FIRST STRIKE
Reality TV, future TV?
ANIL DHARKER
|
Why do people watch it? Is the 15 minutes of fame worth all the repercussions?
|
REUTERS
"Kaun Banega Crorepati" ... "real money" and a "real star".
REALITY TV is very big on British television these days. Turn on a channel, even at peak hours, and chances are that you will see, not a sitcom, not a serial, but the newest "slice of life."
Of course, some old reality shows carry on and on. One of the most successful is The Weakest Link, its Indian version seen some time ago on our screens as Kamzor Kadi. But while the Neena Gupta show, an exact — and licenced — copy of the original, got poor ratings and was soon taken off, Anne Robinson's Link shows no sign of weakening.
For those of you who have forgotten, The Weakest Link and its various international clones (the concept was bought by a large number of countries), works on the principle that human beings take joy in the humiliation of others. The participants line up and take their designated positions in a semi-circle at whose centre is the anchor. She fires questions at them, most requiring only basic general knowledge. She also quizzes and taunts each person individually, doing so not in the mannered way of Neena Gupta who was obviously putting on an act, but in a hard, bitchy way which comes across as Anne Robinson's true persona. "Oh, so you don't go out too often?" she said to a young man. "Why, no girl friends?" He mumbles with embarrassment. "Why is that? You have no inclination, or no success?"
As if these very public put downs (on national television, no less) aren't enough, the participants get to vote one of their tribe out from time to time. And tell us why they are doing it. The humiliation of the man/woman, now even rejected by his or her peers, is complete.
Why on earth do people volunteer for the show? You can understand why the lines on Kaun Banega Crorepati? were jammed? Here was a chance to win real money, and be on a show with a real Amitabh Bachchan. But the Weakest Link? No amount of money could compensate for the public insults that are intrinsic to the show and which these ordinary men and women have actually clamoured to get on to.
Does the success of The Weakest Link in Britain and other countries, and its failure in other countries say something about our cultural values and theirs?
Perhaps two other reality shows which have worked in the United Kingdom, will tell us some more. The first is Wife Swap. The title says it all. Married women with families volunteer for the show for each of which the channel arranges a swap: Wife A goes for a fortnight to the family of Wife B, and Wife B moves in for the same period into a household of Wife A. The exchange encompasses everything: from maintaining the house, sending children off to school, cooking the meals, thinking up leisure plans ... The wifely duties stop only at the bedroom door. (Even the West is not ready for that yet. At least not on national TV).
Wives are shown up to be sloppy or efficient, bossy or kindly, boring or good company. Some are good mums, others not. Some are obviously unsuitable companions. Again the question: why? Why volunteer to get on to go a programme which just might show how very rotten you are?
Going beyond this is Wife Swap's successor, Boss Swap. Again the name tells you all. Two bosses exchange jobs for a fortnight, run each other's companies and have their performances evaluated by their staff. Show over, they go back. Either to greater glory or to pick up the pieces.
In the one programme I saw, the American head of a small manufacturing unit does an exchange with the British head of an advertising company. You would think this was a switch doomed from the start, given the completely disparate nature of the two jobs. But would that stop anyone on British TV? No, it wouldn't.
The American wanted clearer job descriptions for his staff and better defined work responsibility. He wanted a greater marketing push and a weekly reward system. He didn't want a receptionist, replacing her with a video recorded welcome message from himself. The result: he got everyone's back up. The staff hated him. And the blunt-speaking chairman of the company told him so almost in so many words.
The ad man, on the other hand, was a hit. He obviously had people skills and from his first steps — like getting the front door a bright coat of paint and a new logo and signage for the company — had won over the staff. They were soon eating out of his hand. The difference was obvious. The American played the Boss, the Englishman didn't. He listened and nudged.
The management lessons are fairly obvious. But, then, Boss Swap isn't being shown in Business schools. It's being shown so that millions of viewers can laugh at this bossy boss making an ass of himself. Or the workers at the manufacturing unit being such idiots that they actually cry when their Boss-for-a-fortnight says his good-byes. Boss Swap is being shown so we can conjecture about what will happen once the cameras have gone away. Will the American now be out of a job? Will his deputy given a free hand and a new confidence, take his place?
You wouldn't give a damn if the swaps were part of fiction programming. But the shivery prospect: hey, that woman might just be divorced ... hey, the man will certainly be sacked ... lends an edge to the programmes.
That explains why people watch reality TV. Not why people appear on the shows. Is the 15 minutes of fame worth all the repercussions?
Perhaps it is in the West: the anonymity of its societies and the huge disparity between those who are famous and those who are not, makes the man on the street desperate. He, or she, will do anything to get out of that grey mass: do cartwheels, run around naked in freezing cold, take a gun to school and press the trigger ... Or appear on television and have your pants taken off.
This is not being smug. I am not saying that we are above it all. We aren't. The number of Indians in the Guinness Book of Records, and the number trying to get in, is clear proof that aspirations to a special place in society, however brief, however ephemeral, cuts across cultures. If we didn't take to Kamzor Kadi, it's not because we are a kinder culture. It's only because we need time on this route to "development".
Give it time and an Anne Robinson will be snapping at our own weakest link, bosses will be swapped and so will housewives. The whiz kids at Star, you can bet, have already mapped out our future.
Anil Dharker is a journalist, media critic and writer.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Magazine
