‘Animal’: Why the Film Needed to Have a ‘Muslim Villain’ (The Quint)

By ADITYA MENON

There are many things that are superfluous in Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Animal‘ – the length, the women characters, Bobby Deol (an AI-generated character with the prompt ‘very evil, scary-looking man’ would have sufficed).

Then, there is the misogyny. Read more on that in this extensive review by Pratikshya Mishra of the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer film.

In this article, however, we’ll look at two other aspects of the film:

First, an aspect that seems superfluous but is actually central to the film’s worldview  – the Muslim background of the antagonists.

Second, an aspect that seems central but is actually superfluous – the Sikh background of the protagonists.

To understand this, let’s first, for the sake of argument, look at what ‘Animal’ could have been without the misogyny or the anti-Muslim narrative.

This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here .