Originally posted by: JulieD
One thing I have noticed on some of the forums is that when the serial is showing some sort of immoral relationship and it is criticized, then a poster will come on and say that it's the foreigners/ and people of western culture who are accepting the immoral relationships, That in India marriage and relationships have more importance.
As a foreigner, that really pisses me off because I want to tell these posters that it is an Indian serial that is showing these immoral relationships. That the people of "western culture" do not pretend to be mahaan while doing wrong and characterless things. If marriage and relationships are of great importance, if the values and principles are so flawless then they need to show that on the serials.
Why must they show us these degrading relationships and then blame it on western culture?
At the end of the day, the viewership of the people outside of India do not affect the TRPs and most importantly, for foreigners like myself who have never been to India, but viewing it through these serials will think that what is shown on these serials reflect what is actually happening in India.
No offense to anyone but just stating my opinion.
Hi Julie,
I completely agree with what you say..I don't know if it was my post above, but I did not mean to say that aping the west meant borrowing bad values from here...India has a certain perception of the West and their culture which typically stems from ideas about sex and alcohol and drugs and all things that somehow are considered vile in India..I have been here for not too long but I do know that Western "culture" is not that at all...Infact people here are as binded to families as they are anywhere in any eastern culture...There is just more freedom of ideas and expressions here than is in India...and it is this freedom that wrongly gets translated as freedom to be as a-cultural (if that's a word) as you want...It is just very misrepresented in India...
I am a big follower of shows here and I think that most of the ones I watch are way above level from Indian shows...in terms of quality of content..Also, so many of the shows here are family oriented and have enough "culture" that is more universal than restricted...The shows with promiscuity and incest and all sorts of things that is not apparetnly valued was Bold and Beautiful..I did not watch much of it, but whatever I did see was very weird...but again, the show was more about just going on creating drama and twists and definitely did not tout itself as a show portraying the average American life...because Americans or anybody else in the world support the idea of morality which is universal...Pre-marital sex, divorce, multiple boyfriends/girlfriends are just some ideas that differ from person to person and some of them are considered okay somewhere, and not okay elsewhere...but morality in terms of cheating someone, pathlogical lying, swapping babies, incest, playing God with someone's life are universally not cool with people usually...(ofcourse people have individual ideas about these as well, but majority wise all over the world, these are considered immoral)
Also, In India, a lot of things are restricted for youngsters..parents decide most of it...but with media and globalization of everything, they have a lot of access to shows/music/ideas of the West...Western culture does believe in freedom and that relates down to kids too..They are given the choice to choose what they want..In India, kids usually are always ordered by parents until a very later stage..So they find this freedom in the West very attractive...they watch shows like gossip girl, 90210, blah blah and think that is "culture of the west" but it is not..They relate that to freedom and the idea of how cool it is to be able to do what those people in teh shows do...These shows much like PR are only based around drama...and at least like PR they do not pretend to be something else...They openly show what they need to show without conflicting their ideas by calling this moral or cultural...which is what I love about shows here in the west...no silly notions...show it like it is with no stupid lectures given...
so all that people knwo about western culture is through movies, shows and reading news about the lives of celebrities ( beleive it or not) And all these 3 modes have no semblance to th unviersal culture that a country might believe in...Unless you live in any country, one can never know about the culture...Watching shows to gain and idea is the worst way because shows are meant for creating entertainment and entertainment stems from showing dramatic things that are not everyday life...Even celebrities globally have a very different life...I don't see what Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan do very different from what any B-tpwn big star does...Just that B-town stars never let their stories be printed..and are usually always glorified...but their inside world is just as battered as they show hollywood stars lives to be...
So I am sorry if my post offended you, but I just meant aping western culture in terms of what Indians assume western culture to be!
Oh god, this became a long rant...but too bored to edit ..sorry guys ! :)