ON THE FACE OF IT

Sunday, April 17, 2005

The eyes of the beholder can be a source of trouble. They seem to have disconcerted Sony Entertainment Television, since the television rating points of its popular soap, Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin, have not surged heavenwards after the all-brains-and-no-looks girl, Jassi, was given an image makeover. Not all her fans like her beautiful; some who still watch her saga "can't take her in a supermodel avatar". Does this mean that the entertainers underestimated the maturity of the viewers, who valued brains and a "good heart" above looks? Or their simplicity, by which they found comfort in equating brains and goodness with unthreatening plainness? Or maybe their satiation with glamour in the fantasy of everyday life that all TV channels promote so assiduously in their unending serials? It could be all this and more. What is clear is that the channel did not quite know what it was doing when it decided to "process" Jassi's "inner beauty" into "outer beauty".

There might have been an encouraging moral point in the rise of a strikingly plain girl who is actually brilliant and efficient. With the exclamatory subtitle "Meritocracy in a sexist world" or something equally onerous, it could even have served as a slick example of an undeveloped mindset. The ingredients were all there. Brilliance and efficiency are not enough in an ugly girl, they are valueless without large doses of good-heartedness, or Jassi will have to be switched off during dinner with the family. Moral edification is part of her "substance", and awkwardness her "identity". In this world of broad strokes, there must be no doubt about her "plainness". So a grown woman must be endowed with incredible braces on her teeth (the contrast with the uproarious episode in which a lawyer is armed similarly to the teeth in Sex and the City could not be greater) and glasses that could break walls. Jassi is The Ugly Duckling: as long as she is not beautiful, she remains incomplete, never mind the brains. That was never the focus anyway. Women must be good — and they must be beautiful. The story of Jassi is the wedding of the two.

What fun for the beauty business it was. Jassi became a walking advertisement with beauty manufacturers maximizing space by using every square inch of her appearance to sell their respective brands of magic transformation. The entire exercise, true to the spirit of Jassi's honesty, underlined the magnificent lie at the heart of advertising. Mona Singh, the actor who plays Jassi, was beautiful in the first place. It needed imagination, even if of the half-baked kind, to make her plain. The beauty manufacturers and Sony had a wonderfully lucrative time doing nothing. And the brainy girl is back, in a "Look of the Year" role. Brains can wait till she loses her looks — with age perhaps, or the whims of TV storytelling.

t and d r u reading this article

actually i took quite sometime to understand ur post and i agree with u on wat u say about the "advertisement for beauty manufacturers"

but few things i dont agree with--- u say its brains, efficiency and moral edification and good heartedness that made us watch jassi(only jassi not jjkn) if thats it then y do we crib about how shes looking now? do u mean to say jassi is not brainy, effiencient or goodhearted now? moral edification is beyond my understanding but from wat ive understood jassi,she was/is extremelysofthearted and broadminded .,i wont know wat else to say about morals. just bcoz jassi becomes jessica the model( i dont lik it myself) it does not mean that shes not good hearted anymore..she seems tobe doing the same kind of things ,lot of them stupid,that she has always done...efficiency she has otherwise how did she manage to become a model at all? hardworking she is...then wats the point in saying jassi s not jassi anymore??

maybe i didnt understand ur post..maybe u were just telling t&d that making jassi jessica was lik proclaiming that "outer beauty" s that matters...if it was that i agree with u.....itseems feminists went on a protest against the change in blf....and we hav r girlbecoming an ambassador for outer beauty---but i ve constantly felt and believed that looks dont matter----whether good or bad

one very pretty girltold me once-i never know which guy liks me formy looks which guy looks beyond my looks...u remember that modelin one of jassi s episodes netra raghuraman said something similar-hearts break irrespective of how u look

but if jassi s going torun for anouther year, then her makeover has no meaning watsoever in her story other than to serve as a vehicle forundercover operations in gm.she cudve dressed up as anything else for that.

in such a smallforum lik this, we cant change one persons opinion about a character(a-p fights😊), wat msg wil be retained thro jassi once its over? t&d have no sense of responsibility yes not towards society but towards the story, the serial.. and y did we assume that jassi s not going to use her brains from now on...they r not saying in any episode that jassi s proud ofher looks--except the first episode where she pranced around lik achild in front of the mirror in mauritius...wheres she even shown thinking about how much adulation she has got following her success?? shes plainly not bothered.she wants to go home.fullstop. (i dont even think armaan s in her plans now much as she stared at him)

i ll tellu wen jassi became jessica,i cried and cried and cried so much not coz of her looks but coz she realised that "money,power and beauty were all that matters in this world" outside a gurdwara.i cudnt get over the fact that my jassi said that but after forcing myself to watch her the next fewepisodes i just felt bad for her...(except the model firing thing).she doesnt believe all that even now coz she has money,power and beauty but she wants to go home..jessica isnt jassi coz she doesnt smile or laugh anymore...with whom willshe giggle? purab or nandidni? see all of us liked nandu-jessica scenes coz she was sweet again...though she wasin her jessica get up we all liked her. so wats the point in saying she shudnt be looking good.

im not supporting jessicas entry -it makes the story mundane but if looks r superficial then both good and bad looks r...lot of people were supposed to identify themselves with jassi then and not now. forget how she looks just watch her and no imnot saying we ll identify with her again but atleast we might regard her lika close friend whotook another route in life-u dont hate ur friend for that.

im sory if imrambling but as i said maybe i didnt understand ur post. no offence..and ya, if we stop reading mona singhs views on jassi looks , we ll feelbetter..shestotally confused.

It is great if you look nice, but there are some traits which a little above physical beauty.

Originally posted by: np18

actually i took quite sometime to understand ur post and i agree with u on wat u say about the "advertisement for beauty manufacturers"

but few things i dont agree with--- u say its brains, efficiency and moral edification and good heartedness that made us watch jassi(only jassi not jjkn) if thats it then y do we crib about how shes looking now? do u mean to say jassi is not brainy, effiencient or goodhearted now? moral edification is beyond my understanding but from wat ive understood jassi,she was/is extremelysofthearted and broadminded .,i wont know wat else to say about morals. just bcoz jassi becomes jessica the model( i dont lik it myself) it does not mean that shes not good hearted anymore..she seems tobe doing the same kind of things ,lot of them stupid,that she has always done...efficiency she has otherwise how did she manage to become a model at all? hardworking she is...then wats the point in saying jassi s not jassi anymore??

maybe i didnt understand ur post..maybe u were just telling t&d that making jassi jessica was lik proclaiming that "outer beauty" s that matters...if it was that i agree with u.....itseems feminists went on a protest against the change in blf....and we hav r girlbecoming an ambassador for outer beauty---but i ve constantly felt and believed that looks dont matter----whether good or bad

one very pretty girltold me once-i never know which guy liks me formy looks which guy looks beyond my looks...u remember that modelin one of jassi s episodes netra raghuraman said something similar-hearts break irrespective of how u look

but if jassi s going torun for anouther year, then her makeover has no meaning watsoever in her story other than to serve as a vehicle forundercover operations in gm.she cudve dressed up as anything else for that.

in such a smallforum lik this, we cant change one persons opinion about a character(a-p fightshttp://www.telegraphindia.com/1050417/asp/opinion/story_4623 424.asphttp://www.telegraphindia.com/1050417/asp/opinion/story_4623 424.asp😊), wat msg wil be retained thro jassi once its over? t&d have no sense of responsibility yes not towards society but towards the story, the serial.. and y did we assume that jassi s not going to use her brains from now on...they r not saying in any episode that jassi s proud ofher looks--except the first episode where she pranced around lik achild in front of the mirror in mauritius...wheres she even shown thinking about how much adulation she has got following her success?? shes plainly not bothered.she wants to go home.fullstop. (i dont even think armaan s in her plans now much as she stared at him)

i ll tellu wen jassi became jessica,i cried and cried and cried so much not coz of her looks but coz she realised that "money,power and beauty were all that matters in this world" outside a gurdwara.i cudnt get over the fact that my jassi said that but after forcing myself to watch her the next fewepisodes i just felt bad for her...(except the model firing thing).she doesnt believe all that even now coz she has money,power and beauty but she wants to go home..jessica isnt jassi coz she doesnt smile or laugh anymore...with whom willshe giggle? purab or nandidni? see all of us liked nandu-jessica scenes coz she was sweet again...though she wasin her jessica get up we all liked her. so wats the point in saying she shudnt be looking good.

im not supporting jessicas entry -it makes the story mundane but if looks r superficial then both good and bad looks r...lot of people were supposed to identify themselves with jassi then and not now. forget how she looks just watch her and no imnot saying we ll identify with her again but atleast we might regard her lika close friend whotook another route in life-u dont hate ur friend for that.

im sory if imrambling but as i said maybe i didnt understand ur post. no offence..and ya, if we stop reading mona singhs views on jassi looks , we ll feelbetter..shestotally confused.

np18, this article is from The Telegraph...here is the link....http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050417/asp/opinion/story_4623 424.asphttp://www.telegraphindia.com/1050417/asp/opinion/story_4623 424.asp😊

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050417/asp/opinion/story_4623 424.asp

its okay if you look beautiful, but it matters if your inner beauty is beauitful or not. jassi can be beautiful, remember lookin gbeautiful isn't a neeed, its just temporary for your image, and forreal, your inner beauty counts. not outer. thanxxx!!

hi,

Sometimes it's difficult to accept the change initially,n we tend to miss loved ones n try to compare them with the new ones; so as happened with old n new jassi. but as long as charactor continues to behave same way slowly things will settle. n in the show beauty is used to teach ppl like mallika a lesson ;who had high opinions abt her class insulted jassi's looks ,same person is now awed by her.... Jassi has proved her brains n now it's time to say I lack nowhere !

But in today's world the presentation does matter (like it or not) so spending 10 min. extra on urself do make things easier for u....that's the msg n not that u can win life's battle by looking beautiful.

I think it's better not to extend this show too long. The storyline can be easily call in viewers or drown them out. Kkkusm for exmaple is getting stupider by the day. I hope Jassi Jassasi Kohin Nahin team doesn't make the same mistakes Ekta Kapoor made with with Kkusm .