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The acting circus!
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Hunting talent for treasure. That is what many TV channels are doing, says ANUJ KUMAR.
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Ready to be hunted...participants at the Gladrags Mrs. India contest. Photo: G. Sampath Kumar.
MUMMY, I am on T.V. Beta, you have arrived in life.
Welcome to the instant gratification generation where media houses are milking talent for the TRPs and the youth don't mind being used for free. No more debating societies, no more youth festivals everybody seems to be heading for a queue which claims to pitchfork him or her into a singing idol, a cinestar, a commentator, a radio jockey, or a supermodel. For some even a bomb tag will do.
Meet Suchita Verma the 21-year-old Delhiite, recently crowned as Pantene Zoom Elite Model Look 2004 and representing India at the International finals in Shanghai. "It was the result of hard work. I want to be an international model." Hard work? Her name was not in the list of 23 finalists provided to the media. "She was not in the original list but when one girl could not make it to Delhi, she was asked to join," says Ajay Puri, co-director Elite India, who was present as one the judges. Strange coincidence. "None of the participants were good enough. Some even have cellulite. Sucheta doesn't have a good face but she at least has a very good body. She walked in one of my shows and she was great," says another judge designer Suneet Verma. Talk of impartiality? The models were judged without a choreographer and one of the judges supermodel Joey Mathews was found missing in the middle of the show.
Opportunity or opportunism
Justifications are multiple. If Zoom CEO, Arun Arora calls his channel is taking care of the aspirational needs of the young urban India, Zee's spokesperson Ashish Kaul term it as the democratisation of the media. "With our `India's Best Cinestars Ki Khoj' we have reached out to the masses. To places like Rajkot and Varanasi. Except for stray cases like Shah Rukh common man has hardly made a name in this industry. Also, all the finalists are trained by the channel and more importantly winners will be judged by the audience who will eventually watch their film to be made by Zee, not some celebrity judges." It is another matter the series has returned the highest TRP ratings in the history of the channel at the cost of some 10 lakh youth who turned up for the auditions providing real masala of triumphs and failure, justifying Rs.100 crores the channel claims to have put in the whole exercise. No more search for novel scripts, no rushing after stars; the gullible audience is providing both the input and output for the idiot box. As for the audience judging the talent, the channel has not been bold enough to divulge how many people have actually voted via SMS.
Queer ideas
In this jamboree of talent hunts, some have come up with rather queer ideas. There is one called Gladrags Mrs. India Contest. How is it different from Miss India? "Here only married women could participate and there is no swim suit round," replies Maureen Wadia who runs the show. Enlightening indeed. "Here we give an opportunity to married women irrespective of age who run their house and/or career with elan to show that they could look beautiful and prevent their men to letch at other women," she adds. Ironically, running the domesticity with success is not a criterion here for participation and in five years of existence, three times established names like Aditi Gowitrikar, Tanaaz Currim and Deepshikha have cornered the glory.
And in an effort to steal competitor's thunder, rival channels are copying formats. So Sahara is ready with its own Mrs. India contest, which it claims will represent India in Mrs. World, something Maureen rubbishes vehemently. Similarly to counter Sony's Idol, Star's Channel V is busy creating a Super Singer. Same is the case with item clones spread across channels. If a decade back, the craving was for a beauty queen, today the itemhood is the craze.
Suchita Verma.
Promoting mediocrity
At another level, for the sake of deep bottom lines, the media barons seem to be promoting mediocrity giving the young generation a false sense of achievement. "Singing is not like playing keyboard that you can come out with the same performance every time. Here a lot depends on the mood. Participants should be given at least three chances to sing before being judged that they are not good enough to sing even in bathrooms. It may be impossible with so many participants but you can't castigate anybody without given him a proper opportunity," says Nitin Malik, lead singer of Parikrama band in reference to Sony's Indian Idol. However, the mediocre ones are being canned with glee providing an opportunity to somebody to sneer somewhere in a posh locality of a metro where TRP meter is fixed to gauge the pulse.
"Even those who are selected, soon discover that they are not good enough to fight out the open competition once the contract period is over. Look what happened with VIVA and Asma," points out Karan Oberoi of Band of Boys.
Samir Nair, CEO, Star feels, "Reality T.V hasn't worked in India. So media houses are taking western formats and Indianising them." Nevertheless, it is not a one-way process. In the absence of role models and materialism taking root by the hour, the generation is willingly falling for this hunting circus for instant recognition. "Even parents don't mind. When we organised the Item Bomb hunt on Zee Music we asked for affidavits from participants to be signed by parents. One senior Army officer sat through the entire proceedings including pole dance and when his daughter was not selected, he threatened to sue us," quips Kaul. Did someone say media reflects society? A section for sure!
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