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Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the director of Kabir Singh Sandeep thinks the criticism the movie received for misogyny is bizarre. According to him it's not true love if you can't 'slap each other'.
Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the director of Kabir Singh Sandeep thinks the criticism the movie received for misogyny is bizarre. According to him it’s not true love if you can’t ‘slap each other’.
Here we were thinking that only the character ‘Kabir Singh’ is toxic, but the director proves us wrong!
The movie has broken many records on box office despite the criticism, and the world has seen the toxicity of Kabir Singh. Well, the toxicity doesn’t end with Kabir Singh. The director Sandeep Reddy Vanga in his latest interview with Anupama Chopra has set new records of toxicity.
The director went on a rampage against the critics (who certainly have been completely justified in showing up the glorified toxic misogyny in Kabir Singh). He even made many personal attacks in the interview. On top of everything is the most bizarre way the director justified all the toxicity and abuse in the movie.
Anupama asked Sandeep ‘if he anticipated all the negative criticism the film has received?’
To which he replied “I feel it’s pseudo because…you know…when you’re deeply in love, deeply connected with a woman and vice versa, there’s a lot of honesty in it. And if you don’t have that physical demonstration of…if you don’t have the liberty of slapping each other, then I don’t see anything there.”
YES, HE SAID THAT!!
Mr Sandeep Reddy Vanga believes that where there is love there has to be violence. He believes that if you truly love someone then you can slap them. I mean Sir no offence, but there is a reason why domestic abuse is a criminal offence not ‘love’. Get your constitution clear!
As if this was not enough he even justified the way the movie fat shames people. For this, he very confidently used the reference of critic Rajeev Masand.
Referring to the film critic as a “fat guy who reviewed my film”. The director went on to “establish” the difference between “describing” and “objectifying”. He said that ‘”fat” was “description (of Rajeev)” but if he spoke about Rajeev’s body parts, that would be “objectification”. He even said, “If someone is fat, you call them fat”.
Now if this all hasn’t boiled your blood then there is more.
Justifying the scene showing a clear attempt to rape at the very beginning of the movie he said, that since he’d worked with rape victims in a hospital when he was 24 years old, his film couldn’t be promoting rape culture. Also those who’d accused him of it wouldn’t even know the spelling of “rape”.
Yeah because obviously knowing the spelling of ‘rape’ is the criteria of knowing about rape culture!
Anupama even asked him about people having had problems with the beginning of this love story. She said, “He’s kissing her, putting his head on her lap; she says nothing. It’s pure ownership. He instructs the juniors ‘meri bandi hai’ and the film presents this as romance and not as a problematic man. Do you see where the issue is?”
And as expected our dear director just can’t spot the issues with his masterpiece Kabir Singh. He replies, “he plucks her out of the classroom and marks his territory saying tu meri bandi hai. Mujhe to kuch galat nahi lagta usme, you call 2000 people in a wedding and tie the not and it’s the same.”
Well clearly Mr Vanga doesn’t know the difference between domestic abuse and love, description of someone and shaming, he doesn’t know what rape culture is, and obviously he has no idea about what is ‘consent’. For him, a marriage ceremony that involves families, people, and the consent of a girl and a guy is equivalent to picking a girl randomly and marking her as your property without even asking her once.
If you have read this article so far and are still not disgusted then don’t worry because our Mr Director has more stuff to make you cringe!
When he was asked about this kind of ‘romance’ inspiring men to become like Kabir Singh for the sake of love and trying to exert ownership over women they barely know in real life Sandeep replied yes, you guessed it right bizarrely!
He said that he’d grown up watching gangster films and didn’t become a gangster, this wouldn’t happen either. Well clearly he hasn’t been harassed on streets by perverts using Bollywood songs like ‘laal duppate wali tera naam to bata‘ neither has he been stalked or abused by perverts who are inspired by their favourite actor doing the same thing on the big screen and getting the girl in the end. Well, Mr Vanga, you have been lucky but guess what many women in India face such kind of treatment because movies do shape and even create our mentality.
He also said, “intimidation has its own charm” – I agree there are men like Kabir Singh and there are women who fall for such scummy men. It’s not wrong to make movies on obsessive love and it’s not wrong to show addiction, love, depression, and loss on screen. What’s wrong is to glorify it and justify it, and mind you IT HAS NO CHARM!
His idea of romance didn’t stop here. According to him “If you can’t slap, if you can’t touch your woman wherever you want, and if you can’t slap, you can’t kiss, you can’t use cuss words, I don’t see emotion there.” HE CLEARLY DOESN’T KNOWS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ABUSE AND LOVE.
We need to know one thing here that many men justify domestic abuse by saying that ‘I love her and I have a right on her’ well that’s not love. Abuse is not love instead love means respect. It, not authority or ownership it is understanding. A man does not have the right to beat his intimate partner whatever his supposed reason.
ABUSE OF ANY KIND IS WRONG. PERIOD!
Also if Kabir loved Preethi and slapped her because of that, then Preethi also loved him but I didn’t see her slapping him. Also, don’t give me the thing that “oh! she did slap him, in the end. You feminists just want to blame men” CRAP! Her slaps, in the end, were like pats on cheeks. That too followed by kisses. On the other hand, Kabir’s slap was a thrash beating out of anger, misogyny and disrespect, NOT LOVE.
I am not against freedom of expression but glorifying toxicity is not justified. The fact that the people enjoyed watching a guy openly harass a girl for no reason, ill-treat people just because he is apparently ‘heartbroken and flawed’, and all of this is shown as love accompanied with romantic tracks is wrong.
Men are finding Kabir’s idea of love RELATABLE, they are finding oppression, obsession, and abuse completely okay for the sake of one-sided love and this is SCARY.
There are many people like Kabir Singh already out there. Men who think they own women and justify harassment in the name of love and authority. So in the current context of how women are treated in the society glorifying this toxic misogyny is not love it’s IRRESPONSIBLE.
That’s why saying ‘it’s just a movie, Dekho, Enjoy Karo bhool jao‘ is not justified in fact any misogynistic action from that movie is not justified.
So even after reading this post if you still have the patience, calm and curiosity to watch the interview then here it is.
I read, I write, I dream and search for the silver lining in my life. Being a student of mass communication with literature and political science I love writing about things that bother me. Follow read more...
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