Animal Makers Slam Javed Akhtar Over 'Dangerous' Remark: 'If a Woman Would've Said Lick My Shoe...'

The makers of Animal reacted to Javed Akhtar’s recent indirect statement about Animal. On Sunday, the film’s official handle on X, previously known as Twitter, and responded to the acclaimed lyricist’s statements. Last week, Akhtar brought up the infamous ‘lick my shoe’ statement seen in the movie succeeds at the box office, it is ‘dangerous’. Reacting to the statement, Animal makers said that if the ‘lick my shoe’ dialogue was said by a woman, it would have been praised as feminism. The said scene featured Ranbir Kapoor and Triptii Dimri.

“Writer of your calibre cannot understand the betrayal of a lover (Between Zoya & Ranvijay) then all your art form is big FALSE & If a woman (betrayed and fooled by a man in the name of love) would have said “lick my shoe” then you guys would have celebrated it by calling it feminism. 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 @Javedakhtarjadu,” the team said.

Javed Akhtar’s Indirect Comment About Animal

For the unversed, Javed Akthar addressed a gathering at 9th Ajanta-Ellora International Film Festival in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and indirectly brought up Animal. He expressed his concerned about movies like Animal succeeding at the box office.

“The image of a hero should be created with an awareness of what is right and how it should be. Today’s writers need to think, because confusion has increased among them. The reason for this is that society is in confusion. Society does not decide what is right and what is wrong, but it is reflected in cinema. There was a time when the poor were good and the rich were bad. But today, we only have one thought in our head, ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati?’ So we can’t make the rich look bad now since we ourselves want to be rich,” he said at the event.

“If there’s a film in which a man asks a woman to lick his shoe or if a man says it’s okay to slap a woman… and the film is a super hit, that’s dangerous,” he said before adding, “Nowadays, I feel that more responsibility is on the audiences than filmmakers. The audiences have to decide what movies they like and what they don’t like. It is entirely up to the audiences to decide what to reject. The ball is currently in the audiences’ court. Even today, there are as many filmmakers making good movies, but only a few. The fate of cinema depends on how long you stand with them.”