Due to the manly image he has created, the aging hero is making a new script to make a comeback on the silver screen.
Return is the most talked about topic of this era. Akshay Khanna’s character in Dhurandhar is creating a lot of buzz on social media, just like Bobby Deol’s character in Animal was. People are saying, “If there is a comeback then it should be like Lord Babi and Rehman Dacoit, otherwise it won’t happen.” In the 2000s, there is no comparison between the bold Akshay Khanna in black clothes and the slightly subdued Akshay Khanna, who wore tight T-shirts. In Aditya Dhar’s film, this look of Akshay Khanna dancing while saluting to the tune of ‘Fasla’, a song from Bahrain, went so viral on Instagram that it started trending.
Khanna’s look in Dhurandhar has become an example of desi masculinity, swag and ‘aura’ on social media. With this the discussion started that his versatile talent could not be utilized properly. Also discussed in the ‘comeback’ debate is how Bollywood failed to realize his potential for the last decade or more. Earlier, a similar thing started after Bobby Deol’s performance in Animal (2023). Animal was also described as Bobby’s grand ‘comeback’.
The thing that connects Deol and Khanna is that both of them have gone ‘viral’. More than the acting of the two, their visuals are viral on social media. The second similarity is the hit track that is associated with the viral scene of both of them. Like the Iranian song ‘Jamal Kudu’ was played for Deol’s entry in Animal, ‘Fasla’ was played for Khanna in Dhurandhar. People are crazy about both the tracks on social media.
The much talked about comeback?
Doomscrolling (an addiction to constantly watching negative news), such reels and memes became common after Animal, which taught people to be patient like Bobby Deol and assured that one day life will definitely give a chance for a comeback like Deol. After Animal, Deol appeared at the new peak of his career, where he got popular works like Kanguva (2024), Bads of Bollywood (2025) and Bandar (2025). In Khanna’s case it was a little different. Dhurandhar came at a time when he was already playing strong, but marginalized roles. Despite doing good work in films like 2017’s Ittefaq and Mom, 2019’s The Accidental Prime Minister and Section 375, Drishyam 2 (2022), his work did not make much noise. Then this year Chhaa and Dhurandhar forced people to talk about Khanna once again.
Madhuja Mukherjee, filmmaker and professor of film studies at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, attributes this to the ‘new media condition’, where the idea of a comeback is created. She says, “This comeback is not like Amitabh Bachchan’s Khuda Gawah (1992) or Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathan (2023). Now things don’t work like that. Now it’s a series of media events. Some things go viral for a week and then they go viral.”She is.”
Bobby Deol in Animal
If you scroll something once, you are served exactly what you saw. Whether you feel like seeing him again or not. Mukherjee believes that the ‘comeback’ associated with Khanna and Deol is actually an algorithmic creation. “The algorithm shows you what you see. The hashtag drives it forward,” she says.
Deol and Khanna were well-known faces at the turn of the century, but neither of them ever got lead roles. “There was a kind of artificial image associated with Deol, but none of them were true stars,” says Mukherjee. In the era of moving ahead of the stars, ‘Aura’, which was once the legacy of the stars, is no longer a standard in this era. With Animal and Dhurandhar, ‘Lord Bobby’ and ‘Dacait’ Khanna have rarely been popular on screen. This is a technique of image building on social media which is completely different from the traditional understanding of Bollywood.
Editor-at-large and image architect Arnesh Ghosh, who has crafted identities and positioning for Dharma Cornerstone Agency and other stars, talks about the relationship between reinvention and demand. He says, “It is important to understand that both Bobby and Akshay are actors who could not keep pace with the times in their golden era. They were stars in their youth, but could not remain relevant.
Ghosh emphasizes the importance of branding yourself rather than the industry. He says, “A star’s appeal directly depends on his audience. Ajay Devgan transitioned from his ‘Soft Boy’ era to the Singham era because his audience had grown up and the soft boy didn’t appeal to them. Shah Rukh, Salman and Akshay Kumar were able to become enduring brands for their audiences. Bobby and Akshay could not. So as the Millennials grew up, they lost interest in them.”
Vacancy: what and why
Until 2015, aging was considered a bad thing for men. Then after Milind Soman’s sudden comeback or Shah Rukh Khan’s film Dear Zindagi (2016), Millennials started seeing age as a good thing, a sign of confidence. The image of a 40 year old man changed. He is no longer a man with a belly, bald, tired and under pressure from his wife. Instagram played an important role in this. We started seeing older men in good health, successful, rich etc. As Gen Z joined the discussion, older men became attractive. “She started finding older men attractive.”
Ghosh also talks about the aspect of ‘dadification’ on the internet (older men becoming emotionally and culturally desirable. Where age is a strength and not a weakness). Which is a side effect of going viral. He says, “By comparison, Bobby was ‘dadified’. They began to appear sexually attractive. Akshaye Khanna was not ‘dadified’ in Ittefaq or Chhaava. But they are definitely there in Dhurandhar. They look confident and stylish. Here we should also understand that the rise of ‘dadified’ warriors can also have a socio-political implication. Perhaps this is emerging from right-wing fanaticism, where being aggressive and reckless has become synonymous with masculinity.
