It is the finale of the Indian Idol contest. Three contestants remain. The judge looks at one of the contestants(one who looks like she has just come out of a Oprah make-over session), ‘I am sorry’; the judge says, ‘your Indian idol journey ends here’. The camera pans over to the section where the contestants who have previously been eliminated are sitting, the camera zooms in on a pretty girl who on cue burst into a flood of tears. Cut.
Why do they cry? This apparently is not a singular incident. I switch channels to an extremely bitchy reality “on the road” contest, and again, tears and more of it. When I was a kid (darn, that sentence makes me feel so old) I used to watch plenty of TV shows/contest. The reality tag wasn’t invented then, but the whole process was more or less the same; a pool of contestants, elimination rounds and a winner at the end of it. Rarely will you find anyone crying, especially for someone else! None of the contestants nowadays cry for themselves. The dams always break when others get ousted.
Is it the outcome of a huge surge in the emotional quotient of the current generation? Extremely doubtful, especially after seeing the manner in which these ladies go at each other’s throats or as seen in the last episode of Roadies, each other's cloths. Empathy is the last quality that you might associate with any of them. It remains a great modern mystery. But what isn’t a mystery is the positioning of Sony’s new Vaio P Laptop on a woman’s derriere. An advertisement which shows in its entire duration, a woman’s posterior as it charges ahead is a strong visual statement for the demographic section of men in the age group of… well, all men. Sony has apparently made it acceptable to stare at a woman’s behind as long as you want, if one of their products is hanging out her back pocket. I wonder whether this is also applicable to their mobile phone products, since the chances of seeing a woman, an attractive one at that, with a laptop in her pants is extremely bleak as of now.
I think the older shows were less dramatic as a concept. It was purely about music (don't remember any dance shows). The critiquing was also kinder and more technical. The contestants were rarely made to live together in villas during the duration of the show, nor was their interaction given this much attention. I also think that the average age of contestants who participated in the shows in the 90s was much higher. 25-30 age group who had been training classically for a while... They weren't teeny boppers like the ones today who are so emotionally fragile all the time. Lastly the collective IQ of the kids these days have dropped drastically. That should answer everything :)
ReplyDeleteI would disagree on the age factor, there were plenty of young singers in the older shows. The one that comes to mind was meri awaz suno, Sunidhi was just a toddler then, and there were many young kids, cant remember all their names. Well, being emotionally fragile and having empathy are two different aspects altogether. We aren't looking at fussy cry babies. Let us not get started on that topic now. That would take another lengthy post. We are looking at the mystery of fluctuating EQ. One moment you are kicking the butt of your opponents literally and in the next you start sobbing uncontrollable at other's sorrows. Doesn't add up does it?
ReplyDeleteI recall only watched SaReGaMa and Antakashari.. The age profile in both these shows were the ones I mentioned. There were kids' edition for each show of course. These men women are neither empathetic nor do they possess any emotional quotient. I just think they are all just very undignified. I am sure in the 90s the other contestants must have felt a twinge of sadness to see their companions get eliminated, but they just knew how to be restrained about it. The kids today just don't know how to hold it together.
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