Over the years, Indian television has been dominated by TV serials. Starting from golden oldies like Hum Log, Buniyaad, Tamas, Yeh Jo Hain Zindagi, Nukkad, Rajni, Flop Show, Ulta Pulta, Circusto the modern day K soap operas. But today television is dominated by the reality shows. Reality shows of every type and variety in every channel- to the extent that this has become a circus.
Probably the first reality show was Annu Kapoor’s Antaksharion Zee TV. This was a great program with a wonderful host and good music – a treat for viewers. But then competition became tougher and we had Sa Re Ga Ma, Indian Idol and the likes. Now the focus was on competition and winning and not performing. Then came Big Boss, which took reality shows to a different levels, cameras prying into the lives of celebrities,
Today we have publicity seekers who want to get married on TV, a show where participants are asked embarrassing questions and given a lie detector test and another show where people air their personal problems on TV and literally fight it out. Reality shows have become controversial and so important that MP’s discuss about them in Parliament.
Some common themes in all reality shows, including musical shows:
1) Participants start as friends, then groupism and politics starts.
2) One of the judges is usually very rude and loves to abuse participants, insult and humiliate them (remember Annu Malik and the foul-mouthed baldies of MTV).
3) Judges usually fight among themselves in musical shows and threaten to walkout and we have promos and trailers about this fight, as though this is the main attraction.
4) Participants fight among themselves and use obscenities, which are of course beeped out. So reality shows are not only peep shows, but also ‘beep shows’
5) Lots of drama while evicting participants from the show, lots of crying, slow motion replays and tearful songs.
6) Voting lines, fixed shows, fixed results with controversies in the final.
Nowadays all reality shows looks the same and have lost steam (just like the K serials of Ekta Kapoor).
I recently saw a film Condemned, which was about a reality show. A group of convicts are put up on an island and have a bomb attached to their legs. They have 30 hours before the bomb blows up. Rules are very simple - kill the others and the one who survives has his bomb defused. Sounds shocking, doesn’t it – but who knows one day we may really see such gruesome things on reality shows.
Inspite of all these, there are some really good reality shows on TV. India’s got talent on Colours TV is one such. Here there is a true attempt to bring out talent without resorting too to many gimmicks. The judges are encouraging and don’t insult participants, even while evicting them. Another one such program is in Kannada on ETV and is hosted by great singer Dr. S P Balasubramanyam. He handles the young children very well and doesn’t put pressure on them and when they go wrong, he corrects them gently without humiliating them.
There have been instances of parents forcing their children to participate in musical shows and pressuring them to perform. There was also a case when a participant allegedly humiliated by a judge, fell ill and was hospitalised. This even prompted the government to propose a law to ban children appearing on reality show – though nothing happened further on this front.
In these times of reality shows, here’s hoping that we getter better quality of programs, with more focus on performance and less focus on controversies.
