I woke up to rave reviews of Ranbir Kapoor’s latest movie Animal. It’s really no surprise. Everyone likes an angry Ranbir — and his ‘daddyverse’ is back with the Sandeep Reddy Vanga film. The Rockstar bad-boy trope now has a slick cousin — Ranvijay Singh, the daddy-issue-afflicted, emotionally damaged male on a rampage.
Ranbir’s hit films, from Wake Up Sid (2009) to Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013) to Tamasha (2015), have had one thing in common — a disturbed father–son relationship that prompts his characters to become unruly, deviant, or unhinged. Almost as if the son of the Kapoor khandaan is desperately trying to grow up in every other movie. And in Animal, no one does daddy better than him.
If there was a Filmfare award for Best Actor for Daddy Roles, Ranbir would be the undefeated king — and the audience would approve.
The twist in Daddy issues
Chocolate boys are passé. On the big screen at least, this is a new age of angry young men — a lot more macho, violent, and unapologetically problematic. Kabir Singh (2019) wasn’t enough, and now, Vanga’s Animal gives the trend a name. Critics have provided the sanction it needed: Anupama Chopra tweeted that Animal makes her miss Kabir.
Daddy issues are real. Called the father complex, the issue has a fraught father-child relationship as its hallmark. It can lead to positive or negative impulses.
But here’s the twist.
Daddy issues today have a gender problem. Somewhere down the pop psychology route, they have come to be associated exclusively with women — now, daddy issues are often used colloquially to describe women looking for a dominant, macho, masculine partner.
Full credit to Ranbir for taking it upon himself to topple the hierarchy. He’s also made daddy issues appear cool — everyone is showering praise for his acting. Alpha males, anyone?
Trauma bonding
Under all the glam and glory of the alpha male, though, lies a deep problem. Bollywood is glamourising all the ugly and gory sides to daddy issues rather than addressing them in the way they should be. But, of course, for a director like Vanga who thrives on a filmography championing the cause of troubled men and justifies it with acts of violence, this expectation seems far-fetched.
Daddyverse says that if ‘badly brought up men’ is a Pinterest page, violence is their moodboard aesthetic. If you as a woman come across such men, don’t run. Instead, be a rehabilitation centre.
When you show a Kabir Singh or Ranvijay Singh slapping and killing people because they are men with difficult pasts, you not only demean the people who actually suffer from such psychological complexities but also hand them a template that justifies such behaviour. Why choose therapy when you can just trauma bond?
A quick glance through the YouTube comments of the film’s trailer is enough proof.
And any sort of happy ending doesn’t help. Marriage to forgiving women — in Wake Up Sid, YJHD, Kabir Singh, take your pick — only brushes the violent behaviour as a ‘phase’. There is a reason an animal belongs in a jungle, Mr. Vanga.
Time to stop, maybe?