After nearly four years since the pandemic made us into hermits, or left us hibernating in our caves sans the slumber, suddenly the new term, Work from Home sprung to light, bringing movie theatres back in the show. (Nowadays, for a long while actually, the abbreviated version is WfH, which whenever you ask someone where they are, pat comes the way-of-life reply WfH, as if it is the glossiest choice one can ever have. To me, WfH, grates the ears, as does its full form!) For today, it is about movies or rather, how with the pandemic out of the woods—though fearfully, hear another tiny scrap of a virus might, yet again, make us stand on our heads—cinema halls, or to be more accurate, swank multiplexes showing five or more movies at the same time with multi-cuisine food bars catering to your palate’s desire, while you are well-seated in your plush, reclinable chair taking in the movie of your choice.
So larger-than-life films are being made to pull out those having gotten addicted to cinema made for Netflix, and the likes, and watching comfortably at home, in one’s bed with a mountain of pillows, acquired online during Covid, on a huge high-resolution flat-screen television procured again via the click of a button, when the virus cocooned us to stay indoors! So, in the recent months, we have SRK’s “Pathan”, “Jawan”, Sunny Deol’s “Gadar 2” making cash registers go in a tizzy, raking in unprecedented profits running into hundreds of crores. With the audience coming in for a repeat viewing—waiving off, with a nonchalant hand, the cost of tickets.
Before talking about the movie, “Animal”, with its hypermasculinity, where subjugating women is supposed to be glorified and yes, an accepted norm, to keep an eye on them, for their own good premise, let’s go back to 2019 where “Kabir Singh”, with Shahid Kapoor playing the hero, in final year of medical college, who on a testosterone-high whim decides to take a dumb-struck, voiceless fresher (yes, yes, a doe-eyed girl, of course) under his wing. Here the Alpha-male is applauded, for his good Samaritanism, even if it comes with prodigious salivating over his trophy. Still can’t fathom how this lost-in-space lass made it to medical school, since becoming a doctor requires a sure-footedness, sparse spare time and so, is no walk in the park.
It’s the law of the jungle, as far as the soon-to-be doctor Kabir goes. He saunters into her classroom with both a panther-esque stride and striking intimacy. The professor delivering a serious lecture on the intestinal anatomy, I think, must be a ghost, since with a snap of a finger he commands the dolly damsel to abandon the discourse and take a long ride with him on his Stallion mobike. Then, it’s, who needs a professor to impart her with the medical know-how?! These teachers occupy too much of your head-space-—not good for the object of his obsession—and so he takes it upon himself to be her mentor. Nothing known as requisite attendance to sit for the exams or hands-on laboratory work ensuing dissecting and what not?! As mentioned, a while back, Kabir is the King of the College and lawlessness is the rule he plays by.
So, who would dare raise their eyebrows (unless, of course, one would want to be boxed in the eyes!) when Kabir decides it’s time for Barbie Doll to move in with him. The fact that a girl can occupy an all-boys hostel does not figure into the picture. Remember, Kabir is the commander of the ship, rules the roost, and about the Hostel Warden, who is he?! Another phantom, made up by Mummies to get their wards to toe the line. However, now to shift to another Kapoor. If you happen to think this is an overkill then hold on to catch a few glimpses of the film that has stolen the show. “Animal”.
(First, one is perplexed with the name and after super-heroic difficulty of squirming through a few nauseating scenes, you couldn’t agree more on the apt title!) Here Ranbir Kapoor with a thick as a jungle, running loose beard, is the brute of brutes. Misogyny at the highest mast ever?! Women are meant to be slapped around, a woman’s monthly cycle, mensuration, is the butt of ridicule. And his lady love—can she re-eally fall into this category—is told that the litmus test for her to prove unswerving devotion to him, Arjan Vailly (Kapoor’s character’s name) was to lick his boots. A male supremacist?! Is that not too diluted?! An Alpha-male?! Is it truly another word for a woman-loather, is it supposed to explain being misogynistic to the core, something to gloat about, cheerily slapping one another over each other’s muscle rippling bare-chests, with beards grazing those surging, billowing torsos, displaying taut nipples.
Beards aside, the lush hair on the head never needing the services of a barber (here Bobby Deol, essaying God knows what role) too is brought in the fore. Now with these kind of males Rapunzel, with her luxuriant, lustrous locks would have been in the dense shade. A stomach-wrenching smattering of more, before one strings forth an entire rattling parade of questions… Abounding talk of men’s pubic hair having a mass appeal amongst women folk, of how to romp in the hay while flying in a jet. My pen, cannot go on, and so stops decidedly, definitely, though the box-office register is uninhibitedly ringing round the clock at full-volume. One time viewing falls short and so men throng back in packs; animals hunt in swarms, right?!
Seems the Censor Board of Films is taking a leisurely sabbatical and therefore, “Animal” gets a thumbs-up go-ahead. There is enough violence executed on women in real life for men to take, with great gung-ho, screenplays from reel life. Creative licence?! Yes, fine. If this genre of art, entertainment or whatever, braggingly prods men to, as a policy, as a practice perpetuate unabashed, unmentionable barbarity of physical, emotional, mental dimensions, then would not the solution to this women-abhorrence be to end the whole saga?! Do away, brutishly, in one murderous stroke, the entire female race?! Yet this segment, despite being monstrous, know where their bread is buttered, are whip-smart. If the female race was eliminated, once their own lives came to an end, who would wield the baton?! No Reproduction, no Men, correct!