Indians love reality shows. The bickering, senseless spats and a closer look into the lives of stars make up for a perfect dose of entertainment. With Indian producers adapting a number of international reality shows, there’s no dearth of real life drama on the small screen these days. Joining the bandwagon soon is a show called Khan Sisters, based on the lives of TV actress Nigar and model turned actress Gauhar Khan, a take off of Keeping up with the Kardashians, which follows the lives of socialite Kim Kardashian and her family. But how successful are we in copying and adapting Western shows?
“Who wants to follow Nigar and Gauhar’s lives? I don’t know if many people would want to watch this one. Also, since our industry thrives on entertainment, there’s more melodrama than in the international shows. So basically here they have to show all the drama as people love it. It all depends on how hosts conduct a show. For instance, Are you smarter than a 5th grader was way better than Shah Rukh’s Kya aap paanchvi pass se tez hain? In our version, we just didn’t have enough content to get the show going,” says emcee Ramneek Pantal.
Many feel it’s the overdose of drama that kills the reality in these shows. Says Jiten Sharma, wedding photographer, “It’s all made up into a family entertainment show. For instance, the standards of Masterchef Australia is way higher than its Indian version, the knowledge and quality of the contestants is far better and the tasks and challenges are tougher.”
Seconds Madhvi, a media professional, who thinks that the content shown on Indian reality shows looks more scripted. “If you watch American Idol, there the judges are looking for a great voice, an individualistic and distinctive personality, a star quality with the ability to become a popstar, whereas the Indian Idol is different. Here they create melodrama. The idol they choose here has to look good, his makeover is highlighted and then there’s a short film on his achievements and then they create this image of a small town boy or girl making it big. It all takes the reality away from reality,” she says.
Talking about the way judges behave in various reality series, Mihir, a musician points out, “If you look at Masterchef season 1 when Akshay Kumar was the host, you could easily see the way these guys tried to react the way the three classy chefs (Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston) do in the Autralian series, they simply ended up looking like fools. They are pretentiously rude with some contenders. So is the case in Dance India Dance, sometimes when they are criticising the contestants, it all looks completely fake.”