Sunday, June 29, 2008

ANYTHING IS REALITY

I understand that a major chunk of Indian television suffers from CAATS (Compulsive Aping of American Television Syndrome), a terrible byproduct of which is the concept of reality television, but am beginning to get really confused about what is classified as a "reality show" anymore! Even singing competitions are being advertised as "reality shows"!

Four ways to turn a harmless singing/dancing/quiz contest into a reality show:
1. Kindle a fight between the judges. Make one of them leave the stage, and send a group of people to pacify and bring him/her back (in between two commercial breaks and SMS voting).
2. Show participants' mothers feeding them laddus at home praying for their victory, local residents holding placards with the participants' names cheering for them, participants begging for votes of the public, and close-ups of participants shedding tears (in slow motion and montage versions) after they've lost.
3. Chase participants into changing rooms, lobbies, lavatories - or better still, place hidden cameras in these places. If any participant exposes too much skin, use a 1 mm thin black strip to cover the exposed area. Use a short "beep" sound leaving the "fff..." and the "...kkk" sound audible and pretend no one will guess the expletive.
4. If the host of the show is a celebrity, make the partipants scream, hug, kiss, and even wet their pants in excitement. Bring out the "human" side of celebrities, such as giving Salman Khan a suit to wear and also a bath towel he can rub across his genitals in the name of dance.

Sports events have become reality shows. Take for example Harbhajan Singh's irreverence to opponents' mothers and fascination for slapping totally dominating cricket news; or how cricket, hockey, tennis, and gulli danda have become infested with allegations of match-fixing!

Hmm.. that leaves just the News. Oh wait, I'll be back after sms-ing my reply to "Do you think Dr. Rajesh Talwar murdered his daughter Aarushi?" viewers' poll. I know my opinion counts.

30 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh so true Vinesh! Before all I have to confess that i'm a big fan of reality TV... And all do know that for years now Bollywood and it's relative small screen lifts stuff left right and center... but can you believe that it's found it's way into Tamil silver screen as well...

Euuuuu am kinda really sick of this....! Rather watch the original masala than badly put together lift offs!

Prats said...

Strangely today's headlines is this

http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/29/stories/2008062955680800.htm

And what did think...did he????

But seriously its too over rated...and now extremely nauseating

Vinesh said...

@curious: "Real" reality is at least interesting for the curiousness/amusement part of it. But turning music and dance shows into reality contests is sick ille??

@prats: there you go! i'm sure the TRPs of that show are now shooting up... who cares if she can dance well.

Anonymous said...

You are very true Vine...thats the reason i had to see these shows nowadays...no value for talent...there is value for tears and meer acting on stage.

Anonymous said...

You are very true Vine...thats the reason i hate to see these kind of shows nowadays...no value for talent at all...there is value for tears and meer acting on stage.

Jo said...

LOL! Spot on post Vinesh! :-)

Shruti said...

and hence.. from all the reasons u have given.. our Indian singing competions on TV qualify to be reality shows. Sick drama!

PreethZzZ said...

they are putting the phrase life is a stage and we are all actors into literal play!!! hence everything being a reality show...

btw we have the lifestyle channel here are some show names:
ladettes to ladies,
jimmy's farm diaries,
dating the enemy,
what not to wear,
dream homes,
etc etc etc... really the things they come up with these days!!! My god is all I can say!

p.s the disclaimer always says portions not affecting the outcome of the show have been altered (i.e acted/scripted)... they supposedly add the "spice" and the reality factor to the shows...

black coffee said...

talk abt lack of originality! loved what you had to say abt the "beep"ing of swear words! lol!

i stopped watching Indian Idol for the same reasons you quoted. Not worth the effort and wait betwwen commercials. *rolls eyes*

aMus said...

ahhh!!! now i know what i don't miss in Singapore...:D

but so very true, vinesh, so very true,too much of a bad thing!!!

srijithunni said...

It seriously gets irritating at times...! Nicely written, vinesh.

Srinivas said...

Heard about a girl been paralyised and lost her speech after she been rejected from the Dance show with bad comments from the Judge in Kolkata...sad..Our Lawerance master was more hot than the Tea master's Tea, thinking themselves as Grand masters...I think its high time that the TV show makers should work hard in copying any other latest trend...Good posting vinesh

Paavai said...

Reality shows are doing plenty of good Vinesh, with their cliched approach .. helping people to stay away from TV :)-

The other sick thing is our traditional South Indian maamis and mamaas desperately trying to fit-in, by hugging their partners on screen and what not .. its at time hilarious..

Unknown said...

Just to add a few things I dislike about these talent shows... Judges being too harsh or showing too much appreciation.. "your performance was even better than the original", contenders asking for sms votes using wierd, cheesy lines and hosts trying to overdo their job...

good job of a post here!
regards,
ArKev

Jeevan said...

China pulla thanmala irukku...

These reality shows are the worst irritations ever. And when the urgency comes from our family to change channel to watch this irritation, when we occasionally sit to watch TV it annoys more.

don't know who will come and to save us? :(

Swathi Bellavi said...

The last 2 lines were superb... It such a pity that a family trauma is being hyped so much ....

Vinesh said...

@rathi: and you proudly endorse it? grrrrrr..

@jo: glad you agree, jo!

@shruti: yes, and sad to see!

Vinesh said...

@preethzzz: shakespeare's too much, preethzzz - haha!

ladettes to ladies..dating the enemy..hahaha!

@black coffee: indian idol for the idle indian!

@suma: you don't have this in singapore?

Vinesh said...

@srijith unni: glad u agree, buddy!

@sri: im not so sure i believe the story about the girl on the dance show... anyway... participants know what they're getting into when they do..

@paavai: forget hugging their partners, hugging the TV show host and the guests by traditional looking people looks so hilarious!!

Vinesh said...

@arkev: "your performance was even better than the original" - i defintely have heard this being used for the lousiest of performances! totally agree with you..

@jeevan: they'll make a reality show one day about how reality show affects a viewer.

@swathi: i think it is part of the immunization program of the future generation against any kind of sensitivity or sympathy.

Shobana said...

The only dose of reality I get to see from India, is on Vijay TV and sheesh....that's what comes to mind. Especially after watching the 2nd season of JN1. Please, people...take a biiiiiiiiiiigggggg break and go back to regular programming. Salman dancing with towels, eh? Did I miss much??

Serendipity said...

I'm starting my own version of The Office by bringing a camera crew into work tomorrow. Wear your best clothes and practice FFBLEEPKK'ing.

Tys on Ice said...

its a kind of voyeurism in a commericial garb isnt it? I feel it works becoz of our love for gossips and minding other people's opinions etc...iam planning to put a camera on my cat and airing that ....its seems to have a much more exciting life than me..

Anonymous said...

seriously!! blehh!

Vinesh said...

@shobana: i think they've reached a point of no return, sadly :-(

@serendipity: for a small fee, i can create controversy such as having an ID card but pretending to sneak in, trying to hide my mobile as if it had a camera, and so on.. for a slightly higher fee, i'm also willing to make controversial statements on gender, race, and sexual preferences :-)

Vinesh said...

@tys on ice: will your cat be wearing glycerine?

@veens: :-)

Fathima Sagar said...

When Aarushi murder case came up, her mother spoke to media for some 2 to 3 minutes. Those minutes were repeated over and over for nearly more than an hour in Star News with a bunch of psychologists who were breaking up her talk and were saying which statement of hers wud b how much percentage true based on her body language!
Exhaustive!!!!!!!!!!!

Vinesh said...

@fathima: oh god, im glad i missed that.. everyone is a detective :-(

Vidya Natarajan said...

HAHAHA!
reality shows are the new in thing!!
and i did wonder what slaman khan was doing wen he did wat u rote he did!!
u shud see these shows atleast to rite blogs abt how hilarious or funny they turned out to be!
and it is not a show if there is no tear fights which is even more shown closely by these channels to increase their ratings!

Vinesh said...

@zanychild: quite terrible i think they all are..