Indian TV soap Sucks!

Entry date: 8th May 2017

It's been a month since my 10th grade exams winded up. Since then, I've watched a couple of new movies and that's what finally inspired me to get down and write this. I take the occasional glance at some Indian serials while I surf through the channels, only to cringe and turn the TV off.

Now, now, I feel the need to put forth this disclaimer. I'm not attacking the movie industry as such. Even though we have thousands of movies that have nothing but hero-beating-up -bad guy sequences and an item song at an interval of every 20 minutes, we have some amazing, thought provoking, new movies that challenge our obsolete system.
NO, I'm NOT some dude who's obsessed with Hollywood and has been influenced heavily by their movies. Okay, maybe a little. Fine,a lot. But its only because its so good!

I'll give you my arguments. When the TV serial culture started back in the late 80s, we actually had much better content and a limited number of episodes. Now? Not so much.
I bet none of you can look me in the eye, and tell me that any of their acting isn't sub par, or if I may, horrible. Here's the Indian serial-makers guide to TV Shows:

• Have bad actors without much experience or ex-movie actors who aren't popular anymore
• Have a cliched, beaten-to-death,below average script that's not original in the least
• Have even more horrible "music directors" who basically just rip-off the scores from other shows on the same channel 

To this date, I haven't laid my eyes on a show that doesn't have a prospective "modern" yet mind-numbingly dumb and "helpless without husband" daughter-in-law who's favorite hobby is bawling her eyes out and a mother-in-law who thinks she's left behind all of their tradition and culture (like male dominance?patriarchy?) and son who has a troubled time choosing between his mom and wife. Most of the shows encourage stereotypes of chauvinism wherein a "good wife" is one that stays home and cooks hot chapathis for her husband, while the "uncouth & culture-less youth" goes against her parent's orders, out for work. And enough with 5-cm thick layer of make up they don during every second of the show! Yadda, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, blah, 4 years and 1200 episodes later the family finally accepts each other for who they are.

It makes my insides squirm when I see these pathetic excuses for a TV show air on our national networks and a "stereotypical Indian housewife" who sits with her eyes glued to the television. Its whom the mainstream media targets, hoping they'll never learn to think for themselves. Now, (quite luckily) being from Generation Z or a millennial, I and lot of other youngster happen to have exposure to Hollywood and other international greats and their class of TV shows (again, not all of them are good. They too have a huge audience for bad comedies & soaps). But all the moms and aunties and uncles and grandpas? Not really. The reasoning behind it is simple. They don't know what they want. The people, do not know, what they want!

Here's my rationale

The entirety of show-business runs on one main principle. "Give the people what they want"

Brilliant. But if only we knew what we wanted. Novels, plays and studies for ages show the fickle-mindedness and mob-mentality of people. Once we know what we can have, we prefer the better ones. It's like before the invention of cellular phones no one was asked to call up every time you reached someplace. A common counter-argument I face whenever I walk around ranting is, "They inculcate good values of culture and tradition. Also, what's YOUR problem if we watch? We just need something to see"

Right. Values like jealousy, envy, loath, misogyny that we so proudly strut around showing off as our culture. Hey, I'm proud of my culture, but passing off all this in the name of it, does nothing but give it a bad name. We never address any important or pressing issues at all!

TV shows like Sherlock, The Newsroom, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, House M.D or merely sitcoms like The Simpsons, F.R.I.E.N.D.S ( I had to :P) show what we can get if we put some actual thought into script-writing. 

In shows like The Newsroom, the creator actually tries to get the viewers to think for themselves instead of mindlessly staring back at the TV screen.
Having genres such as politics, crime-thriller, drama, actual science and not just revolving around "family tensions" of sorts.

What I'm trying to say here is simple. Quit the complacency, watch and enlighten yourselves too.  

It's more than high time we refine our shows. I, for one don't want to go down in history as a laughing stock worldwide. 

In the old theaters of Broadway, TV soaps of the 50s and before etc Hollywood too had such horrible, racist programs. We did so too. Only difference is they evolved. So should we.

Movie making is an art. So are TV shows. They are bound to have a cultural impact irrespective of content. If not something good, at least not for the worse -insecure housewives, patriarchal households and sexism in its crudest form

In conclusion, avoid/boycott such programs until they get the message. Let the so-called "script writer" earn his cheque for what it's worth. I can't stand these shows anymore, you wouldn't too if you'd seen what I'd seen.

Ciao!