Tag: Animal Movie

Sameer Sharma

‘We Cannot Normalise Violence and Gore on Screen’

By LokMarg

Sameer Sharma, a medical professional, delves into the patriarchal mindset of the audiences that make films like Animal, Salaar and KGF a roaring success. His views:

Patriarchy is not alien to our society, never has been. We have all witnessed it manifest in various forms during our formative years. Male chauvinism has its cultural roots in our society since eons and we have seen its unfettered acceptance from one generation to the other.

Similarly, our mainstream media is not far behind in inherently portraying this vice in daily soaps on television, commercials of consumer goods as well as cinema. The naked display of violence, misogyny, profanity and male chauvinism in our movies has been taken to another level in some of the most recent Bollywood releases like ‘Animal’, ‘Salaar’ and ‘KGF’ to name a few. The passion with which people have accepted and appreciated this brute display of bestiality is reflective of our society which takes pride in being violent, impatient and contemptuous.

These kind of movies create an adverse effect on impressionable minds, especially our youth. The younger generation often get inspired by what they see in movies and on OTT platforms. They try to emulate various characters shown in the movie and somewhere lose their own identity in the process. The negative influence is far greater than one can imagine. In some cases, these young individuals resort to serious crimes where women are involved and some heinous instances are quoted as being taken from a film that perpetrated and glorified such violence. The hero is worshipped no matter what. He is emulated and the common man is struck by the belief that the screen hero is a demi god and does everything right. The false belief and warped notions on behaviour with women result in a convoluted society.

ALSO READ: ‘Movies Like Animal Glorify Violence & Patriarchy’

Today, everyone has access to all kinds of stuff especially films. It is easy courtesy access to a mobile phone, a tablet, a laptop and a high speed internet connection which is readily available everywhere. Violence against women and children has increased manifold in the recent years and it’ll be fair to say that the kind of media content our youth is consuming create an adverse effect on their mind which often result in such incidences. The lackadaisical attitude of our society to address this issue is bewildering to say the least. We have knowingly or unknowingly normalized violence, misogyny, narcissism and indifference which is pushing our youth towards a sort of psychotic and insane behaviour with a criminal and devilish mindset. And that is precisely what these films glorify. When we convey and portray evil, we harvest evil. What you see, imbibe and take in, makes you what you are.

There is always a silver lining to every black cloud. The hope to see enlightened individuals admonish this archaic behaviour is not distant. There is a need to address this vile obsession to treat women and the underprivileged with contempt. As long as we condone what’s happening now within our society, we will never be able to address the elephant in the room. Change is imminent.

As told to Deepa Gupta

For more details visit us: https://lokmarg.com/

Animal

‘Films Like ‘Animal’ Legitimise Misogyny, Normalise Violence’

By LokMarg

Kashu Shubhamoorty, a Delhi-based lawyer, says the box office success of a film like Animal reflects the current state of our society

When I am asked about how I feel about movies such as Animal, I think of the increasing violence prevailing in our society, in India as well as in other countries. I heard someone say that Animal is the movie of the century! It is indeed painful that some people find gory violence and brazen sexism entertaining. This trend has been going on since quite some time, and we have reached a stage where such movies actually become runaway success.

Cinema such as Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal encourages and establishes sexual violence against women as legitimate, whereby men treat women of any age as a commodity and do not feel guilty in assaulting even a child. I remember, in an interview, famous social activist, late Kamla Bhasin, said that some of the Bollywood songs present women as a commodity. This pattern has become more apparent in movies like Animal where a woman is explicitly told that she is liked because she can bear better children. Even more surprising thing is that the woman in question here is shown to find this an attractive proposal!

In another scene, when a female character is asked to lick the shoes of the male protagonist to show her love towards him. Such misogyny also manifest in many ways in real life, and thereby lead men to expect similar, demeaning gestures from women.

ALSO READ: ‘Censorship Doesn’t Work, Viewers Must Use Discretion’

A Bobo doll experiment was conducted way back in 1961 when the world was very different. Through this experimental project, the impact of violence was studied and it was found that it can make drastic changes in the behaviour of people. In the experiment it was seen that the impact of aggressive behaviour stays as a long-term phenomenon on children.

With this example we can understand what the impact of films like Animal or Salaar would make on the behaviour of people, especially men. The study is not only applicable to children, but also applies to adults. Now, with the advent of glorified violence, which is shown in many video games, and exposure to aggressive and hyper-masculine media/movies, the impact can become much more devastating.

Dr Hyacinth Byron-Cox studied that Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiments served to successively indicate that aggression can be learned through observational means, and the behaviour observed is not only confined to real-life scenarios, but, extends to include violence exhibited anywhere in various conditions.

That a film like Animal has become mainstream cinema also reflects the current state of our society. The commercial, box office driven film industry will make only that kind of cinema which sells; they will also make cinema that is sponsored, so the basic criterion is profit.

A positive fact is that some of the recent propaganda films have failed. They have not done well commercially – which is an indicator that large sections of people cannot be totally swayed by propaganda. However, this still makes me think — why should a movie contain so much violence, while there is no meaningful content, story, script or plot, worth its name?

(The narrator is an alumna of ILS Law College, Pune, and the University of Glasgow, Scotland. She has been working in the legal field since the last 15 years)

As told to Amit Sengupta

For more details visit us: https://lokmarg.com/