Misogyny in Telugu serials

Misogyny in Telugu serials

Gone are the days of mother-in-law taunting the daughter-in-law to irritate. She now gets her kin knifed on a highway by her henchmen.  Telugu serials are empowering women by making them evil.

Posted on The Hoot on Sunday, Aug 16 12:47:30, 2009

Whenever one sees soaps on Telugu television, one is filled with amazement at the extent of anti-women programming on them. In the early years of commercialization, there were several soaps that showed women as victims who cry copiously their way through an exhausting 1000+episode drama. After much criticism from women's groups and general viewers on the lack of agency for women and woman's life being completely beyond her control in television dramas, the trend has changed. Today, one sees soaps where women from rich, educated middle class families act like the mafia dons. They have a strangle hold on their families. They have henchmen who do their bidding with impunity. They order killings, kidnappings with ease and maintain goons on their payroll. Revenge against, and distrust among close kin is the norm. One is not normal if one does not get one's brother's children kidnapped for ransom. Gone are the days of mother-in-law taunting the daughter-in-law to irritate. She now gets her kin knifed on a highway by her henchmen. ('Chandramukhi' on ETV at 8 to 8.30 weekdays, another show 'Godavari' on ETV, 'Mogali Rekulu' on Gemini have shades of the same stuff). The law and order machinery that appears occasionally on the shows merely takes the brutality of the whole drama to a higher pitch, mostly acting on behalf of the villains. Looking at the shows one wouldn't suspect there's an operational Cr PC or legal system in the country. Murders are planned and executed at will for the most trivial of causes. Intent to kill is the easiest mode of expressing displeasure on these serials (Much like the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, who Carroll says "had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round"). Apart from the in-your-face physical violence on screen, there's a pervasive brutality of thought and general lack of human kindness. In the good old days of Doordarshan monopoly, there was some attempt at defining what is socially responsible content and getting good quality television drama done by respected people from the film industry. Generally, there would be a male or female lead who essentially represented decency and goodness. The storyline would have drama emanating from social circumstances and events, not evil impulses of criminal minds. There's nothing redeeming or elevating in the way drama built around evil plays out on channels today, especially when the message, 'evil always wins' is reinforced day after day. In a masala film it takes Good two and a half hours of suffering (along with us) to figure out how to overcome Evil. In a TV soap, it takes Good three and a half years to figure out how to overcome Evil (if Good has any such intentions). The novelty is that women are into the Evil-business big time. This, I presume, is the channels' take on empowerment of women. There are other shows on these and other Telugu channels as well which have female roles born out of the mind of a misogynous scriptwriter. It is amazing how many scriptwriters are working with intolerance and violence as the basic impulse of dominant female characters. The channels are teeming with wannabe Bolly-Tolly-whatever-wood scriptwriters/directors who want to out-gore and out-scream your routine Telugu film. I am sure the serials are being used as calling cards by many of them for film breaks. The lumpen culture of Telugu mainstream cinema has a natural leash, the box office. Time and again we see big budget/ big name films biting the dust and unknown films finding favour with the audience. This, despite the stranglehold a few families have on the Telugu film business. One can almost hear suave media dudes telling you, use the remote. Don't see the channel. But the problem with the current environment is the me-too programming that translates into TINA (there-is-no-alternative) programming for the viewers. If a raunchy dance programme gets 'good ratings' in one market area, there are a hundred downmarket clones on every channel at the same time slot. We have seen that with Kyonki Sas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, with KBC, with Antakshari and as God is my witness, WE WILL SEE IT in the case of Sach Ka Saamna! Television suffers from the lack of a clear measure for viewer support, something akin to the box office. As the N.O.I.S.E.com spoof so clearly (and scientifically) explains, everyone claims top ratings. The television industry is perpetuating a dubious ratings business that is systematically undermined by the more powerful players. It is rumoured among the insiders that in some sample districts separate sets are provided for TAM homes, which are supposed to be tuned in to the predetermined channels, while on their own sets the families watch whatever they normally watch! Also, heavy payments are made to the cable operators for carrying the channels next to the most viewed channels to get enough accidental hits while channel-hopping. In the present system of bouquets, channels also hide behind the coat tails of more popular channels in a bouquet and claim popularity. It is like you are paying to see a Shabana Azmi but the bouquet has four Rakhi Sawants bundled free with it. The 'market buzz' then goes on to tell you everyone is paying for four Rakhi Sawants and the viewers can't have enough of her! No mention of Azmi. Now, why should we take such an insult to our intelligence? More than the sanctimonious sermons on self-regulation, the State needs to put in place a foolproof system like CAS all over the country, where the paying subscriber must have the power to dump channels they disapprove of individually and pay for those that they really wish to see. In the current digital system, it should be easy to monitor and collate viewer support electronically. MSOs must be mandated to make such information public. Technology can provide the solution, if the government does not dither and succumb to the pressures of the lobbies.