22 December,2023 10:32 AM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Gazal Dhaliwal and Sandeep Reddy Vanga
'Animal' director Sandeep Reddy Vanga has been in the news lately for his latest film starring Ranbir Kapoor and his controversial opinions and statements n several topics. Now, the filmmaker who is credited as the writer, editor and director of Animal has been slammed by writer Gazal Dhaliwal for sidelining screenwriters who worked on his film. Dhaliwal is most popularly known for penning the Netflix show Mismatched.
Gazal took to her social media handle to highlight the matter of credit. She shared the screenshot of the title credit attributed to Sandeep Reddy Vanga as Writer-Editor-Director. Sharing the screenshot she penned down her thoughts and observations about the same. "There is a particular kind of filmmaker who claims the âWriter' title in the top credit of their film, even when there are other writers who have written the Screenplay and Dialogues of the film. It happens a lot, by the way, in our world. These filmmakers have a deep-seated need of power. Even though being a director is the most powerful anyway. For some reason, it would seem that claiming the âWriter' credit is what gives them the biggest high," she wrote.
Further, she also shared her thoughts in the controversial scene where Ranbir's character explains how women always opt for alpha males to procreate and that is the law of nature. "Although there were numerous things in the film which I found disturbing, there is a seemingly-small thing that refuses to leave me⦠and is truly the reason I felt compelled to write this post. The protagonist, claiming to be an alpha male, tells the girl he likes that evolutionarily, women would always choose the alpha man to mate with. So, then the beta men were like - and I paraphrase - what should they do? After all, they had desires too. And that's how, says this alpha protagonist condescendingly, âpoetry' came to be - so that the beta men could seduce women by cooking up words. And I couldn't help but think - how small, how very petty of this alpha male, who is cooking up words to seduce the woman."
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In the scene after the alpha male dialogue, Ranbir's character 'compliments' Rashmika for her 'big pelvis' saying that they can accommodate healthy babies. In a conversation with Galatta Plus, Vanga revealed that he included the line for shock value and to be provocative. Despite the negative criticism, he defended the scene and claimed that it was intended as a compliment. 'Animal' director Sandeep Reddy Vanga started by explaining why Ranbir Kapoor's character, Ranvijay, could not express his emotions directly. In the scene, "He's trying a different route to explain to her because it's her engagement day and they were not in touch. Coming with that force and saying, 'Listen, Gitanjali, I really love your pelvis.' He is trying to explain a theory that is related to the character, the title, and for the audience when they are watching the film, it doesn't seem like the theory he is talking about."
Talking about the scene, "I felt like she is walking away, he knew that if he let her go without saying one more line, he knew that she was gone. So how should I say that I am seeing my future with you? I want to marry you. I thought in these situations boys behave very differently sometimes. Your intention is something else but you end up saying something else. So, he didn't know what to say. This was the brief given to Ranbir also. Suddenly he doesn't know what to say and he says Gitanjali got a big pelvis. He is giving a reason that I'm seeing a future with you that we'll get married and have babies. I thought that was a compliment. I never thoughtâ¦how you found it ugly."