ML's hero complex??? - Page 2

Originally posted by: aryapdane

I totally agree with every point you have raised. As always, you have made a very articulate post that is also very thought provoking.

It is time to question the content that we are being served everyday. There is not one single story on TV today that doesn't push forward a problematic narrative. And this show has been the leader in showing problematic content (the only place where it was a success). Every single track is filled with elements that made me want to scream out in frustration or outrage. You have brilliantly illustrated Anurag's saviour complex that kicks in and makes this show such a difficult thing to tolerate. It seems this season the show makers diverted from the age old formula of TV where the female lead is the captain of the ship. Coz Prerna is definitely not in charge here, Anurag is. His actions moves the plot forward. He is centre-stage and Prerna is a bystander to everything. Since day one, Prerna has allowed things to happen to her. And that is something that seems quite a lazy thing to do on part of the writers of this show. Especially in this day and age. i completely agree here. even if the makers wanted Anu to steer the ship they could have shown the story in a new,  thought provoking way with a postive message of love...but instead they took the lazy route & failed miserably 🙄

Prerna is a 21st century woman. Are you seriously telling me that she has no dreams, no aspirations outside getting married and having a family? And man is she obsessed with marriage! Her response to every problem in her life is to marry it. 

To think that the first time where she decided to take matters into her own hand and not wait for Anurag to save the day is the Sautan track, it's just shameful. The only purpose of her character was that she's supposed to be the love interest of Anurag. She has no identity outside that. this is the crux of the problem, Pre in AnuPre or PreRish, whichever you root for, doesn't really matter. she isn't empathised or sympathised with. her feelings, aspirations & dreams are reduced to who deserves or loves her more 😒 she's just a pretty doll that looks good with one or the other. the evidence,  like you pointed out before, it's her vilification that took place for daring to question Anu's love & intentions 😒

Which brings me to the second point that you raised. Should content creators be held accountable for their role in moulding impressionable minds? We cannot say that what we watch doesn't affect our thinking in any manner because whatever we see, whether we like it or not becomes a part of us. Our mind is a collection of thoughts that we have acquired throughout our lives. So, is it really alright if every show on TV is trying to shape our perceptions of love? And it's not just the perception of love, is it? It's the narrative that you have to be a certain kind of female to be deserving of 'true' and 'ideal' love. And I know people say that the audience demands regressive content and that is why we get it. But I think that people have to stop blaming the audience now. The argument that we love watching women getting slapped by their husbands and lovers or even their mother-in-laws, being treated like an object is just not good enough. What is wrong, is wrong. It needs to be called out. No matter how normal it seems. No matter how often it happens. We cannot say, "well, that is how our societies function" and walk away. Otherwise, we'd still be burning widows on the pyres of their departed husbands. And people who are writers, directors and so on play a huge role in holding a mirror to the faults of the society. Let's not forget that it was the thinkers and writers of France who laid the foundation for the French Revolution. love your thoughts & reasons here. it's supply & demand, where one feeds of the other. the industry is a business & they'll supply whatever's demanded, whatever sells. to paraphrase something i heard here is 'jo bikhta hai wo hi dikta hai'. as long as viewers watch & support content like this, makers will keep selling it. further evidence of this is EK's top shows, that all have MLs displaying misogynistic, humiliating & abusing behaviour towards the FL, constantly have high ratings. their actions are always justified & the FL is expected to always forgive & forget. by watching regressive content like this, viewers are justifiying the MLs behaviour 😔  some responsibility should be taken by the viewers.

however makers do have some responsibility to provide shows with better content & social messages. everyone has a small responsibility towards communities, the greater your influence the greater the responsibility should be.  I'm glad some makers & channels do make social dramas with a message, different content based shows & even some with a strong FL. it's such a shame that these are few & far between & not the norm 🤔

Originally posted by: durga33

I noticed this way back. This is why I said the show delivers a very wrong and disturbing message. Majority of the people who defend the ML actions and want prerna to return to him are mostly female. That is very troubling. And like you said there are girls in the real world who are vulnerable and fall prey to such stories. There are girls who believe that a prince charming exist out there when that's not true. They look to these kind of stories as confirmation that such exist in the real world. Let's just say if the ML was forced to commit an atrocious act by komolika such as really sleeping with a random girl to make prerna hate him can that be justified? I can guarantee that most will still want the ML to get together with the female lead. The message that I got from this show is that a man can do whatever he wants with the person he loves and she will still come back to him. I saw a girl going back to an abuser. love your comment & analysis. unfortunately it's true, even i think, had Anu done something even worse then this to Prerna, viewers would still justify his behaviour & want Prerna to forgive him. the fact that most of these are women is that more disturbing & heart-breaking. women have already been conditioned to forgive & forget all that a man or ML does in the name of love. it's what's expected if you want a hero like Anu or any other ML. & the fact that they'll keep justifying his behaviour proves my point 😭

Originally posted by: surbhi1995

That's the main problem.Audience r so much into damsel in distress idea that they can't look beyond anything else.

   Independent,head strong girl with their own personality is not bring liked by trp Audience.

That's why ekta or anyother producer do not want to show anything like that.

   Simple formula more tears ,more abuse with fl,more profit and trp.

  What is actually needed is to show realistic character with realistic problems.

   Even in kzk,there were so many realistic kasautis in anupre life fir rail ki patri concept which could have shown character development and growth in anupre.

  Like prerna and anurag mutually decided to support their family despite loving eachother.prerna determination to take a solid stand for her family and built her own carrier without anyone's support,even premarital pragnancy track could have been dealt in more progressive way.

   There was absolutely no need to show villains like komo and bjaj for rail ki patri concept.Absolutely no need for anurag or prerna to think that either of them has the right to take decision on other behalf.

   That's what anurag did in komo1 track and prerna did in bjaj1 track,even prerna in Naveen track decided for everyone in her family without taking their opinion into consideration.

  I won't say much about bridge trach as this track never make much sense to me. agree totally. they could have shown KZK in a million different ways but decided not to.  but like i said in one of my previous posts,  it's supply & demand. until audience demands better they won't supply because at the end it's a business for them.

  

Originally posted by: oa2019

Originally posted by: oa2019

i came across the same hence why i posted. this is the drawback of glorifying ML's actions in every show, it results in viewers associating that negative male & often misogynistic behaviour with the emotion of love. Prernas behaviour was a reaction to Anu's actions so she was completely justified. BUT her pain doesn't compare to Anu's, the FL's emotions & actions have to always relate positively to the ML or she is vilified 😒

even male viewers get influenced, men will see it as justification of how they treat women in relationships because they're in love & know that women will forgive & accept them back.  it's the wrong message to give to both genders 😔

So true.😒😔

It is an important issue you raise with the last line of your post - women needing partners who enable and celebrate their success. 

I haven’t seen a lot of the show but for the last atrocious track. I am not sure if the ML had a savior complex. So I will keep it generic to ITV in most of this post. 

But for the second part, this show just flipped the perspectives of the leads, making it Anurag centric rather than Prerna centric. They missed a step here, most ITV shows are female-centric with so many monologues for the FL, people voicing their thoughts, other characters making sense of their actions. Maybe the producers and the channels just assume that women want to see women's perspectives and provide the TRP there. 

Rarely ITV characters and dialogues have the depth which warrants to be taken seriously in real life. Erica.s previous show and her role was one such exception. For me that she had to this shabbily written character after that one is itself is a downgrade for her. It is also true for society - The majority of Men get away with almost everything while the women struggle for the basics. Young impressionable girls watching ITV should just not look at it as a teaching mechanism, be it the love stories or marrying rich or the MIL who is a devil incarnate. 

The apologizing part really got my goat in this show. Till the penultimate episode, there was none, nada, zilch. Maybe they were saving it all for the end to lead up to a crescendo. But a sincere apology to a loved one doesn’t make you less of a man, which ITV just doesn’t get. It is as if the women who suffered receive an apology it will somehow diminish the extent of their suffering. 

Teaching the impressionable minds of today that realizing your mistakes is important is not something ITV focuses on. That no means no and nothing else, is such an important life lesson for all men and women, but all that is shown on TV (not this show, at least not in the part I saw) is all is okay since you love the person. This is exactly the logic stalkers, acid-throwers, and eve-teasers use against women and believe it to be right and acceptable. I hope a production house like Balaji tries to take a lead on this, EK is doing that in her movies, she sure has the clout to replicate this on TV as well. 

Originally posted by: Wistfulness

WORD. 👏

Though there are issues in almost all shows, this one is way too problematic even by the low standards of regressive ITV content. 

I saw nothing but the glorification of abuse.

This show was obsessed with showing as much of regressive content as they could get away with it and showing as little of the rare of its good elements as it could. But what can you do? If someone is determined to ruin things, nothing can salvage it. 

Originally posted by: durga33

I noticed this way back. This is why I said the show delivers a very wrong and disturbing message. Majority of the people who defend the ML actions and want prerna to return to him are mostly female. That is very troubling. And like you said there are girls in the real world who are vulnerable and fall prey to such stories. There are girls who believe that a prince charming exist out there when that's not true. They look to these kind of stories as confirmation that such exist in the real world. Let's just say if the ML was forced to commit an atrocious act by komolika such as really sleeping with a random girl to make prerna hate him can that be justified? I can guarantee that most will still want the ML to get together with the female lead. The message that I got from this show is that a man can do whatever he wants with the person he loves and she will still come back to him. I saw a girl going back to an abuser. 

The biggest problem I have with our shows or movies is this obsession of a happy ending. We don't care what happens throughout the movie or show if the hero and heroine unites in the end. 

We have romanticized romance so much that the type of love that is shown on our TV sets is totally different from what love means and represents in the real world. On one hand, I understand why we are so hostile to the possibility of the hero and heroine moving on with someone else. We have invested emotions in our ships and we need to see it sail. I understand it. I'm guilty of it. But that is hardly what happens in real life. People fall out of love. They move on. And this aspect of love needs to be represented as well otherwise people will continue to force themselves to stay in a relationship that is no longer fulfilling to them or has just turned toxic. I am just tired of the narrative that love can only happen once. That there is just one 'true love'. There are couples who are blessed by the heavens and they can never do any wrong to each other because they are meant to be. I am tired of seeing this divine form of love on TV because I don't see it anywhere in real life. What I see instead is people who work hard on their relationships, people who communicate with their partners, people who make mistakes, who sometimes get over the aftermath of those mistakes and who sometimes don't, people who struggle and endure heartbreak and discover that they can love again because love is what human beings are made of. It is our nature to love. I am so done with divinity. I want to see humanity and human stories now. 

Originally posted by: Brule

It is an important issue you raise with the last line of your post - women needing partners who enable and celebrate their success. 

I haven’t seen a lot of the show but for the last atrocious track. I am not sure if the ML had a savior complex. So I will keep it generic to ITV in most of this post. 

But for the second part, this show just flipped the perspectives of the leads, making it Anurag centric rather than Prerna centric. They missed a step here, most ITV shows are female-centric with so many monologues for the FL, people voicing their thoughts, other characters making sense of their actions. Maybe the producers and the channels just assume that women want to see women's perspectives and provide the TRP there. 

Rarely ITV characters and dialogues have the depth which warrants to be taken seriously in real life. Erica.s previous show and her role was one such exception. For me that she had to this shabbily written character after that one is itself is a downgrade for her. It is also true for society - The majority of Men get away with almost everything while the women struggle for the basics. Young impressionable girls watching ITV should just not look at it as a teaching mechanism, be it the love stories or marrying rich or the MIL who is a devil incarnate. 

The apologizing part really got my goat in this show. Till the penultimate episode, there was none, nada, zilch. Maybe they were saving it all for the end to lead up to a crescendo. But a sincere apology to a loved one doesn’t make you less of a man, which ITV just doesn’t get. It is as if the women who suffered receive an apology it will somehow diminish the extent of their suffering. 

Teaching the impressionable minds of today that realizing your mistakes is important is not something ITV focuses on. That no means no and nothing else, is such an important life lesson for all men and women, but all that is shown on TV (not this show, at least not in the part I saw) is all is okay since you love the person. This is exactly the logic stalkers, acid-throwers, and eve-teasers use against women and believe it to be right and acceptable. I hope a production house like Balaji tries to take a lead on this, EK is doing that in her movies, she sure has the clout to replicate this on TV as well. 

Hard agree on everything you said. 

@bold-- I have been baffled by this constant comment that regressive content sells because people have a demand for it. Well, if the law that supply should meet the demand is true, surely we need to consider the law that every product creates its own demand. What I am trying to say using ill thought economics analogies is that until very recently the same was being said of Bollywood movies. People said that we only want to see over the top masala movies and don't care for a well written story. However it just took few courageous film makers to make movies that did not fulfill the masala movie genre and now we see a trend where well made movies with good scripts are doing well on box office than masala movies which are helmed by the biggest stars. It debunked the myth that only stars sell movies. Now quality is the parameter. 

And the same could become true for TV as well. I'm not even asking for a dramatic change. For starters, all production houses could just make it a policy that the female lead of their shows will not get slapped by the male lead. And if there is a slap, there will be repercussions. It won't be brushed off under the carpet with a 'sorry'. Small changes. But it could have a large impact on our population. 

Originally posted by: aryapdane

The biggest problem I have with our shows or movies is this obsession of a happy ending. We don't care what happens throughout the movie or show if the hero and heroine unites in the end. 

We have romanticized romance so much that the type of love that is shown on our TV sets is totally different from what love means and represents in the real world. On one hand, I understand why we are so hostile to the possibility of the hero and heroine moving on with someone else. We have invested emotions in our ships and we need to see it sail. I understand it. I'm guilty of it. But that is hardly what happens in real life. People fall out of love. They move on. And this aspect of love needs to be represented as well otherwise people will continue to force themselves to stay in a relationship that is no longer fulfilling to them or has just turned toxic. I am just tired of the narrative that love can only happen once. That there is just one 'true love'. There are couples who are blessed by the heavens and they can never do any wrong to each other because they are meant to be. I am tired of seeing this divine form of love on TV because I don't see it anywhere in real life. What I see instead is people who work hard on their relationships, people who communicate with their partners, people who make mistakes, who sometimes get over the aftermath of those mistakes and who sometimes don't, people who struggle and endure heartbreak and discover that they can love again because love is what human beings are made of. It is our nature to love. I am so done with divinity. I want to see humanity and human stories now.