Sandeep Reddy Vanga responds to Javed Akhtar’s criticism on Animal, says ‘all your art form is big false’, gets brutally trolled

‘Nobody likes criticism’ - it’s true for most of us, but it’s perhaps most applicable in film parlance lately, going by how filmmakers, actors have resorted to a critic-bashing spree whenever the feedback to their film haven’t been kind. In particular, Sandeep Reddy Vanga, who’s riding high on the success of Animal, has dismissed the criticism around his film, refusing to admit that it is ‘misogynistic’.

Javed Akhtar, at the Ajanta Ellora film festival in Aurangabad had remarked how the success of a few films can set a dangerous precedent. He opined filmmakers should be careful about the characters they’d want to create while catering to the masses. He indirectly spoke of Animal’s sequence where Ranvijay Singh asks a woman to lick his shoe and the infamous Kabir Singh ‘slapping’ scene.

It’s dangerous to see successful films with such characters and philosophies, the writer-director-lyricist added. Responding to the thespian’s criticism on Animal through the film’s social media handle, the director wrote, “Writer of your calibre cannot understand the betrayal of a lover (Between Zoya & Ranvijay) then all your art form is big false.”

In contrary, had the woman been betrayed and fooled by a man in the name of love and would have said ‘lick my shoe’, perhaps you would have celebrated it by calling it feminism, Sandeep Reddy Vanga shared. “Let love be free from the politics of gender. Let's just call them lovers. Lover cheated and lied. Lover said lick my shoe. Period,” he added.

However, netizens were quick to jump in defence of Javed Akhtar, and trolled Sandeep Reddy Vanga, saying it’s a ‘new low’ for a filmmaker to question the credentials of the Sholay, Deewar writer, even if he criticised a successful film.

Meanwhile, Sandeep even graced the success celebrations of Animal with the cast, crew yesterday.