META chai party: women in soapland

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Foucaults-qalam

@Foucaults-qalam

Voyager

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

This is a new initiative for those forum members who like to take part in more complex discussion than is normally engaged in forum land during the week.

For the uninitiated, a meta discussion refers to themes and ideas expressed in a piece of fiction or an art work which relate to the wider social, political, economic, cultural, and psychological issues as are manifested in the work.

Commentators discuss not only the content of the show, but the conditions of its creation. The fourth wall is demolished, the universe of the work loses its integrity and becomes open to analysis. For example, the idea that ( and this is a distinction which I have seen very few people on the forum make, which is perhaps why there is a degree of quite illogical outrage at any criticism) there is a separation between the intent and ideas expressed within the internal logic of the show by characters, and those expressed by the creators who drive the show, ie authorial intent.

Without making this a university lecture, and moving swiftly on: what is the weekend chai party?

We are looking for long and complex discussions. Raging debates. Lets get it on! We are not necessarily look for things like ' great post' or ' me no like u u suk lol' but strong, complex opinions that express complex ideas. Of course, there won't be 50 people who are able to take part at this stage; we are happy to have 5!

We welcome all posters and opinions, as long as they are legible and written mostly in English. The use of icons should be extremely limited. Please keep on topic, and personal conversations unrelated to the topic are to be avoided.

Today's topic also comes from our lovely and erudite friend ShrideviGaddam. All hail!

Today's topic is: Are female roles in Indian soaps regressive? Are they promoting dangerous gender stereotyping that adversely affects how generations of female viewers form ideas of their roles and reponsibilities? Could the medium of television be used more effectively in promoting ideas of equality?

DISCUSS!

Edited by Foucaults-qalam - 13 years ago

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Foucaults-qalam

@Foucaults-qalam

Voyager

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

SD and I had an interesting conversation on the subject this week. SD, could you please reproduce your Ekta mata piece on here?

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parheezGM

@parheezGM

Navigator

Posted: 13 years ago

Great initiative and a great topic too. I'm all for this. I love having such discussions and don't mind having some masti on the side too.😉

This topic is something which has always irked me. For the simple reason because a character is started on one level and during the course of the show, it gets oh so typically stereotyped. These inconsistencies drive me nuts.

It is like they can't help being stereotyped, it's like a contagious disease for them... Which jumps from one channel to another! 🤢

I have seen dmg, where the protagonist ridhima was really a very strong character... But later she was unrecognizable because she had turned into this irrational irritating revenge seeking woman. There was no growth in her character at all. God knows what they were trying to show.

Don't even get me started on khushi of ipkknd!! Another strong sometimes entertaining woman. She is shown to start off a project in full swing which makes me believe how enterprising she is but without any explanation she just drops it like a hot potato!! For eg., she started with her own halvai which went kaput... Then her own tuition class's which God knows why went ppffftt!! Then she started with her own catering business which also for some reason lasted no more than a couple of episodes!!

You get my drift here?? there is some lame-associated explanation given but cmon!! They think we are stupid or something? I wish that the makers would stop treating the audiences like dimwits!

I don't understand why a woman falls into the same mould after making a certain amount of progress? What makes the makers do this?

I think the portrayal of a regressive woman shows a portrayal of a regressive audience!!

What bugs me most is the flippant use of suicide and a way to emotionally blackmail a character.

Life is a god's gift... But this idea of suicide is used as a Freaking joke to get something out of the opposite hero or heroine.

We have armaan from dmg threatening to jump off and taking the suicide route so so often. We even have khushi who once thought that her hubby was out to kill her so she wants to beat him to it and then wants to commit suicide herself!! W*F, seriously!!

Tv has an important function to perform, not just to entertain but also to preach. With so many young girls thinking of these women as their ideal, they show these same women treating their life like this. And all this is portrayed as a comic relief!! Ufff... I hate it.

DD as geet was amazing but she and maan had their idiotic moments too. She being preggers and all was showing running dancing jumping and gamboling around like a five year old many times. No sense of responsibility whatsoever.

I have not seen many hindi serials so sorry I couldn't give more examples... But what ever little I have seen i am sure that women are definitely shown in a very regressive manner.

And that too in this day and age...

Edited by parheezGM - 13 years ago

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Shridevi Gaddam

@0-SD-0

Rocker

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

Okey Dokey...FQ. Here I go...

PART I : The advent of New Age Soap Heroine

Tvbug2011, FQ had been discussing the gross indifference shown to sleeping in embroidered, designer outfits. Like Madhu sleeping in those tight Anarkali suits.

I too seriously get asthma attacks at the tight bosom, the heavy quilts and sleeping and asking us to imagine that it was a sound sleep. But somehow I force myself and say they are not sleeping and shooting before a crowd. STILL...the AESTHETICS of the NIGHT are LOST. There is NO NATURALISM show.

FQ had said, it would have been a vamp sleeping, they would have made her go to bed in night-dress.

Its here that said it aloud as "who started it all?" Ekta Mata and her PH Balaji Telefilms

Here's the link for that conversation

https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/madhubala-ek-ishq-ek-junoon/3210343/fqnama-decorative-cushion-talk?pn=8

Now the summary of the discussion

For me Ekta Kapoor and Balaji Telefilms is the ruling queen and queendom of Indian TV. Sitting in the stock market, dealing her BT stock for the punters, her competitors, I remember all of that.

She caught the pulse of the Indian sitcom watching movie and overnight she generated the mass hysteria. I was a Tulsi-Mihir Virani initially. actually my whole family. But when the guy left the show, when stupid/illogical track started, we too left off. So Ekta is the queen of serving the crap over an ambience of upholding traditions, family values, celebrations, festivals by 24-hrs Decked up women with their male supports side-tracked as just props to the house-wives and finally succumbing to sacrifice, compromise with her SELF-EFFACING Qualities.

Isn't all that a miracle to watch by the Indian woman - the house wife who doesn't work but stays at home with not much purpose in her life, who is more or less turned into a prop by her husband or sasural, who doesn't get the chance to be decked up like those women on the TV and she would like it, as the software-professionals led luxuriant life-style and its demanding work habits taking us away from festivals, traditions and values, all of this the woman can actually see it on TV and she gets AUTO-BOOSTED and feel that actually SHE IS NO CRAP. Ekta Mata has already declared that she is not crap but the self-effacing Devi.

I agree with FQ. She noticed it right.

Vamps - the perception of the Housewife is that she is what they are NOT. The Vamp is the Independent, working/sophisticated and reasonable woman who doesn't succumb or have self-effacing qualities.

Ekta does get the correct pulse of the independent woman. She decks them up in sophisticated style, arty jewellery and who has night-wardrobe different from the Day-wardrobe. But then isn't it bad that the house-wife does not get to wear it in real-life (excluding the some here, most middle-class women would sleep at night in the same attire of the day, just that the day attire happens to be comfortable stuff). So as a compensation to the house-wives, the independent women all turn into vamps, unless they support their family like Kksusum or Prerna who used to work in the beginning before they get married. That was the last set of working leads for me.

Ekta turned the regressive woman's dreams into TRP generating viewership. Overnight she was the business woman with a vision. I hated her serials, but as the dealer at my table, looking at her stock movement in the early 2000's I was as amazed as the CNBC analysts, the ET and BS (Business) dailies. She was not ashamed at showcasing the Regression. She meant business.

That's why the channels like her.

That's why the budding actors, and others of the creative team fear her. She can make them or break them

Just as I hated the jobbers or the stock-market, the news that keeps the stock floating, losing into the gamble, so I have hated Ekta. On a human-level, what she does is abhorrable. Selling Regressive Image of the Woman. How demeaning !

FQ, there goes your pill. If you want to bring change in society, offer something of benefit to Ekta, where she can see money. She will be your ambassador.

*************

Then the next day, we were discussing the HARANGUE around Saat Phere and RK's aadha adhura marriage. Members who discussed it, did not know it all important. The Rajasthani had 4 phere, Sindhoor, maang tika and bichua being important marriage tokens for women, the south Indians considered Mangal sutra and toe-rings..etc etc.

Here I had to show another promotion towards national integration that Ekta Kapoor through her presentation of "The Indian Woman:

I too don't like Mangalsutra. It messes up the other jewellery. Atleast the south Indian one has choices. You can wear it in gold chain style and make it basic ornament or go for the black beads one if you want to keep it simple. I never wanted to wear one and thankfully I am now courageous enuf not to wear it. As I like to keep the sign though, I wear toe rings.

When I was in Delhi, the signs of marriage for the Punjabi Hindu women was Sindhoor and Mathe ki Bindi. There was no concept of Mangal sutra. Soon in 90's we saw Karwa Chauth picking up commercial success for merchants and women alike. Gold shopping, saree/clothes shopping. At this time I saw the new fashion coming up for Mangal sutra (the black beads one). So ladies started wearing it for the occassion only.

Then Ekta Mata came on Televsion and she made the black-bead Mangalsutra - a UNIFORM CIVIL CODE...all women of India barring the southern and Eastern states will be seen wearing Mangal sutra.

So it is our Soap Queen who nationalized it like crazy ! Otherwise I used to know for each state what was considered the sign of marriage.

link: https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/madhubala-ek-ishq-ek-junoon/3213647/episode-discussion-26th-sep-2012?pn=6

To be Continued ...Part II in next post

Edited by shridevigaddam - 13 years ago

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Foucaults-qalam

@Foucaults-qalam

Voyager

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

Thanks SD! You have have set out a wonderful background for our discussion. But more than just the particulars you have raised, you have set out the sheer power that Balaji have exercised over the Indian psyche for over a decade. If it is indeed true that they have managed to convince people to alter their marriage rituals and signs, their influence CANNOT be under-estimated.

And that, IMO, is the death blow to the position which relies on the de facto ' but it is just a tv show' line. Yes, it is a TV show, but there is nothing just about it, is there?

Edited by Foucaults-qalam - 13 years ago

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Foucaults-qalam

@Foucaults-qalam

Voyager

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

Originally posted by: parheezGM
Great initiative and a great topic too. I'm all for this. I love having such discussions and don't mind having some masti on the side too.😉

This topic is something which has always irked me. For the simple reason because a character is started on one level and during the course of the show, it gets oh so typically stereotyped. These inconsistencies drive me nuts.

It is like they can't help being stereotyped, it's like a contagious disease for them... Which jumps from one channel to another! 🤢

I have seen dmg, where the protagonist ridhima was really a very strong character... But later she was unrecognizable because she had turned into this irrational irritating revenge seeking woman. There was no growth in her character at all. God knows what they were trying to show.

Don't even get me started on khushi of ipkknd!! Another strong sometimes entertaining woman. She is shown to start off a project in full swing which makes me believe how enterprising she is but without any explanation she just drops it like a hot potato!! For eg., she started with her own halvai which went kaput... Then her own tuition class's which God knows why went ppffftt!! Then she started with her own catering business which also for some reason lasted no more than a couple of episodes!!

You get my drift here?? there is some lame-associated explanation given but cmon!! They think we are stupid or something? I wish that the makers would stop treating the audiences like dimwits!

I don't understand why a woman falls into the same mould after making a certain amount of progress? What makes the makers do this?

I think the portrayal of a regressive woman shows a portrayal of a regressive audience!!

What bugs me most is the flippant use of suicide and a way to emotionally blackmail a character.

Life is a god's gift... But this idea of suicide is used as a Freaking joke to get something out of the opposite hero or heroine.

We have armaan from dmg threatening to jump off and taking the suicide route so so often. We even have khushi who once thought that her hubby was out to kill her so she wants to beat him to it and then wants to commit suicide herself!! W*F, seriously!!

Tv has an important function to perform, not just to entertain but also to preach. With so many young girls thinking of these women as their ideal, they show these same women treating their life like this. And all this is portrayed as a comic relief!! Ufff... I hate it.

DD as geet was amazing but she and maan had their idiotic moments too. She being preggers and all was showing running dancing jumping and gamboling around like a five year old many times. No sense of responsibility whatsoever.

I have not seen many hindi serials so sorry I couldn't give more examples... But what ever little I have seen i am sure that women are definitely shown in a very regressive manner.

And that too in this day and age...

PGM, you have set out quite a few soapland biographies in your post. Thank you. I am not familiar with many of these as Madhubala is the only soap I have followed with any regularity, so this is a helpful overview.

I am familiar, slightly, with the Khushi story-- I was drawn into it by the superlative underplaying of his role by the guy who plays the male lead and his vv nice wardrobe. That boy can wear a suit. Khushi's enterprises are doomed, it seems. But is it because she is a woman, or because she is 19?

I do wish writers and production peeps would pay more attention to the lives of working women, rather than making getting married to a good man the be all and end all of female life.

Edited by Foucaults-qalam - 13 years ago

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Shridevi Gaddam

@0-SD-0

Rocker

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

PART II : The Parallel TV as against the Mainstream TV

If Popular content can be categorized under Mainstream TV, we can have somewhat "thought-through" content categorized as Parallel TV.

Since subject today is Soap Heroine, then my picks for the shows that show cased believable Soap Women Characters and not heroines since 2000 from Parallel TV are going to be

Sarabhai vs Sarabhai
Tu Tu Main Main
Shrimaan Shrimati

The actors are of high caliber here...

Reema Lagoo
Ratna Pathak Shah
Supriya Pilgaonkar
Rupali Ganguly
Archana Puran Singh

Now going by the names itself, you cannot just simply stereotype them as the now-known as popular heroine. People can go to wiki and read about the shows and the TRP, popularity they had. What impressed me was the CLASS, SOPHISTICATION ...the clothes, make-up, natural fitting into the Sets...

All these actors knew Theater including the Male Actors supporting the Female Actors.

These characters, the Saas Bahu's are modern educated and yet the typical Saas Bahus. They cook, dress and undress into a loose fitting night dress in the night.

So my question is are those women from a separate planet or Are they just perceived as the ladies residing in Metropolitan cities and living the life of the Metropolitan ? Possible. Very much Possible.

Before opening the debate, let me give you a comparative situation of Actress Sandhya Mridul who acted in two different types of soaps. Take a peep into the economical equations and Success Quotient. Look at Sandhya Mridul's attire in the two different TV series, how different she looks and how she handles her life in both cases.

Ekta's Koshish - Ek Aashaa

An Indian soap opera that aired on Zee TV from 2000-2002. During the time it was aired, the series was a big hit among audiences. It won the award for 'Best Soap Opera' at the RAPA Awards in 2001.^[1]

Sony's non-Ekta Hubahu

Television series based on the story of twin sisters who exchange places for a week.

The series premiered on Sony TV on February 7, 2002, and aired every Thursday at 8:30pm IST. The channel ended the series after it completed 30 episodes due to high cost of production, especially shooting overseas which cost half a million rupees an episode.

And before I rest here... few tit-bits

let me tell you when I saw Reema Lagoo first. I saw her over Sai Paranjape's Ados Pados TV Series in 1985 playing Amol Palekar's estranged wife. She had a small role and yet she looked so gorgeous and charismatic.

Let me also tell you about Amol Palekar and his wife's TV Series Kachi Dhoop which starred Bhagyashree and Ashutosh Gowarikar 😉

And then let me take you to Ashutosh's one time TV co-actor Shahrukh Khan in Circus. His female lead was Renuka Shahane. 😉

I ask myself, where are those days now ? Where are those years of Super Woman

Rajani - The House-wife - all knowing, ever ready to fight against Social injustice or solving public issues
Kalyani Singh IPS - in UDAAN acted, directed, produced by Kavita Chaudhry
Kitu Gidwani's AirHostess
or for that low-budget TV series, Trishna...the hindi version of Pride and Prejudice.

Why all these women looked natural and with whom we could relate to ?

And why these have been so different from the present Soap Heroine.

There I guess...enough material littered for us to go on with our thought processes. Do conduct your research if you cannot know any character/actor here. Wiki and Google Zindabad.

And my salute to TV of 80's and 90's starting from Hum Log, Buniyaad and producing a mass of Quality work and now archived somewhere in Doordashan Archives.

Edited by shridevigaddam - 13 years ago

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dupebox

@dupebox

Explorer

Posted: 13 years ago

FQ, SD: This is it! You guys laid the platform to heat our brains <rather vent our brains heat> I am for it in full vigor. There are umpteen number of things to substantiate this discussion. The discussion gave me such a surge that suddenly I am lost for words. Too many things colliding in my thought process that there is no coherency now. But I will put my thoughts in a while. Loved both your discussions so far! Having fun.

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xodramalover

@xodramalover

Dazzler

Posted: 13 years ago

I wouldn't say the female leads in Indian television are regressive per se. I think the CVs are trying to portray the "traditional" woman; very emotional with matters of the heart, and who marries and becomes a housewife. Honestly, I rather watch female leads in more active roles, being innovative and whatnot instead of being passive and always trying to please their family. Right now I view Madhubala between the modern and traditional woman. She is a housewife, but is taking the initiative to do something with her life, such as bringing Bappaji home. It's a small step for her independence, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

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Shridevi Gaddam

@0-SD-0

Rocker

+ 2

Posted: 13 years ago

#10

While Kalyani Singh IPS was an inspiration for Girls like me, Rajani was a terror to shopkeepers, Thelewaale, Autorickshaw wallas...any kind of external agency. Priya Tendulkar used to tell how in real life, some people had turned antagonistic towards her in public places owing to the show. And yet she was the HORLICKS, COMPLAN, BOURNVITA, MALTOVA for millions of Metropolis women inspiring them how to solve their house-hold problems without fear. She did inspire us.

Punar Vivah concepts are being show-cased as something novel on TV channels now. Do people know the Punar Vivah concepts were portrayed much beautifully in shows like "Humraahi" against the Rajasthani conservative backdrop ?

Your Utkarsha Naik, the Hello Hai Hai Bye Bye character of IPKKND, she was in Humraahi as the widow and ultimately the family gets her re-married.

I will come back tomorrow with fresh thoughts...going to sleep now.

Just wanted to say..ParleezM (hope I got the name), she has succintly said in one line. Its the regressive audience that make the regressive character a popular soap heroine.

I just have one statistical/logical answer to give.

Earlier, lot of educated women were just house-wives out of choices of their husband.

Nowadays, demanding life-styles, demand for disposable income, high inflationary trends make it compulsory that all educated women, better find employment. So TV has lost a MAJOR CHUNK of EDUCATED AUDIENCE.

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META chai party: women in soapland

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