling the movie misogynistic have never experienced love in their life. “When you are deeply in love, there is a lot of honesty in it and if you don’t have the liberty of slapping each other.” But strangely after watching Animal, many have felt the Kabir Singh was a toothless puppy. Now what was the cause of the success of the film Animal, many experts believe that the social media trolling helped. This trolling gave the movie the publicity that they never deserved and people went to watch the film out of curiosity. It is definitely a disturbing film, but with a huge success at the box-office. The movie despite being a torturous three and a half hours, run was successful. For so long we have been believing that the attention span of the audiences has reduced, but not really. But not really and in this way Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal movie has proved it to the people and the trade experts. According to a report published in Bollywood Hungama stated, this is the reason Animal was successful. The report said that the makers of Animal opted for popular pricing instead of asking multiplexes and theatres to sell tickets at blockbuster prices. In other words, the rates of the tickets were lower than those of Tiger 3, Pathaan and Jawan. By doing so, the rates in most cinemas were comparatively reasonable and within the reach of the common man. It also gave an incentive to several moviegoers to opt for repeat viewing, leading to a spike in collections. It proves yet again that hiking ticket rates won’t deliver results if the content is not strong. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.