Is this a Family Show

 

Family show

Kids and their parents watch the same things on TV with eyes wide open

Year 1990: The Mitra family is hooked to the Sunday evening primetime film on television. In a hotel room scene, the hero and heroine inch closer to each other, their lips set to meet any moment. Papa Mitra shifts uncomfortably in the sofa. Mama Mitra shoots a nervous glance at son Debojit, aged 14. Taking a cue, Debojit darts out of the room, feigning sudden thirst. Everyone heaves a sigh of relief. Year 2008: The Sen family, with son Dhruv, also aged 14, is watching TV. A contraceptive ad showing a man and a woman on the verge of getting intimate blares out words like “safe sex”, “protection” and “abortion”. No glances are exchanged. No channels changed. No one rushes out to take a bathroom break. The Sen family is nonchalant through the 30-seconder. Is the Mitra family your family, 18 years ago? Is the Sen family your family, now? Shrinking boundaries, different, more open cultures and the constant presence of television — how many hours is it switched off? — have exposed the Indian family to all things unimaginable and brought in drastic changes. Perhaps the most significant change: kids are no longer kids, parents are no longer parents. What was “adult” two decades ago isn’t any longer. Fashion (look at any children’s section at a clothes store), relationships (the little boy or girl talking about girlfriends and boyfriends), language (Pappu can’t dance saala! is a term of endearment) and Bollywood (not much left to say) have fostered the trend. Bollywood has fed off it too, but Indian television content is the most visible register of this change. “We are in an age where kissing hardly raises an eyebrow, parents rarely make a fuss about skimpy clothes and sex is slowly becoming a topic of dining table discussion. What you see in real life is on TV, what is on TV is happening in real life,” says Mumbai-based sociologist Prerna Anand Puri. There’s hardly anything that the family finds objectionable to watch together. But perhaps it should. A recent American study shows that teenagers who watch a lot of television featuring flirting, kissing, discussion of sex and sex scenes face a greater risk of teenage pregnancy! More sex please, we are family Take Bigg Boss. Twenty, even 10 years ago, Rahul Mahajan cavorting in the pool with Payal Rohatgi , getting more than just touchy-feely on quite a few occasions, would either make the parents or the children walk out. The same programme had item girl Sambhavana Seth close-dancing with housemate Raja Chaudhury. In many episodes, she didn’t utter a sentence without placing her hand strategically on his thigh. But nine-year-old Sonam Surana’s parents don’t raise a stink when she plonks herself on the couch at 10pm to watch “her favourite Bigg Boss” as mother Sonali puts it. “With Bollywood and music videos having exposed kids to skin and sex a long time ago, I don’t think parents bother about things that are being shown on programmes like Bigg Boss. There isn’t any embarrassment when I watch the show with my daughter,” says Sonali. At age 12, Sonali herself was asked to leave the room when she chanced upon her parents watching Parinda, in the late 80s. A promotional poster of MTV Splitsvilla Public relations professional Tanu Anand Mohakud, 25, recalls her mother’s displeasure when she watched Hip Hip Hurray, a high school series dealing with love, life and heartbreak, as a 16-year-old, but doesn’t see the same treatment being meted out to her teenaged sister Shitika. “My sister not only watches shows like Roadies and Desperate Housewives in front of my parents, she even discusses them at the dining table. It’s such a huge change, just nine years apart,” says Tanu. If bolder TV shows invite very little parental censorship, then ads invite none at all. “A Nirodh ad would leave me embarrassed in front of my parents,” confesses anchor Mir. Homemaker Anushree Mehta would pick up a book whenever a sanitary napkin ad was aired with her father around. But have you come across a parent or child of today who does the same when an Amul Macho or a Wildstone ad plays on TV? Parents are partly the problem. They will be young, at least at heart. They will be Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, chilled-out. “The easing of rigid family structures and the bridging of the generation divide has brought about this change. Parents today are a much younger lot who like to be perceived as friends and confidantes, rather than figures of authority,” says ad man Prahlad Kakkar. Some parents would probably mind if they were not allowed to watch the same programmes as their children. The new attitude has allowed Indian television content to tread a path never taken before. Like MTV Splitsvilla. A show with sex, abusive language, catfights, bitching, betrayal and public display of affection had the participant girls being subjected to the worst kind of verbal humiliation at the hands of two men, but was watched and enjoyed by many kids and parents — together. “We are all learning to grow up with our kids. We no longer live in a conservative and prudish society. Casual dating and break-ups are rampant among young people today and parents have accepted that. We took all this on board and conceived Splitsvilla,” says Ashish Patil, vice president and general manager, MTV. “Parents now are used to their children dating at the age of 13 or 14. In comparison, their 10 or 11-year old watching Splitsvilla is pretty tame,” reasons Delhi-based child psychologist Jyotika Sethi. Kiss and telly So feeling uncomfortable at a kiss in progress on the small screen is oh-so-passe. “I have sat through countless kisses with my son’s gaze fixed on the TV. I haven’t really bothered changing channels,” says NSN, columnist for Webnsn.com and managing editor. A Splitsvilla episode had a boy and a girl kissing on a beach under the cover of darkness.   In Bigg Boss, a swimsuit-clad Payal Rohatgi leans over to get more than a cuddle from Rahul Mahajan.   Both are family viewing. “Saas-bahu serials have for long propagated ‘adult’ content like premarital sex and extramarital affairs. Bollywood rain songs and rape scenes have been a part of family viewing,” says Prerna Anand Puri. These have trained the Indian family for long. But all this has left the bleep very busy. Whether it’s Sambhavana telling Payal to f*** off on Bigg Boss or a Roadies participant calling another a “sexed-up bastard,” abuses are flying thick and fast on the small screen, often leading to rising TRPs. Some parents trust the bleep. “My eight-year-old daughter knows that the bleep means that something bad is being said, words that shouldn’t be used by her. As long as kids realise that, I don’t think strict censorship from parents is necessary,” says software engineer Mainak Guha, 37. Pushing the line, not crossing it But even in this age, some lakshman rekhas aren’t crossed. “As a parent I have a problem with the kind of content shown on news channels. Rape, murder and naked parading of women is something that I would not like my son to watch,” says Bharathi S. Pradhan. Television channels too claim self-censorship. “Music videos that are often cleared by the censor board are deemed unfit for airing by us if they are too explicit, or show smoking and drinking,” says MTV’s Patil. “A fair amount of Get Gorgeous 5 footage hasn’t made it to the screen based on our guidelines,” says Saurabh Kanwar, vice president, content and communication, Channel V. But for a large section of television homes today, Rakhi Sawant is family. … And the reverse Have you lately tuned into a film on Zee Studio, STAR Movies or HBO and been vexed by the subtitles displayed? A specially designed software that filters obscenities is at work on these subtitles, a software that plays moral police with glee. Bastard, asshole, f*** and bitch are just few of the words that aren’t shown on screen. Sex is blanked out, but sexy isn’t. “Ass” is replaced by “butt.” “Tit” turns into “breast”, “shit” becomes “crap”. But the channels still have a long way to go before they master the censorship game. For the words can’t be read, but they sure can be heard! Bleep anyone?