Reality TV gets gloomy
We all have seen Jade Goody, the British reality TV star, dying in front of billions of curious viewers. Goody’s fight with cancer had been relentlessly televised and photographed, every detail of her demise sold to the highest bidder and slapped with the tag “Exclusive”.
Knowing that her cervical cancer, which had gone undetected for several years, had spread to her bowel, liver, and groin and would kill her in a matter of months, she sold her death to TRP-hungry channels.
Closer home, Indian television too is plagued by this barter of sorts. Reality television thrives on the contestants’ personal tragedies in exchange for publicity. For a youth-oriented set of viewers, we have a lethal dose of Emotional Atyachaar or Axe ur Ex. Whereas a show like Bigg Boss enjoys universal appeal.
For these shows, it seems that the aim is to transform the most intimate and painful aspects of human experience into entertainment. The viewers are served with personal troubles, dysfunctional relationships, addictions, parenting problems and the inmates in Bigg Boss house are heard either narrating their past to their fellow dwellers or scheming against another participant.
Author Vikrant Dutta, who is closely keeping a track of how these participants behave, says, “Reality shows are a blatant display of rude and humiliating behaviour that is in-your-face. When the characters abuse, fight, mock and scheme openly, it tends to make viewers accept this as normal and accepted behaviour. When humiliating someone or abusing and shouting is seen so regularly, it takes a toll on the minds of impressionable youngsters, who then find it cool and hip to indulge in such behaviour.”
One would be tempted to blame producers for airing personal tragedies, but they in turn say that this is what participants willingly do and the audience keenly watches. “I was stunned when a few days before Goody’s death, the media could not wait for Jade to die. However, there is no point in blaming anybody when there are so many public figures who are willing to be part of this seedy drama,” says Anant Goyal, a software engineer.
But others argue that we tend to find our lives mundane and live it in a set pattern as per the dictates of society. And we all have at certain times wished to behave rudely and yet desisted from doing it. Advertising professional Vishal Narang says that these shows often provide a medium to fulfil our inner need to express emotions. He says, “It is a release of that emotion which has been surging within us and hasn’t found an outlet. It is about being ourselves good or bad.”
Television has a huge impact on how we behave in our day to day lives and hours of such content only satisfies our depraved senses. But trainer Shiv Sood refuses to believe the sob story and says that a smart audience can never fall in the trap of these shows. “Right from the concept and story to the dialogues, everything is a copy of international shows. The channels can fool small town audience with the doctored display of emotions, but a metro viewer is aware of the reality,” he sums up.
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