I sort of promised myself that I wouldn’t write about TV as that’s the source my livelihood. And it seems a bit unfair to talk about other people’s work as you are always talking from the standpoint of your own mode of working- which I would obviously think is the best!
Watched bits of fiction TV- the ‘soaps’ it must be said, not the ‘dramas’ or ‘reality shows’. The predominantly ‘family’ setting seems fine as it is so in India, but what’s fascinating is that despite the millions of different ways in which the power structures of families work, the chosen model on TV is the patriarchal one. The father or even more often the grandfather is the source of all power. Haven’t chanced upon one where the son or the daughter were the source of power, or a soap that portrayed as the power struggle as power transitions between generations. All you seem to get are fairly petty sounding rivalries between the ‘bahus’ of a household, or at best a saas-bahu situation.
Due to the predominantly female audience demographic, I guess the female domination of these long form dramas is to be expected. But what surprises is the almost sidelining of the male characters, or maybe the audience for these does not really want to see complex male characters. Much like male audiences of ‘action’ movies don’t appreciate complex female characters.
Interestingly the setting of all the serials seem to be lavish palatial houses- demanded by the audience the TV programmers will proclaim- the aspirational target of their audience. But to me, possibly as a filmmaker- all settings look like they’ve had a fresh coat of paint, everyone’s dressed like they’re going to a wedding- hair all set and un-creased clothes- a world that is very different from the human beings that populate our lives.
But maybe that’s the point of it all, every moment must live the ‘dream’, perhaps even more than movies.
Maybe I need to see a few more movies before passing comments on them- some of the new ones look very interesting- like ‘Barfi’.
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