So how dirty is dirty on Indian television? A censored film is not sanitised enough for family audiences but home grown crime shows are? Especially the ones where in the guise of educating viewers about the dangers lurking in every neighbourhood and dark corner, gang rapes are recreated, victims are shown pleading for mercy as rapists spew obscenities, incest is not uncommon, murdered children stuffed in plastic bags, adultery and perversion and suicide are all shown in graphic detail?
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A recent crime show called Saavdhan India on Life Ok is taking the cue from Crime Patrol Dastak on Sony and is trying its best to grab eyeballs by repeatedly airing footage from an episode where a young girl was abducted by four sick men and violated brutally. Why do we need to see such episodes of violence and depravity? Why do we need to see on Crime Patrol Dastak, actual recreation of how minor girls are sexually abused by relatives, acquaintances, friends? Or the various ways in which warped minds plot crimes and murder? A recent episode showed a woman killing her blackmailer by luring him in her house with the promise that her friend would service him. In another episode, a bigamous husband chopped his wife and stored her pieces in a deep freezer. And these episodes are being shown as reruns every evening when everyone in the family has access to the TV remote. Be it beheadings, acid attacks or mass murders, nothing is taboo for our TRP seekers. But Vidya Balan in a bustier is, for our censor board.
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We can argue whether The Dirty Picture empowered the idea of a sexually liberated, self-made woman or whether it just followed her into predictable self-destruction but the film is definitely not as disturbing or shocking as some of the content that is being shown unchecked on TV. The other day, a question was asked by Anup Soni on Crime Patrol as to where the rage against women stems from in Indian society? Good question and one that the makers of his show should ask themselves as they keep using stories of exploitation to ostensibly educate us but mostly to titillate and get more and more people to watch their show. Then there are the soaps where a career woman ( Kya Hua Tera Vaada on Sony ) is shown as a home breaker and education is held against Sandhya in Diya Aur Baati Hum. Women are treated like cattle in the new soap Phir Subah Hogi. A wife is physically and mentally abused by a demented husband in a Saubhagyavati Bhav? on Life Ok and in Channel V’s Gumraah, I was horrified to see the depiction of how a school girl was drugged and raped and then killed and dumped by her class mates. What on earth is the need to show women as soft targets who can be easily attacked and brutalised when we already know that we live in a country with a vitiated gender equation?
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The other day, a few of my young students were discussing gender equations. And how angry and helpless they feel when women are targetted. They are different, they said. They do not think of women as victims or objects but everywhere they turn, to television, to films, to advertising, they only see images where women are clinging or cringing or being hunted or being belittled. Or being told how to dress, what shade of colour to turn into. How to cook, what to say, how to behave.
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In the 80s, my generation was moved, inspired, stirred by Kavita Chowdhary’s Udaan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ZfO7GiZPI&feature=related). Growing up in restrictive mohallas, we identified with her struggle to fly, to find her own path and that moment when she first dons the IPS uniform and gently but firmly walks through the corridors of power, we felt a rush of vindication in our veins. We felt possibilities unfurl around us. We wanted to be Kalyani Singh or atleast a bit like her. Even today when I hear the title song on YouTube, I feel the same inexplicable rush and a feeling of pride in being a woman. Where are such stories today?
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It is not easy being a woman anywhere in the world. More so in India and the first step in making their existence easier is to acknowledge that the problem lies not with how women dress, behave or come across but in the way they are perceived. Dirt management is a more complex reality than wishing away certain films from prime time. We need to question the gender cliches being scattered by the media for mass consumption. The westernised vamp. The submissive bahu. The controlling mother-in-law. The victim. The sex object. The item girl. Where are women who command respect? And shape their lives with their own free will? This is the issue that censorship should address because it is not the picture that is dirty. But the gaze that looks at it.
Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/perfect-eight-9380032870/p/itmdf87fpkhszfkb?pid=9789380032870&_l=A0vO9n9FWsBsMJKAKw47rw–&_r=dyRavyz2qKxOF7Yuc
In our country, legs and cleavage are dirty, everything else goes, including shapeless muffin midriffs under the saree, happily peek a booing on roads, trains, malls, all over….
Not to mention the sanitary napkins ad that I have trouble explaining to my four year old.
“the problem lies not with how women dress, behave or come across but in the way they are perceived.”
i think the roots goes much deeper than surface of the problem. Our moralist thoughts come from our religon, our epics which we’ve been following for centuries. We read that a wife is lost by her righteous husbands in a game of dice as if she is an object, a property they possess. I’ve always wondered who is more evil, the one who disrobed after winning her or the one who betted on her.
In another epic we read that a pregnant wife is abandoned in a jungle with no fault of her’s.She is blamed for what happened to her.
In shariyat laws, we read how women treated like cattles. Thank God britishers invaded this country n made laws that gave an equal status to them as that of men
Today we are seeing the same old pattern when A woman is blamed n made to feel ashame for how she dresses or behaves and not the predator. All our social orders are based on needs of man and not at all understanding the nature of a woman. they are all the same old patterns.
Great article Reema.Enjoyed reading every bit.
Crime depiction is definitely inciting violence in the minds of every viewer but yes..the role models being projected via TV/Cinemas are no lesser in denigrating the image of women. Male-centric movies use actresses just for belly-dancing and slapping dirty jokes. How about socially boycotting the shows and movies which run on such narrow agendas of lewd portrayal of woman?