By the time you finish reading this sentence, Ranbir Kapoor’s Animal would have added several more crores to its ever-increasing collection, while the actor would have also successfully managed to trigger just as many people watching the film. The former is a box office fact that the Sandeep Reddy Vanga film is scripting, the latter is an obviously exaggerated but true experience that a section of the audience is voicing. Which is what makes Animal, Bollywood’s big Friday release, such a beast. It is an offensive art, but it is also the birth of a superstar.
Till about a week before Animal’s release, no one could’ve predicted that the film — certified A, with a run time of nearly 3 and half hours, arriving in cinemas with another film, Sam Bahadur, on the same day — would flirt with the records set by a mighty star like Shah Rukh Khan.
But the historic opening weekend of Vanga’s alpha entertainer has challenged–and in the case of Pathaan, breached–the gentle masculinity of Khan’s recent actioners, box office wise. Animal is now a monster, who has been cut lose from its moral leash– it can’t stop, it won’t stop. And riding the unhinged, untamed beast is Ranbir Kapoor, an actor whose cinematic daddy issues universe has reached its blood-soaked peak with the film, but perhaps at a cost.
The birth of a Chocolate Hero
Kapoor always had an admirable actor-star combination, which he started flexing right from his doomed 2007 debut Saawariya. The young naivety and a very peculiar filmy charm found perfect outlet in his subsequent movie outings, Bachna Ae Haseeno, Wake Up Sid and Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani. The new age chocolate boy hero was finally born.
His rise was phenomenal, as it was still the era when Khans were dominating. Shahid Kapoor was Bollywood’s hitherto chocolate hero who had lost his way, Hrithik Roshan, the big breakout star of the 2000s, was experimenting with his film choices. Kapoor was the lone good boy standing, until the image glass started to crack.
His highly publicised relationship with Deepika Padukone and subsequently the equally talked about break up–where he was accused of infidelity–was first of the many, many blows the actor were to take to his image. In November 2010, a month after the release of his romantic drama Anjaana Anjaani, aired the controversial Koffee with Karan episode, featuring Deepika and his Saawariya co-star Sonam Kapoor.
The birth of a Polarising Star
A 40-minute episode is all it took to establish a decade-worth of public discourse around Ranbir Kapoor, whose journey in films and the public eye can’t be mapped without the damaging Koffee with Karan episode. From Deepika wanting to gift him a “box of condoms” and even suggesting him to endorse condom brands, to Sonam being unsure if he would make for a good boyfriend, further fueled the speculation of his unfaithful nature in relationships.
“I think after the episode was aired, there was a lot of hoopla around me about that episode,” Kapoor had told Simi Garewal, adding, “I still respect Deepika a lot. I had a beautiful relationship with her. She has some angst against me, I think it would be more graceful of her if she would pick up the phone and speak to me rather than speak on a public platform.”
The storm the episode whipped, even in the pre-Twitter peak era, was enough to alter the public perception of Ranbir, which strangely got fueled by the choices he made professionally. His immediate next screen outing was Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar, which in many ways, was the beginning of the fractured hero of Kapoor.
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The angsty AR Rahman musical featured Kapoor as a rockstar, who loved and lost. It was the tracing of a man-child, who is so consumed by passion he is ready to destroy the world, and himself. It was a polarising film, and by then, Kapoor had become a polarising star.
Almost every film of Kapoor that followed, from Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Tamasha, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil to Sanju, came under scanner for repeating a now-established pattern of the actor: a confused man-child, who changes in love. That, and the recurring daddy-issue motif, which shows Kapoor battling and overcoming it. His own complicated relationship with his father actor Rishi Kapoor only added another layer to his conflicted public perception of the actor. The daddy-issue motif, as well as his exploration of troubled romantic relationships on-screen never let the audience disassociate his professional choices from his personal image.
While most of the aforementioned films managed to be critically acclaimed, all, except for Sanju, couldn’t be blockbusters of the level that the trade expected Kapoor to deliver. His professional low phase was also coupled with relentless personal negativity. His image remained the central focus, with his dating and subsequent break up with Katrina Kaif, rumours of drowning the low box office result of his films with alcohol, a failed production debut and a string of delayed releases.
‘Ye Bada Janwar Hai’
In 2023, however, a few things have changed, a lot has remained the same. Kapoor is now a box office force, but also remains an utterly divided public figure. While his films open to big numbers, his personal life–despite now being married to Alia Bhatt and being father to a baby daughter Raha– routinely leads to intense Twitter discussions.
Kapoor, amusingly, finds himself at the receiving end of some backlash or the other. The range is astonishing– from a tiny red lipstick to a 100-cr plus mounted film, from apparent body shaming to triggering people with on screen misogyny, Kapoor is a one-stop-shop for internet offense taking factory even if not all the allegations stick.
What does stick and is now likely to elevate Kapoor’s fractured, divisive image of a star, is his recently released Animal, which has already generated massive online outrage for the treatment of women in the movie, violence and vulgarity. If so far Kapoor’s films were called out for peddling a man-child narrative, flawed gender politics, Animal takes all the criticism to an unprecedented decibel level. Sandeep Reddy Vanga isn’t holding back, neither is Kapoor, as he bites into to deliver performance of a lifetime.
The highly controversial film is certain to dent Kapoor’s already tainted image further and cement his perception of a truly polarsing actor, whose choices will be questioned, character motivations debated, and personal comments dissected for hot takes. In his case, the lines are now officially blurred., at least till the next film, which will supposedly feature him as Lord Ram in Ramayana. Ranbir Kapoor seems set to rule the box office and divide the internet further. To borrow a line his late grand uncle actor Shammi Kapoor said in Rockstar describing him, “Ye bada janwar hai.”
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Justin Joseph RaoJustin Rao writes on all things Bollywood at Indian Express Online. An… read more
Ranbir Kapoor transitions to superstar status with Animal, but at the risk of cementing his image as poster boy of toxic masculinity – The Indian Express
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