The celebrated screenwriter duo of Javed Akhtar and Salim Khan conceived the idea of the ‘Angry Young Man’ for Prakash Mehra’s ‘Zanjeer’ (1973). Since then, Amitabh Bachchan has gotten and owned the sobriquet, ‘Angry Young Man.’ The actor’s rendition of the tile became so popular in the 70s that it has become an integral part of Big B’s persona and of Hindi cinema. To date, no other actor has been able to portray the image of ‘The Angry Young Man’ the way Amitabh Bachchan did. Recently, a docu-series titled ‘Angry Young Men’ released, chronicling the creation of the persona by Salim Javed.
In an interview with Indian Express, the filmmaker was asked if Ranbir Kapoor could become the inheritor of the title after his role in ‘Animal.’ To this, Javed Akhtar gave a critical answer delving deep into how the meaning of an angry hero has changed. He also opined on whether ‘a contemporary hero’ will be able to emulate Big B’s characters’ appeal.
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Talking about the ‘angry young man’ image, Akhtar said, “Who is the contemporary hero? People are bored and tired of the angry heroes. It happened because Amitabh Bachchan’s anger was based on deep hurt. You could see the pain in him while he’s angry. Then, they forgot about the hurt; there was only anger, which was crude. That is how the angry young man went out of the scene. Now, who is the contemporary man? How much he owes to the society, to peers, his family, or himself? Where do you draw the line to selfishness that after that you will be selfish? It’s not clear in this contemporary society. That’s why you don’t have big characters. Because you don’t have great characters you don’t have great stars.”
Akhtar was then asked if Ranbir Kapoor could be the next in line for the title, given his role in Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Animal.’ To this, the filmmaker cheekily replied, “No, no, I may write a film for him.”
Previously, Javed Akhtar had criticised Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s ‘Animal’ implicitly. In an interview, he opined that it’s the filmmaker’s decision about what kind of characters he wants to bring to society. “For instance, 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 if the film is a super duper hit, then that’s very dangerous.” The scenes are from Vanga’s ‘Animal.’
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A tussle ensured after the remark, Vanga questioned if Javed Akhtar didn’t have a problem with ‘Mirzapur.’ The series is backed by Farhan Akhtar’s production banner. To this, Akthar had replied at an event saying that he was honoured that Vanga couldn’t find a single example from Javed Akhtar’s repertoire and had to go to his son’s office. He further iterated that Farhan had neither written, directed, nor acted in the crime-thriller series.
Amitabh Bachchan emulated the tag of ‘Angry Young Man’ in films including ‘Zanjeer’ ‘Deewar’ ‘Muqaddar ka Sikandar’ and ‘Don.’