Tag: Reality Shows

  • Truth and Friction

    The ghost of last week’s post lurks. I read a few days back that the NBA had been called to discuss the issue of obscene questions being asked by Rajeev Khandelwal on Sach ka Samna. Ha! Gotcha. This NBA is the National Broadcasting Association. 🙂

    According to the news report, Brinda Karat said that such shows outraged the modesty of women. The woman in question, of course, must’ve been tortured for several days before she agreed to be part of the show. Quite possible also that they threatened to send her to Rome, and specifically “Putin’s bed“, if she didn’t agree. She really musn’t have had any choice. I can understand how politicians and truth serum manufacturers would have a problem if speaking the truth became some some sort of an epidemic. What if people spoke the truth by default? Gah. I’d written a post sometime back, provoked by the original show – The Moment of Truth, in which I’d spoken about the evolution of a transparent culture, much like the subject of last week’s post.

    But now I really am at a loss as to what is delivering me (U,B added because its subjective) the bigger WTF – the television shows or the politicians. There was the RSS (Rakhi Sawant’s Swayamvar) show, in which guys went lattoo over Rakhi while Ram Kapoor lustily looked on at the object of his affection – the box of laddoos. The nation climaxed as the NRI got the girl and the rest got rakhis. I think there is definitely a scope for another season, possibly with a tie-up with some matrimonial website to register participants. Or maybe a spin off with Ram Kap titled ‘Shaadi ke Laddoo ke side effects’? (Update: Rahul Mahajan is going to be swayamvared in the next season) Then there are celebrities being housed in a jungle – ‘celebrities’ like Fiza, whose claim to fame is her previous show with Chand – ‘Is Junglee se mujhe bachao’. There is a marriage happening inside a show to which real people – viewers, are invited, and who can ignore Balika Vadhu, which I had initially thought was a spin off from the Hanuman show, centering around Bali’s wedding, but which I now like for its layered acronym – BV. (yep, i’ve seen a couple of episodes of each) Speaking of BV, this is also a show that our politicians had a problem with – claiming that it promoted child marriage.

    The politicians who seem to have addressed all the nation’s problems soon after getting elected, are now taking a break and sampling the pleasures of Indian television.  They are actually wondering what we are teaching our children and are talking about the Mahabharata, though i’m damn sure that if the series ran now, they would be claiming that Draupadi’s disrobing was promoting rape attempts, and Krishna’s number of wives, polygamy. I could give more examples, but you get the drift.

    Where is all this going? Not the politicians, but I wonder about this oxymoron called a reality show. As each channel tries to trump the competition, would the boundaries between truth and fiction blur more? In effect, though scripted, a lot of shows operate in the private spaces of individuals and their families. How does all of this affect the reality fabric – of family, relationships, society, pop culture etc? How far will we go to escape from ourselves? How many steps away are we away from seeing death – real last moments, on TV?

    Think about it, while I conceptualise this kids reality show, in which children will be left in a jungle, and every day, they take polygraph tests. If they are truthful, they get laddoos, else they have to spend a day in parliament. The winner of course, gets married off.

    until next time, tube toppers…

    PS. Sheer coincidence this time, that Rakhi had to make her presence felt in a post on Rakshabandhan Day, unlike the previous years. 1, 2.

  • Wake up call

    He liked watching her sleep. She looked so much at peace now, wrapped up in that something-like-a-shawl thing. But he’d have to wake her now, to tell her that he’d finally cracked a puzzle. Now he knew why reality shows worked. People would rather watch someone sleeping than the movie for which they paid Rs.200.

    until next time, in reality….

  • Empty V ?

    Despite myself, and despite ‘knowing’ the result, I actually sat down and watched the entire finale of MTV Roadies 5.0!! No, please don’t judge me, even when i say that i was completely engrossed and matched the MC, BC, F*** (for the tasks) that the participants indulged in, much to my wife’s annoyance, i think. Well, to be fair, won’t seeing people kiss an iguana so that someone else can walk away with the prize money make you talk that lingo?

    Roadies must definitely be attractive to the target audience for it to spawn a total of five versions.  I remember writing a post a while back on MTV’s customised solutions for brands. Roadies is a perfect fit for Hero Honda, and I’m sure Superstar would have bettered Ibibo’s brand recall at least a little bit. And sometimes the reverse happens too, like the ‘hijacking’ of Youngistan on MTV every morning. Everything from the RJ to the ticker screams MTV, even though its a Pepsi catchphrase.

    Meanwhile, this is an interesting point of view on the programming. But I think the programming also shows the evolution of MTV. My first recollection of MTV is a music channel, along with VJ Nonie 🙂 Do i still see music on MTV? Of course, mostly Hindi music, which in itself is a change from the initial English only programming. That, i think is only because it stands for Music Television, for i somehow feel that quite sometime back, MTV changed its core DNA component from music to youth. Maybe, even at the time of origin, music was only the best way to reach out to the youth. And having built a brand like MTV, its really risky to go for a name change.

    MTV now is more a huge bunch of reality shows each giving youth a platform for showcasing their talent or 15 minutes of fame, whichever way you see it, and each working on different verticals – Bollywood (superstar), Adventure(?)(Roadies) It makes sense because music is more of a commodity now, available across multiple platforms, easy to replicate. But continuously shifting gears to keep in touch with the target audience, like MTV seems to be doing, is difficult. Which could be the reason why, (at least to me) Channel V’s attempts with Get Gorgeous have not appealed much. That and the fact that their shows are more based on the VJ, the music remains the same. So, other than, say a V on Campus, its just repackaging. Or maybe that works too?

    until next time, is reality a musical?

    Zemanta Pixie