As I opened the gate, I heard laughter from inside coupled with noise from the television. It had been a long day and I was grateful for some humour in the ambience. I dropped my bag on the couch and followed suit, deciding to take a break and have a laugh with my roomies. I knew the whole world watched Disney channel, but not being a great fan of the small screen, this was my first encounter with the channel, apart from glimpses of Hanna Montanna and Lizzie McGuire while I cross into the kitchen.
From whatever I could make out from the next excruciating thirty minutes, the serial was supposedly a story revolving around the life of four teenage friends. Neither had I come across such ridiculous characters in my life nor had heard about such beings from others. I certainly lived in the same world? The two girls were dressed in flashy yellow and pink, caked with makeup. The guys matched the glitz with, I don’t exactly remember what. However it was not the clothes that intrigued and shocked me, but the portrayal of the life of teenagers in India to viewers who could possibly be as young as nine years of age!
The kids on screen were college goers, and all they did was worry over keeping up with the trend, party, decide on matching clothes (the best friends dress up similarly) on an everyday basis and spend the time after college gossiping about three girls who were supposedly their ‘enemies’ – and this qualified as humour! Graduate students are not expected to walk around with their heads buried in books, but that does not mean their lives are as empty and merely revolve around planning parties. Even if that ‘slip’, which was so Jane tu ya Jane na like, could be set aside for the moment, I could not understand what was so funny or entertaining in pretending to be dumb.
To brutally put it across and state what was, what the serial did was to portray girls as stupid things who spent all day comparing each other’s skills for being able to do a French manicure or sew or make beds! The boys were in no better position, they whiled away time trying to woo these ‘pretty women’ of the college by winning an arm wrestling match or by gulping down a glass of coke in a single go – which were obviously some of the heroic deeds that made girls go week in their knees! A nauseating image of Poo (played by Kareena Kapoor), from Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gham, flashed across my mind. After repeated efforts by women activists, lovers of sensible movies and sane people in general, to do away with the images of the “blond chick” in Hollywood, who would sleep with any random man for a mere drink, on one extreme and on the other, images of the ever obedient, demure, perfect, darling wives of the saas-bahu serials who would refuse to walk out of their marriage even with a whole household abusing them, it is disturbing to see this distorted, nonexistent, stereotyped image of teenage girls, entering the children’s television space. Television plays a vital role in the growth process of the children today, whether we like it or not. Unsuspecting parents breathe in relief as they share a peaceful moment together when their child is absorbed in the television. Is this what we want our children growing up on, viewing, learning and ultimately imitating? Remember the viewership for such channels runs in millions and the primary viewers belong to the age group of about nine to fourteen. And Disney Channel also holds the one of the highest viewership rankings with Summer 2009’s top three scripted cable telecasts. The attack is solely not on Disney Channel, but unfortunately even for the sake of the article, I could not sift through some of the ridiculous programmes that the other channels telecast.
If the previous generations grew up with the idea that a woman’s ultimate joy in life is waiting on her husband, this generation is being fed ideas of a ‘liberated’ woman– a woman who has all the freedom to roam the city, delightfully competing with peers to spend her father’s or husband’s money on clothes and manicures. I do not disagree with the fact that the portrayal of women’s role in the society has gone leaps and bounds, be it in the media or elsewhere. But one can’t deny that in spite of all this revolution, we are still stuck with images of slim-waisted girls, dressed in pretty pinks, batting their Barbie eyelashes to trap boys and get favours done. This is an unrealistic portrayal of both girls as well as boys. Here I need to observe that this is also an obvious aping of the West – not Western reality but the Western celluloid. If it is true that celluloid characters are often reflections of a next door girl, it is also true that the same celluloid images can distort reality to such an extent that the thin line between what is real and what is not ceases to exist, and unfortunately that thin line is fast receding.
Children no longer learn from just their parents or teachers, in fact this component in a child’s learning process is fast declining. It is the age of the electronic media and it is the television or the internet which is children’s primary childhood companions. Perhaps it is time to view censorship from a new angle. It is not just images of violence and horror that affect the psyche of a child, but even the casual behavioural traits expressed by characters on screen influence the little minds, and perhaps these have an even deeper impact. We have maybe moved on from the usual blue and pink gender stereotypes, but moved on to what? Something worse, much much worse.
The Author Janani’s fascination for Economics landed her in a BA Economics course at Stella Maris College, Chennai and she is currently in her final year. After a long internal conflict she has acknowledged her passion for writing and deciding to pursue this passion for life, she is now an aspiring journalist. To sustain the momentum she freelances and at times just blogs on her mind as she gazes at the world from a speeding train or her bedroom window. When she is not writing she is either curled up with a book or is in the middle of a debate. She believes that reporting is one strong way to create an active citizenry and is all set to prove it.
Warranted criticism! Actually, am very surprised that programmes like ‘Rakhi’s Swayamwar’ rakes in max TRPs just a few months back. Dunno where TV is taking us!
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