Vanga Boys: The Monetisation Of Toxic Masculinity

By now, we all know that whenever Sandeep Reddy Vanga is in the news, it is hardly for the right reasons. While everyone was talking about why Deepika Padukone was out of Vanga’s latest Spirit, featuring Prabhas of Baahubali (2015) fame—with debates on pay parity, 8-hour shift demand, work-life balance, discomfort with bold scenes in the air—one wondered, why was she in it in the first place?

“A meaty part with nuance” notwithstanding, calling it one of the most “feminist roles” in a Vanga film (as some media reports quoted) would be stretching it too far. After all, how much can you rise after a “lick my shoe” scene? (Animal, 2023)

Inhabiting Vanga’s manosphere at different times were Vijay Deverakonda (Arjun Reddy, 2017), Shahid Kapoor (Kabir Singh, 2019) and Ranbir Kapoor (Animal, 2023). The real question is not what Vanga was smoking but what the actors who submitted to him were.

But then, the box office speaks louder than words. Animal grossed 919 crores worldwide (Ranbir’s biggest hit). It also won ‘Best film’ at the IIFA awards and ‘Best actor’ for Ranbir (2024) at Filmfare. Kabir Singh at 379 crores worldwide was Shahid’s highest grossing film as a solo lead.

Vanga's films have consistently been criticised for glorifying toxic male characters. In Arjun Reddy (Telugu) and its Hindi remake Kabir Singh, the lead actors are portrayed as obsessive, overly sexual, chain-smoking doctors with anger issues, who resort to verbal abuse, physical violence, and controlling behaviour toward their women. A few slaps were involved and women were harmed. These depictions sparked widespread debates about normalising misogyny in cinema.

Animal is about a chain-smoking engineer with deep-seated issues. Vanga called Rannvijay (Ranbir Kapoor) ‘a romantic with daddy issues’, a Byronic hero—flawed but magnetic.

Despite Vanga’s rather grim and animalistic portrayal of human instincts, he still wants us to stand in awe, even admire and empathise with his protagonists. All three films hid under the protection of the adult certification, but it didn’t prevent the backlash. The men in Vanga films are also obsessed with their nether regions and make random references to body parts throughout the film.

With Animal, it almost looked like Vanga has crafted it to raise the bar, to be provocative, like he wanted the audience to call for a ban, to label the film as misogynistic and distressing, just so he could turn around and say, “What did you expect? The film’s called Animal.”

Either way, he wins.

At a pre-release event for Animal in Hyderabad, Ranbir had shared, “I would like to be the loving husband my character in Animal is.”

A few days later he seemed to autocorrect to say, “Anyone who is likely to be triggered should not watch this film.”

Post release, he did no interviews. May be it was the 919-crore stupor.

In an interview on Film Companion with film critic Anupama Chopra, soon after the release of Kabir Singh, Vanga defended the lead character and the depiction of his relationship, saying, “If you can't slap, if you can't touch your woman wherever you want, and if you can't use cuss words, then I don't see any emotion there. Then it's all margins and papers. There's nothing unconditional about it.”

Although Ranbir said on multiple occasions pre-release that his character in Animal is a bad guy and not to be emulated, Shahid said no such thing about Kabir Singh, even in response to Vanga’s slap statements on Film Companion. (The film, incidentally was first offered to Ranveer Singh who turned it down because it was "too dark" for him)

“I want to make films for the audience. I don’t want to make films for critics or awards. It’s not my job to judge that character,” Shahid had said in The Faye D’Souza Show, soon after Kabir Singh’s release and the backlash that followed (by Vanga design). “You can’t choose how the audience reacts to a story or character,” he added.

Earlier, Deverakonda had discussed the polarising impact of Arjun Reddy on Koffee With Karan. He clarified that the film was not a guide for life—it was about a flawed man, not a hero and admitted the backlash was unexpected.

Yet, the audience lapped up the original and the remake, and that calls for another kind of analysis.

When Ranbir boarded the cast of Animal, Vanga’s equity rose exponentially. Animal was Kabir Singh on steroids—mass massacres, sexual violence, death threats on live television.

The Vanga formula worked again and the film went on to become one of the top grossing Hindi films of 2023, despite all the hue and cry around the objectification of women and misogyny, including the infamous “lick my shoe” scene. The film shows Ranbir's character (Rannvijay) as a cold-blooded avenger who takes justice into his own hands, often resorting to extreme measures and hyper aggressive behaviour—male chauvinism at its worst.

Vanga’s brand of macho men and his alpha male narrative is problematic but it is in this manosphere that he and his supporters thrive. May be, asserting this toxic idea of masculinity in movies acts as a leeway for men, who actually believe that there is nothing wrong in hitting their partners, or robbing women of their agency, or belittling them in front of their kids or mocking them for making a big deal of their periods.

Responding to criticisms of his earlier work on Gallata Plus, he said he deliberately amplified the brutality of violence in Animal. “Had I known of Ranbir Kapoor's proficiency in action sequences earlier, I would have made the film even more violent,” he added. It was as though he was saying to those who criticised Kabir Singh: I will show you what violence is.

Brace yourself for the sequel, Animal Park, which will hit the floors soon. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Perhaps, Vanga needs to be told that the criticism isn’t about him writing dark characters—it’s about valourising them. If Vanga were more socially responsible and had publicly clarified that his films have anti-heroes who are problematic and harbour tendencies of sociopaths, he would have been somewhat redeemed.

One would be willing to give Vanga the benefit of doubt in that he was actually critiquing destructive masculinity, by making the lead character an anti-hero with flaws that many men in our society have.

But that was never his intention. He believed they were heroes. And so did the masses. They thought that the character of Arjun Reddy or Kabir Singh was "cool." They felt that Rannvijay was a hero. This is the “dangerous situation” that Javed Akhtar was referring to, when he criticised Animal for its portrayal of toxic masculinity; or what IAS officer/ educator Vikas Divyakarti meant, when he said that a film like Animal takes society back 10 years and should not have been made.

In November 2023, Kiran Rao spoke about gender sensitisation and criticised Bollywood's portrayal of women during a promotional event for her film Laapataa Ladies, referring to Baahubali and Kabir Singh. Vanga was quick to retort in his interviews: “Tell her to ask Aamir Khan about Dil (1990). How could he sing ‘Khambe jaisi khadi hai’ to his heroine?”

The alpha maleness of Vanga turned quite beta when criticism came pouring from all quarters for each of his films, especially Animal. Despite the monstrosity of his hits, he was rattled by what critics had to say, ranging from Chopra, Aseem Chhabra, Sucharita Tyagi to Akhtar. In his tweets and interviews, he lashed out with vengeance.

To Adil Hussain, who said he regretted doing Kabir Singh, he tweeted: “Your belief in 30 art films didn’t get as much fame to you as your regret of one blockbuster did.” About Parvathy Thiruvothu, he said: “If an actor like Parvathy feels that Joker (2019) doesn’t glorify violence but Kabir Singh does, then there is no hope for the general public.” To Akhtar’s comments, he retorted: “Your art is false.” To Divyakirti, he remarked: “Anyone can become an IAS officer in 2-3 years of coaching; film making is more difficult.”

“Are you an angry person?” Chopra had asked him in yet another interview post Animal’s backlash. His reply was, “Anger is the purest emotion. The more sincere you are, the more angry you are.”

Now we know Sandeep Reddy Vanga ko gussa kyon aata hai.

Is it possible that Vanga doesn’t know he is creating films with morally grey characters? Is it possible that none of his actors know this? Could he have avoided some of the criticism if he had said that his films should be seen as portrayals of destructive masculinity? Would his films still be the blockbusters they were? Would the Vanga Boys still be laughing all the way to the bank?

Only Spirit will tell.