Bobby Deol
Mansi Taxak essayed the role of one of Bobby Deol's characters, Abrar's wives. In a recent interview with Zoom, Mansi Taxak got candid about a scene towards the end of the movie where Abrar is seen subjecting her character to marital rape. In the interview, Mansi touched on the topic and asserted that absolutely no assault was happening. However, she also stated that Abrar was also 'twisted' and âfilled with animal instincts' which was reason enough for the character to make his decisions next.
Animal, helmed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga and starring Ranbir Kapoor and Bobby Deol, while being hailed as one of the biggest hits of the years, has also been called out by netizens over its mysoginy and toxic masculinity depiction, which could be harmful to impressionable minds in the country. The movie has grossed over 500 crores worldwide.
In the interview in question, Zoom Entertainment asked Mansi about the wedding scene in the movie, where Abrar is informed about his brother's death while getting married to Mansi's character. Abrar kills the messenger and then proceeds to assault Mansi's character. After, he gestures for his other two wives to join them and proceeds to do the same to them.
Mansi said, "It is shocking, of course. Nobody expects their wedding to end that way. When the wedding sequence starts, if you see the lights and the way the art was done, it is beautiful. You hear the music that has gone so viral on Instagram. It was heading towards a beautiful end, and suddenly, you see something like this happening. It was to tell the audience that an animal was coming; if you thought Ranbir was this way, you can expect the villain to be worse. It was an apt way to establish Bobby sir's character and to show the audience what real animal we're talking about." Mansi took a breath and added with a laugh, "I would not wish that to happen at my wedding ever!"
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When questioned about the assault and the criticism that the film was earning, Mansi said that her character was in love with Abrar, and the assault was something that the audience was imagining. She said, "If you see the scene before that, the wedding scene, if you see the sort of chemistry that we have, the eye contact that we have⦠It tells you the back-story, that besides their differences, their age, their careers, they do love each other, and that's why they're getting married."
She added that she "completely gets where people are coming from, but that was not the intent." and "it was not the intent to show that any sort of assault was happening. It was just that Bobby sir did not expect his brother's death news to come at the wedding, which puts the character into a zone where he couldn't think straight. And that's what we're talking about, right? Animal instincts are unpredictable instincts. So he goes into that zone, and to vent out his emotions, he comes to his wives. I don't think it was intended to be any sort of assault. I didn't feel it on the set, or in the script. That was not the case. It was just a relationship between two people that has panned out the way it did." She added.
Right after saying no assault took place, Mansi also said that cinema happens to be a direct reflection of society and âthere are people who are doing these things to their wives'.
