Originally posted by: VIMAL.M
These articles came in Hindu Metroplus
If only art imitated life
RANJANI RAJENDRA channel surfs and yearns to go back in time to when Hindi soaps were not just about simpering wives and cruel mothers-in-law
Just the other day, I was flipping channels trying to find something sensible to watch. The Internet connection was down and I could not get my daily dose of House of Cards or snatches of Ellen's show.
To my dismay though, most Hindi channels were filled with nothing but regressive nonsense. From a show where the protagonist forcefully marries the female lead because his bride ran away, to another where the matriarch of the family is against the women of the house working or stepping out without her permission. Her iron will is finally challenged by the entry of this modern bahuriya' and you think things might change, yet it's only a matter of time till she too turns into a docile, obedient daughter-in-law. Then, there's another where one girl is another's Kaala Teeka. And, I gathered this within just a few minutes of browsing channels, watching trailers and reading synopses.
I am not even going to get into the absurd number of shows that deal with the supernatural.
What leaves me stumped is, these shows are very little like the society we live in. So, if art is an imitation of life or vice versa, Indian television today seems to be a very poor imitation. Most urban educated families today are so much more progressive, so is a lot of the rural population. So why reduce actors to playing trashy roles?
After all, how many vamps do we all have back home, spending the better part of their lives scheming and plotting, and how many of us spend our days finding ways to thwart these villains?
Remember the time when we had shows such as Byomkesh Bakshi, Tehkikaat, Shanti, Swabhimaan, Tara and Dekh Bhai Dekh? Where we were immersed in the characters' lives and cried and laughed " but not at anyone. Sure, they weren't daily soaps, but their content was good. With great plots and actors, the shows were so much more progressive.
Take, for instance, Shanti. The show revolved around Shanti, a journalist (Mandira Bedi), who delves into the dark secrets of two powerful men from the film industry. Dealt with maturity, the show went on to gain cult status.
Exploring relationships was Swabhimaan, with its lead protagonist Svetlana (Kitu Gidwani) left to deal with the fall outs of her patron's death. With a stellar cast boasting the likes of Anju Mahendru, Manoj Bajpai, Deepak Parashar, Achint Kaur and Sandhya Mridul, among others, the show dealt with succession rights and fights over property. Quite unlike the plotting and scheming we see going on in shows today.
For humour, one had shows such as Banegi Apni Baat, Tu Tu Main Main and Dekh Bhai Dekh, with humour that was clean and relatable. Not the crass material picked up by a Kapil Sharma or Comedy Nights, or cross-dressing actors to elicit laughs. There was just pure, simple humour and situational comedy.
If you wanted some edge-of-the-seat mystery, there was good old Byomkesh Bakshi and Tehkikaat. Not the over-the-top-drama provided by similar shows today. For high-schoolers there was Hip Hip Hurray, a show that dealt with the simplicity of school life and its associated triumphs and challenges.
Today, there's just the aggression and unreal melodrama of shows such as Bigg Boss, Dare 2 Date and Splitsvilla.
Quite often, a show launches with the promise of being different or showcasing strong women, but soon succumbs to the drivel that is Indian television.
There's always an exception, such as the more recent POW: Bandi Yuddh Ke, which takes you into the lives of two war heroes, their re-integration in society and ties with the families, minus the unnecessary melodrama and unrealism. But, when the multitude of shows continues to function on the same old formula, it clouds over what Indian television could really be.
Do we have an Udaan to look up to and reinforce faith in the system? A mellow hospital drama that was Jeevan Rekha? A Rajni that will rouse consumers into fighting against the establishment? A Hasratein, Sailaab or Astitva that explored extra-marital relationships with finesse? Or, a Thoda Hai Thode Ki Zaroorat Hai that threw the spotlight on love and loss in a family?
Television today needs to catch up; maybe, reflect the century we're living in. So, will some sensible television shows please stand up?
What our boys learn from films
Give any half-baked idiot a camera, two hangers-on and enough money, and what you get is the shady world of B-grade cinema. The wonder is not that it exists, but the legitimacy it is accorded as somehow representing the "voice of the masses". When director G. Suraj recently proclaimed that his "low-class" audience pays to see half-clad women, the only difference was he said it on camera. The words are echoed in private by every one of these filmmakers and seen clearly in the cinema they make, but nobody calls them out.
If we take only southern regional cinema, it is nothing more or less than the testosterone-fuelled wet dreams of male filmmakers " fast cars and guns, swagger and gore, and masses of acquiescent, bare-all women. Wearing thin disguises, the same imagery runs through them all. Director Suraj used a telling word in his crude interview " pasanga or boys'. The pasanga want to see skin, he said. He instructs costumers to slash hemlines, he said. He gives the boys' a good time, he said. Obviously, these films don't pretend to be much more than mild po*n and masala. With fewer laws, they would simply be explicit po*nography. Because, pasanga.
Tamannaah, the star named in the interview, protested, and Suraj duly apologised. But that's hardly enough. All the industry's women should have united and objected strongly. Which leads to the bigger question " why aren't enough women putting their foot down in the first place? Of course, the economics makes it hard for actors to walk out of films. But that's precisely why some sort of association or union is needed to protect female actors from exploitation. Without that, directors, producers, critics and audiences live in an incestuous, unquestioned paradise of mutual back-scratching.
Unless we create a critical mass of women who refuse to participate in these male fantasies, nothing will change. For now, women are trying to reclaim agency by professing that exposing their bodies is a statement of empowerment. In reality, saying no to the couch or to dcolletage means endangered film careers. In other words, there is no agency " they participate in their own objectification because commerce dictates the agenda. This will not change until enough women band up and speak up. The line between empowerment and self-objectification is thin but vital. Women can choose to show off their breasts, waists or legs " as long as there is no economic, social, peer or even fashion pressure to do so. Once these come into play, power structures are immediately skewed.
To come back to those pasanga whose needs film directors are so assiduously fulfilling. They are the same boys who molest women on buses and trains and during New Year's Eve street parties. Someone posts a video and all of us get duly outraged. But, it would be useful to try and decode the psychology that feeds their frenzy. There is an obvious sense of impunity and entitlement with which they molest women. There is bravado and bluster and desperation to touch a female body. There is macho talk of "teaching her a lesson" for, well, being there.
This year, the videos are from Bangalore, but it is an everyday affair in India. It is a given that young men of a certain kind will molest women whenever they can " it's practically a national trait.
What feeds it? Everything " there is no sex education in homes and schools, no books, no social frankness about or even acceptance of sexuality, no healthy intimacy between boys and girls. College-going kids, driven mad by hormones, are not allowed to talk to each other. These are classic signs of a deeply diseased society.
In this setting, popular cinema has provided a single unifying, overarching, highly influential and accessible narrative for their consumption and inspiration. And what cinema supplies is this " that women are present for the entertainment of men, they dress provocatively to titillate men, and they deserve to be treated with contempt. It's a lesson our pasanga have only too happily internalised.
