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Actor Mansi Taxak, who played one of the three wives of the character Abrar in the film Animal, contradicted herself as she spoke about the scene in which her character is subjected to marital rape by her husband, played by Bobby Deol. In an interview, Mansi denied that any sort of assault happened in the scene, but admitted that the ‘twisted’ Abrar was ‘filled with animal instincts’ in that scene, which prompted him to vent his frustrations on his wives.
Directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga and starring Ranbir Kapoor, Animal has come under fire for its depiction of toxic masculinity and misogyny. Despite this, the film has emerged as a major hit, having grossed around Rs 550 crore at the worldwide box office. Vanga basically went through a similar cycle with his previous film, Kabir Singh.
In an interview with Zoom Entertainment, Mansi was asked directly about the wedding scene in Animal, where Abrar is informed about the death of his brother. He first lashes out by killing the messenger, and then proceeds to violently assault Mansi’s character, the youngest of his three wives. After he is done, he gestures for his two other wives to join them in the bedroom, and proceeds to violate them as well.
But this is what Mansi chose to say about the scene: “It is shocking, of course. Nobody expects their wedding to end that way. When the wedding sequence starts, if you see the lights, the way the art was done, it was beautiful. You hear the music, that has gone so viral on Instagram. It was heading towards a beautiful end, and suddenly, you see something like this happening. It was to tell the audience that and animal is coming; if you thought Ranbir was this way, you can expect the villain to be (worse). It was an apt way to establish Bobby sir’s character and to show the audience what real animal we’re talking about.” Mansi took a breath, and added with a laugh, “I would not wish that to happen at my wedding ever!”
Mansi said that Bobby was ‘commendable’ in the scene, and that ‘there is so much to learn from him’. Asked about the assault, and the criticism that the film has been receiving for its portrayal of women, Mansi appeared to suggest that her character was in love with Abrar, and that the assault was a figment of the audience’s imagination. “If you see the scene before that, the wedding scene, if you see the sort of chemistry that we have, the eye-contact that we have… It tells you the back-story, that besides their differences, their age, their careers, they do love each other, and that’s why they’re getting married.”
Mansi said that she “completely gets where people are coming from, but that was not the intent.” She continued, “It was not the intent to show that any sort of assault was happening. It was just that Bobby sir did not expect his brother’s death news to come on the wedding, which puts the character into a zone where he couldn’t think straight. And that’s what we’re talking about, right? Animal instincts are unpredictable instincts. So he goes into that zone, and to vent out his emotions, he comes to his wives. I don’t think it was intended to be any sort of assault. I didn’t feel it on the set, or in the script. That was not the case. It was just a relationship between two people that has panned out the way it did.”
Seconds after saying no assault happened, Mansi said that cinema is a reflection of society, and ‘there are people who are doing these things to their wives’. Also starring Rashmika Mandanna, Anil Kapoor, and Triptii Dimri, Animal is one of the biggest hits of the year.
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