The Case of the Reality Shows

Recently while going through an article, I came across a statistics that made my eyes pop out! A game show on one of the TV channels received as many as “nine crore” (ninety million!!) phone calls made by people across all age groups from all over the country, just to take part in it! What would invoke such a response! Technically, almost the 10% of the country, or should I make a guess and say at least 25% of all those who have a phone with them, made calls to be a part of a game show!! What on the earth was happening! What is it that made the telephone exchanges (for once a different kind of exchange) hit the upper circuit! Doing some reading threw up names that I recollected having chanced upon while reading supplementaries of dailies. I hadn’t bothered then to check who these people were for there are new names appearing everyday! And then, the speed at which “Bollywood” is producing films, I had assumed most of them to be debutants actors and actresses hired by debutant producers! Other times I assumed that I had become old and so could not keep track! I was wrong in either case! ? Abhijeet Sawant, Sunil Pal, Ruprekha Banerjee are some of the names that featured everywhere, a new breed of youngsters who had become famous and rich overnight! That it could happen to anyone was making so many Indians and many more make frantic phone calls! And I am sure not just to one channel but to every channel possible! I needed to know more. Maybe, I should be calling one of the channels too! Before I made that call, I decided to call up my friend Kumar and get more enlightened! Fortunately for me, Kumar was in town for another assignment. The discussions with him about the “skippies” and the following discussion with him at the Soul Café were still fresh in my mind. Kumar had remained a skeptic despite all my efforts! Well, I have to accept that. Not everyone has to agree with what all I believe or say! But does that mean that I cannot talk about it again! I surely will. Kumar agreed to meet during lunch hour. Me: Man, 90 million people called up a TV channel to be part of their game show! Kumar: Oh I heard about that too! It’s crazy! It’s everywhere. The Reality Shows! Every TV Channel is boasting of having the greatest reality show of all times! Me: What happened suddenly to create a spurt in the demand of these shows! Is Ekta Kapoor on a vacation? Kumar: A “K” overdose I suppose! (we laughed) Well, the Indian audience has perhaps outgrown the emotional roller coaster stage. Dignified cat fights by ladies in lush sarees and posh settings, heralding ethos and values that would make Savitri and Laxmibai squirm in guilt and inferiority complex, are finally losing their charm and influence! Me: Rightly described. I mean the plotting and scheming and the emotional melodrama was too much! There was no end to it! I almost decided to stop using the hindi word ‘Kyunki’. People couldn’t dissociate it from ‘Tulsi’ and ‘Baa’! Kumar: Come on. But then, on the ‘way in’ is something more alarming! Can you imagine nine crore phone calls! And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Me: What is making the country go crazy! Kumar: As they repeatedly keep saying. It’s all about the money honey! A select few from the audience (who remained that for decades together) get an opportunity to participate on live TV and become famous overnight. From being one among the billion faces to, with a single stint, being able to jump to high street, with arc lights descending on them, tailor made ward robes chasing them, people on the streets and everywhere recognizing them, big bucks coming in and as an icing on the cake, an opportunity to slap backs of celebrities who are also willing to offer a hand for a dream career, is almost every young Indian’s dream come true. It’s too good an opportunity to be just watched from the other side! Why will not they go bonkers!? Me: Ok, that explains the phone calls. But do these programs attract as many viewers as they project! I mean, do their consistently get that kind of viewer-ship! Kumar: Obviously! Most do. ‘Indian Idol’, ‘Fame Gurukul’, ‘Fear Factor’, ‘Roadies’, ‘Splitsvilla’, ‘Dus ka dum’, ‘Nach Baliye’, ‘Bigg Boss’, ‘Great Indian Laughter Challenge’, ‘Rakhee ka Swayamvar’, ‘Sach ka Saamna’, ‘Sarkar ki Duniya’ are some of the successful ones. Some of them have done several seasons now! Me: I heard about some of those. But I am not a TV buff. So never bothered! I am surprised that despite being so many, all of them became successful! Kumar: The following is mind boggling. They watch these programs for the honesty and reality, at least apparent. Also the audience is able to identify with the characters much more than in the soaps! Moreover these shows are short termed and are not endless like the “K” soaps wherein people die and resurrect! Hope I am not pressing a nerve here! Me: Yes you are. We will talk about “the resurrection” soon! First you tell me about this new craze. I feel left behind. I mean, I never even knew this was happening all around me! Did I miss my share of name and fame! Kumar: Well, I don’t think so. There are allegations galore that these reality shows are fixed and not as real as they are claimed to be. I would safely call it a scripted reality! Actually these shows are raking in big time ‘moolah’ for the channels. The advertisements they get and the SMSes from audience all add up to their revenue! Also they don’t have to pay hefty amounts to actors and actresses for these shows! So there is much at stake. So I am sure, they surely have a lot of it fixed so as to ensure the money flowing in! Me: No wonder, every channel is coming with such shows. Kumar: Even Discovery Channel! With the reality shows the channels have touched the raw nerves of the psychographics of the Indian viewers. So they put a lot of effort into it to make it click. The planning is suave, and well formatted to formulate real life situations smeared with high drama, high-pulsating tension, and well timed yet spontaneous emotional outbursts! The result cannot be anything but success! Me: What the audience wants is non-stop, edge-of-the-seat, no-holds-barred, paisa-vasool entertainment! They are being served precisely that! I held a magazine out and told Kumar about ‘Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao’, where 10 celebrities have to brave the perils of an unfriendly Malaysian forest for two months, to take home a booty of one crore rupees! Guzzling grasshopper juice, lying in a coffin with frogs for company or having a dozen cobras slither over them! Another show ‘Dadagiri’ boasted about tough, often humiliating, tasks like cycling upstream and rolling downhill in a barrel to swallowing cow dung and even goat’s hearts! Kumar: Disgusting. But the viewer-ship - very high! The young audience wants something unexpected, something that keeps them guessing. The tougher and more degrading a task, the more they enjoy it! It can also be called hardcore reality television. Fear Factor, Bigg Boss and Roadies perhaps have unscripted shows and are mentally and physically taxing on the contestants thus driving them to their wits’ ends but yet there is a disturbing trend in the middle of it all. Me: You mean the alleged foul language used in these shows! Or the violence! Kumar: Foul language has become a mainstay, with participants, hosts, judges, and just about anyone, shooting their mouth off. The more bleeps a reality show has, the more popular it turns out to be! Along with the cussing, the pulling each other’s hair on trivial issues and the manipulative and scheming moves are all disturbing, but again only one part of the story! Splitsvilla is a dating show where a group of young women are willing to use and abuse to net the man of their dreams! The kind of manipulations displayed in the name of love shows how things get meaner with each season and that too with no limits! Me: But such characteristics are not representative of the youth of India! Just what some bunch of youths do on TV for money, is it a reason for worry? Kumar: I agree that the setting they are confined to might be forcing them to become as they do but isn’t it also true that what they show today on TV, will become the norm tomorrow? History is witness. The absorption especially by the early teens is at a level we as a society will only see to understand. Youngsters are portrayed as bitchy, back-stabbing and vicious. In an increasingly competitive urban scenario, youngsters will only resort to more and more insensitivity to win the rat race. To me, it’s a scary glimpse of the future of our country. A country which will be more ruthless and unforgiving! We will have a youth that has lost its innocence instead of being carefree. Even friendships are portrayed as being overshadowed by greed, betrayal and jealousy instead of being baptized with care and loyalty! Me: Hey what’s with these certain terms you are using in between? Is it intentional? Kumar: Not intentional. Forgive me. Me: I will get back to you on them, once we are through with this topic. Kumar: I don’t think we have the time for you to do a ‘Sach ka Saamna’ on me! (we laugh) ‘Sach Ka Saamna’ is where the nation voyeuristically laps up a contestant washing dirty linen in public for prize money. It is all too real, and takes candor to the level of a confessional. So from sexual fantasies to bank balances and many more personal details, it takes Indian television where it has never been before. And it’s paying off. It is viewed by approximately 30 million viewers, making it the biggest non-fiction launch of 2009! Me: A different kind of pornography you mean! Kumar: That will be too harsh a word perhaps, but the thrill the audience receives is very similar! Me: But can we just blame the young for everything? Aren’t the parents too responsible in supporting and even pushing them into these at the cost of hard work and other personal values? Kumar: I agree. Many of the shows require the consent of the parents especially those which involve smaller kids. Well, the older generation is game too! Me: One good thing is perhaps that parents are becoming more open now to other career options for their kids! But the motives are questionable! I mean, only because of the host of shows offering a short cut to fame and money, parents became more willing to train their kids in other talents like singing, dancing and other life-skills. Kumar: It’s all about the money. People will do anything for it. With fame tagging along, it has become irresistible for the middle class. The options are so tempting! They can sing and earn, dance and earn, do stunts and earn, flirt and earn, cheat and earn, and even marry and earn! Me: Marry and earn! Kumar: The entire nation lapped up ‘Rakhee ka Swayamwar’, a show where 16 strapping men profess their love for an item girl! In episode after episode, a suddenly demure and sari-clad Rakhi looked on as the men sang paeans of love, observed a fast and even walked barefoot on burning coals! Many women found the show interesting because here was a woman in charge, unlike the soaps where she is shown to be struggling all the time. Some found it extremely entertaining and funny. Then of course, the curiosity factor made many more tune in! Me: But isn’t it again a ‘winner-take-all’ situation as in any other setting we have had before this? Kumar: Well, that’s where it gets more exciting for the audience. In these reality shows sometimes, losers become almost equally famous as the winners. All finalists usually manage to get a decent share of name and fame. Many of them end up become artists and stars like the winners themselves. Me: Quite interesting! Maybe I should give it a try! Kumar: Well, you have assumed a lot of things then. You are already assuming to be selected from among a number similar to nine crore people! If you do get through then that in itself will be quite an achievement. Moreover, the reality shows that are increasingly becoming more famous are the ones that have the ‘already famous’, or at least those that have had some stint of fame at least in their family! Me: Come on, Kumar. I am just kidding. I am not calling any channel! Kumar: Hey, why not? In fact, coming out of it, you will at least know what you are not made for! (we laugh) Me: Yeah, that’s right. Many of these young people assume that they are the best and will become the best while their actual strength maybe in some other area. These shows give them an exposure which helps them identify their drawbacks fast and saves them a lot of time. Kumar: Well, kind of. But at some stage some of them might give in a do something untoward! That will happen only as more and more people get a chance to participate and as in every trade, there is only so much room at the top! Me: But giving many more young people a chance to become famous and rich in a setup where only certain families and circles have enjoyed for decades is an opportunity in itself. Kumar: Oh, also in economic terms, any such rotation and channeling of money is good for the economy. The faster the circulation and greater the spread of it, the better! Me: Yeah right. It’s the approach and the impact that’s the worry. We live in a civilized society and advocate for a better compassionate world but it’s the raucous, wild rather obnoxious secrets and bitchy catfights that amuse us and quench our thirst for entertainment! Kumar: True, they say, reality is stranger than fiction, but it’s even more engrossing when it’s scripted, edited and maneuvered to suit the audience’s liking and psyche. Coming to think of it, the prototypical formula for all hit reality shows remains the same. These shows are only as real as the soaps they have replaced. But, the fact remains that even though we continue to condemn such shows in an attempt to flaunt our intellectual supremacy we still remain glued to our TV sets hoping to find more appalling acts and defaming gossip. Me: Not me. But, going by their skyrocketing popularity it’s only obvious that such show are here to stay. The question that we really need to ask is what’s worse, reality TV’s existence or the fact that it sells? I decided not to call up any channel. It was not worth it. I needed no short cuts. But I had also decided not to give Kumar any short cuts too especially after the digs he made at me in between. Soul Café I’ll be back. With Kumar again, of course.