K.BALACHANDER

Auteur Theory in the Films of K.Balachander

Dr.D.Nivedhitha 

This study is about the portrayal of working women in the films of K.Balachander. The filmmaker K.Balachander recently received Dada Sahib Phalke Award. He has produced and directed many Tamil films on diverse plot pattern like romance, triangle pattern, sacrifice pattern, return pattern, conversion pattern, vengeance pattern, success pattern and family pattern. K.Balachander has his own unique style of filmmaking. Most of his stories are based on middle class family and their struggle. Songs in his films establishes the situation, character, mood and tone of the film. He uses Symbolisms to convey certain subtle emotions and values. In most of his films, he has portrayed woman as educated, intelligent and working. They are capable of solving many social and family problems but implicitly they are pseudo-emancipated woman.

In France (1920s) the filmmaker is the author of the film even if the writer is different. Sometimes the filmmaker will also write the script. Hayward (2004) says that ‘the Politique des auteurs’ was a polemic initiated by the Cahiers group, the term auteur refers to a filmmaker’s discernable style through the filmmaking practices where the Director’s signature was as much in evidence on the script/scenario as it was on the product itself.

Signature of K.Balachander

The signature of K.Balachander is Joint family, middle class people who care for the convention and tradition, housewives who are guaranteed with family life, unemployment and sacrificing of working woman who fail in private life, working women are suspected on virginity and chastity, encouraging polygamy for men and a complex family relation as web that is contrived and melodramatic.

Working Women‘s Gendered Profession

In the film ‘Iru Kodugal, Janaki, the female protagonist is a collector, ‘Bama Vijayum’ four female protagonist, three are irresponsible daughter-in-laws and one is a film star, ‘Aval Oru Thodar Kadhai’- Kavitha is a officegoer, in Kalki, Kalki is an advertisement person, ‘Manathil Uruthi Vendum’ Nandhini is a nurse, ‘Arangetrum’ Lalitha is a typist later becomes a sex worker, Apoorva Raagangal’ Bhairavi is a karnatic musician, ‘Velli Vizhaa’the female protagonist is a teacher, ‘Kalyana Agathigal’ four female protagonists take up different jobs and as part time they have a music troupe, ‘Moondru Mudichi’ Selvi is a ward, Avargal’Anu is a office goer,’, ‘Sindhu Bhairavi’-Sindhu is a music teacher,  ‘Oru Veedu Iru Vaasal’two female protagonist- one is a homemaker and the other one is a junior artist in film Industry, ‘Paarthale Paravasum’ Simmi is a office goer. All homemakers though they struggle they live a comfortable marital life but in all those above mentioned films the women at work is not having a successful marital life. Gender has a socio-cultural origin that is ideological in purpose and must be seen as quite distinct from the notions of biological sex and sexuality, says Hayward (2004).

Woman – The Family Head

Letting woman the family head leads to problematic is the problem of K.Balachander.  In the film ‘Arangetrum’ (the debut) typist Lalitha becomes a sex worker when she becomes unable to lead her large family. Later when she settles in married life with one who knows her passed life the director doesn’t recognize her. Issuing the head position of the family to a girl leads malpractice is the concept of the director. Kavitha of ‘Aval oru thodarkathai’ (she is a serialized story), is a stenographer, shoulders her family, sacrifices her lover for her widow sister, her would be for her another sister on the very day of her wedding, and continues to work for caring her family which is without a head. If the breadwinner gets married she cannot look after her family is the conclusion of the story. In other word she has to leave every thing and run behind her husband. Instead being spinster and heading the family is the right solution to a woman.  This is the moral said in the above story. Nurse Nandhini of ‘Manthil Urudhi Vendum’ is never awarded family life, for she had two marital lives and divorce.

Men’s Polygamy

Gender is all culture and not nature; the only aspect of gender is sexual differentiation. Gender refers to the sexual category of an individual, masculine, or feminine, and to behavioral traits connected with each category, says Berger. Whenever a bride is seen as a match for a groom, the important expectation from the groom is less in age, height, education, and the salary of she receives. Woman should be less in all the ways other than attraction. Janaki of Iru Kodugal who was once married to Ganesan, not accepted by her husband’s family starts to live independently and becomes collector and posted in the office where her husband works as a clerk. After he is separated from Janaki he gets married to Jayanthi and now with two children he struggles to maintain his family. Heavy clash happens between the first and the second wife, but the story comes to the conclusion of sending the workingwoman Janaki abroad as a simple solution of men’s polygamy. There was nothing to do with man who practiced polygamy. Educated woman was sent out of the country like excommunicating, and the housewife is protected. Sindhu the music teacher lives alone, for falling in love with a married man. Sindhu makes JKB’s family in tact and gifts her child to the barren Bhairavi who is the wife of her lover singer JKB; and converts her illegitimate child into legitimate child. Dependent wife is always awarded with security. In most of his films workingwoman is sentenced with a lonely life, and a homemaker is saved and made to live with her husband. In structuring his screenplay he gives economical and moral support to the homemakers. All his housewives are good and innocent, but dependent. So it is mandatory for a wife to live with her husband. This thought is again and again repeated in most of his films

Women With a Handbag

Woman with a handbag is a sign of financial independence. But in India the handbag belongs to woman but the money that is inside what she earned belongs to her man. In reality, workingwomen of India are exploited. Stenographer Kavitha, typist Lalitha, nurse Nandhini, they all have family burdens and their handbags are emptied for her family. Kavitha’s drunken irresponsible brother calls her bitch when she refuses to give him money. Lalitha being a sex professional raised all her brothers and sisters was always empty handed. The family of Nandhini with a big list to spend always exploits Nandhini.

In search of Third Space

Those women’s who has lost their space in private sphere, fighting to get space in public sphere (33% job opportunity) and struggle in a hybrid sphere which is the effect of post colonialism.

Pseudo Emancipated Heroines

K.Balachander has portrayed woman as educated, intelligent and working. They are capable of solving many social and family problems but implicitly they are pseudo-emancipated woman. Several sociologists attacked on the film’s blindness to the ideology it presents, especially on women’s norms and status. The man reins the film vision and also appears as the agent of authority. Two types of female protagonists are portrayed in the film world, one is virgin and the other is whore.  But in most of the K.Balachander’s films working women who lose their virginity either by sexual assault or by molestation or by having extra marital life, or premarital life, or a lonely life (divorcee) is devoid of legal marital life. As Frantz Fanon says the effect of post colonialism is English education and English way of living. So there is always a conflict between Western thought and Eastern thought. Working woman is always viewed from western centric view point. More over lack of in-depth knowledge in understanding different cultures leads to socio cultural ruptures. Female is considered lower than male in India. Which gives many meaning like she is fit only for the domestic sphere or the private sphere. She can do only certain jobs (teacher the ultimate), stenographer, nurse, clerical jobs, computer software persons, lawyer, etc, which belong to indoor public sphere.  Sales representative, drivers, film productions, stage artist, (dancers) belong to outdoor public sphere. Workingwomen those are involved in outdoor working sphere as well as indoor working sphere find sexual challenges and harassment in being a workingwoman. K.Balachander proves the above statement and in his view being working woman is the sickness to the society or being outsider is ideal for a workingwoman.

Complex Family Relation

Apoorva Raagam- Bhairavi due to pre marital has a daughter and she hides the fact and brings up her own daughter as an adopted child. One day the daughter finds the truth and leaves the family dejectedly. She falls in love with an elderly person who survives with a rude son. This rude son of that elderly person loves Bhairavi the mother of the dejected girl and she also reciprocates. This entanglement is romances of significant age disparity. It is nothing but two insecured persons, a mother and her daughter find secured in opposite sex; who are men the patriarchal structure. Duet is a triangle love story with a complicated subplot of the protagonist father’s second relationship with a woman. Manathil Urudhi Vendum, Nandhini’s burden is doubled due to her father’s second relationship with a woman. Punnagaimannan is a love story, but it is a love lost and love gained pattern, with the protagonist father having a second relation. The main plot of the film ‘vaname ellai’ is about few dejected youngsters decide and join together for committing suicide for their various failures they faced in the society. In that a young couple decide to commit suicide because of the reason that the boys widower father and the girl’s widow mother get married to each other to stop the marriage of the their own children. This sub plot deviates away from the main story. And this kind of treatment is very abnormal to Tamil Culture and also very illogical, contrived and melodramatic in its approach. Sindhu Bhairavi-Both Sindhu and her mother have premarital sex but the mother gets married to a Judge after leaving her illegitimate child in the orphan. In the film Arangetram, the lover of Lalitha finds her in a prostitution place. Paarthale paravasam, Madhava is a doctor. He marries Simi but a revelation about his past separates them and takes them as far as divorce. They remain friends though, even going so far as to fix up each other's second marriages. That becomes a flop and again they get married after a good understanding. Avargal is a concept of three boys and a girl, a lover, a husband and a friend. It is like water, everywhere not a drop to drink. Moondru Mudichi-Prasath and Balaji are room-mates, Prasath loves Selvi openly and Balaji loves her secretly. Selvi suspects Balaji’s attitude and tells it to Prasath. But Prasath doesn’t believe her. One day when all this three go for boating accidentally Prasanth falls into the water and drowns, Balaji who new swimming did not save him. Later Balaji proposes her, Selvi in an act of taking revenge gets married to Balaji’s father who is widower.

Postcolonial Effect

The Britishers from 1858 to 1947 ruled India, the effect of it sustains between the British shadowed society and Indian Culture. Cultural war between the Indian Culture and British Culture constantly persists in India. The cultural and social imbalance has happened among the people who had the opportunity to work very closely with the Britishers in their office. This tradition extends even today. Indian traditional dresses flew away. Even till last decade all Indian females identified the pyjama as an alternate to western pant. To day the globalism changes every thing in to one. But K. Balachaner was maintaining the post colonial effects on female to identify them the outsider.ven after the Indian independence, most of the high-class people who were influenced by colonial thoughts and action have started to ape the Whites way of living and thinking. Almost all his films dialogue will carry English words using figure of speeches and punning on words. A very famous dialogue between the husband and wife in the office in Irukodugal, life and file will be pinned on while talking serious matters. This is well established in his films, either the people who support the English way of living is criticised or Indian culture is over emphasized. In both the ways, the emphasize on caring and growing the cultural deeds are made to be held in the hands of women.

Findings

K. Balachander has made more than hundred films, after studying the whole body of his work, most of his films deal with complicated human relations and contrived and melodramatic situation which are unimaginable and illogical with heavy character flaw. Indian women is caught in complicated web of patriarchal world, be it culture, society, politics and religion The woman with a handbag, hair bun and lipstick, is always an object of criticism. Modernity is not very easily accepted in Indian culture and it is always criticized in the private sphere and encouraged in public sphere. Always the women are caught in between these two spheres. Workingwomen are suspected and housewives are hailed. Sacrifice is forced only on woman. Though workingwomen are hailed, hypocritically they are made isolated from their family life. Polygamy is encouraged for men .The works of Balachandar appears to be a state of confusion.

Suggestion

Woman with a handbag, hair bun and lipstick are not the sign of liberation. Being bold in having illicit relationship is not the real boldness. Throwing away the formalities of the society is not maturity. The concept of liberation should be looked at different angles. The films that discourage the woman employment are to be banned, because it is a criminal offence to corrupt the mentality of the audience. Film is a very powerful audiovisual medium, which should not be misused. The horrible part is those films are awarded by the Government. Film literacy is seriously required for the government official for censoring as well as awarding.

References:

Berger, A.A. Agitpop: Political Culture and Communication Theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1990.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. New York: Penguin Books, 1972.

Braudy, Leo and Cohen Marshall. (eds). Film Theory and Critisism: Introductory Readings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Hayward, Susan. Key Concepts in Cinema Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

CINEMA SOUND

 CINEMA SOUND

By

Dr.NIVEDHITHA

and

A MEMBER OF

METAPHYSICAL HOME

  SOUND: 

Sound exists everywhere, and every time; with so many variations and verities; all living beings live integrating with sound. Till we listen the morning sounds, dawn and dusk sounds, night sounds, a sparrow’s chirping, a baby’s cry we too are intervened with Nature. The language of Nature is sound, and till today it is unchanged; it is common to all living beings; it is universal and simple. We human beings, who have the efficiency to learn, adopt the language of Nature and build our own language that is inherent to the geographical and sociological environment where we live. Language is sound with so many variations; and we have learned to create millions of sound to give millions of meaning. Language is encoding and decoding of sound variations. When we gave symbols to language, sound has denoted in to alphabets to form writings; except syllabary. Writings are the sign of sounds created in language, (any alphabet can be used for any language) as we have notation for music. In fact the first recording of sound is writing, with the facilities of encoding and decoding from language to sound and sound to language. But this recording is done only for the linguistically meaning of sound, but it missed to record all the other factors that sound has in its myth. That is why Writing and Reading exist as a separate art from sound. There, not only the writer, but also the reader is an artist. When a Reader reads he identifies his emotion in the text or in other way he adds up his emotion and feeling and reads; to individual identity.

          

SOUND RECORDING:

Sound recording is an art as well as science. To become a good sound recordist one needs the knowledge of science of sound and creativity of its infinite myths at different applications. The first qualification to become a sound recordist is to be a good listener; in the sense, one should be able to differentiate the difference between two cuckoos when they sing together. The quality of recording depends upon the knowledge over the recording techniques and aesthetics of sound.

The knowledge of sound recording techniques is;

o       Understanding the physics of sound

o       Understanding the nature of sound

o       Understanding the science of sound

o       Understanding the texture of sound

o       Understanding the atmosphere where it is created

o       Understanding the atmosphere where it is played back

The knowledge of aesthetic of sound recordings is;

§     Understanding the feel of sound that triggers the sprit

§     Understanding the representation of sound

§     Understanding the ontology of sound

§     Understanding sound and space

§     Understanding the relativity of sound

§     Understanding the correlation of sound

§     Understanding the perspectives of sound

§     Understanding the phenomena of sound

§     Understanding the anthropology of sound

§     Understanding the silence

Mind and sound:

Sound is metaphysical, so it is mystical; an unseen force that triggers the emotion of all living beings, than any other force in the world. It is multi dimensional, even then there is a common understanding depending the culture, environment and experience that reaches different people in different angle.  The human brain identifies the sound mostly to the nearest of an identification and relates it to the immediate and earliest identification. The listener is the most important part of sound because sound is depicted on listener’s mind, where the listeners’ mind is not uniform. That is why, even though the approach of sound is mass it affects and effects personally. The unique quality of sound is that, other than the listeners’ ears, it doesn’t affect any sense to feel the nature of it. Sound is a moving element; it is always moving; quickly, rapidly, and repetitively. So a listener is gathering sound with the same movement and with the same speed to maintain the order. Another unique quality of ear is, it is unreserved and Omni directional and easily susceptible to loudness. Time space and sound is much integrated to procure the mind without mind’s knowledge. Mind is always ditched by time space and sound to make better understanding. When the space extends sound gets stopped.  When sound is stopped it reaches the origin where it started, that is silence. Silence is the mother of sound. Silence is the space where sound creates its path to travel and reach atlas.

silence:

 Silence is the most beautiful part of sound. It communicates so many meanings. As an effect of sound it is terribly heavy, as well as deadly cold. It is peace; it is understanding; it is joy; it is acceptance; it is romance; it is thrill; etc….etc…It is the place where sound takes rest. In western music notation, silence is noted as ‘rest’. In fact ‘rest’ in music means the existence of the musician but without music.  The rest of the sound and its existence without sound is an important role in all our life.  The sound of the dinosaur is much thriller than the sound of a dinosaur when it is unheard. When your lover walks without sound of an anklet, it rings the chimes of your heart. The existence of sound in silent movies of our great directors is still unforgettable. Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says, “there is not only an art but eloquence in it”. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence.” Blair. The rest of sound in any application of art has got it is own elaborate meaning.  Technically silence means in different way. The human ear has got a limit of Listening; its range is between 20HZ and 20,000HZ for a young person. Any sound below 20HZ is called subsonic and any sound above 20,000HZ is called supersonic or hypersonic. So what we are listening is only between20HZ and 20,000HZ of sound. A human ear needs a pressure to listen sound. The minimum pressure what we need to listen is called 0 dB. So, 0 dB is not absolute silence, but the threshold of hearing. That is the lowest sound pressure level that an average listener with good hearing can detect. We can say technically the unheard sound is called as silence.

Physics of sound:

When an object vibrates it generates sound

1.             Plucking a string

2.             Bowing a violin

The generated sound needs a medium to travel whose molecule can set in motion

·               Air

·               Solid particle

The medium transmits the vibration in the form of changes in pressure

When a string is plucked- vibration happens-this vibration passes in the air-so the molecules of air get compressed with the pressure passed on from one molecule to another

aesthetic of sound:

Every art is shaped, not only by political philosophical and economic factors, but also by its technology. The relationship is always clear. Sometimes the technological development leads to a change in the esthetic system of the art; sometimes esthetic requirements call for a new technology; often the development of the technology itself is the result of a confluence of ideological and economical factors. But until artistic impulses can be expressed through technology, there is no artifact. The invention of photography in the early nineteenth century marks an important line in division between the pre technological era and the present.

The development of printing technologies has caused too many influences on the art of writing. Stage dramas were readily altered when new lighting technologies came. The invention and development of oil paint provided a wonderful versatility to the artist. But cinema expelled from all these as a great single artistic contribution of the industrial age, the recording arts- film, sound recording and photography are inherently dependent on a complex, ingenious, and even more sophisticated technology. No one can ever hope to comprehend fully the way these effects are accomplished with a rudimentary understanding of the scientific and systemic procedures that make them possible

.

The invention of photography in the early nineteenth century makes an important line of division between the pre technological eras and the present .The basic artistic impulses that drive us to mimic nature were some essentially both before and after that time, but the augmented technical capacity to record and reproduce sounds and images of the twentieth century presents us with an exciting new set of choices. Previously we were limited, in a sense by our own physical abilities: the musicians created sounds by blowing, strumming or singing; the printer who captured real images entirely on his own eyes to pursue them; the novelist and the poet not engaged in strictly physical arts, were nevertheless limited in describing events or characters by their own powers of observation. The technology of sound and image now offers us the opportunity of recording sounds, images and events and transmitting them directly to the observer without the interposition of the artist’s personality and talents. A new channel of communication has been opened, equal in importance to the development written language.

 

ANTECEDENTS OF MOTION PICTURE:

Although the camera did not come into practical use until the early nineteenth century, efforts to create such a magical tool, which would record reality directly, dated much earlier. The invention of paper negative gave a lead to modern photography of negatives recording and positive reproduction. The paper negative was soon replaced by the flexible collodion film negative, which is not only marked a distinct improvement in the quality of images but also suggested a line of development for the recording of motion pictures. The magic lantern, capable of projecting an image on the screen, was quickly adapted to photographic use in the 1850s.Praxinoscope came in 1877, a practicable device for projecting successive images on a screen. And in 1889 George Eastman applied for a patent on hi flexible photography film developed for the roll camera and the last element of cinematography was in place. By 1895 all these elements had been combined and cinemas were born.

CINEMA WITHOUT SOUND:

Even though sound recoding was invented much earlier than cinematography; cinema was invented without sound. The reason behind was the invention of cinema rooted out with the existing material of photography and printing. So still cinema is called as film, motion picture, video or television; undemanding the incorporation of audio concept. When filmmaker received synchronizing sound, they found sound as an added quality to cinema. It was considered as the aesthetic quality to cinema. Cinema was cinema before the sound track was added, they said, so the sound cannot be fundamental component of cinematic experience. Historically sound is add on, an after that, and thus of secondary in importance. Ironically it is precisely because of insufficient historical knowledge and reflection that these avengers err. There is a valuable argument that silent films had never been without sound; it had always confirmed to the mid twenties model of standarised organ or orchestral accompaniment. On one side there are ethereal cinema of silence, punctuated by carefully chosen music; on other side the talkies with their incessant anti poetic dialogues. Too heavily dependent on the practice of the twenties this is an unacceptable assessment of the first thirty years of cinema history. Camera phone, chordophones, cinephone, and dozens of competing systems were not only invented in 1910s; during the end of the century and first decade they were installed in hundreds of theatre, across Europe and from coast to coast in the United States. Their completion came, by the way, not from silent films, with or without musical accompaniment but from the road shows with extremely sophisticated and carefully synchronized effects and from many “wheels” of human voices behind the screen. In short the world did not want until Don Juan and the Jazz Singer to discover the entertainment value of synchronized sound. Anyhow silent film changed the form into talkie; that is an entirely new form; there the cinema changed; even the theory for cinema also changed by the influence of sound. Still cinema changes and the action of sound is one of the prime reasons for the changes.

CINEMA WITH SOUND:

 Edition’s phonograph, which does for sound, what the camera/projector system does for images dates from 1877. The desire to capture and reproduce still picture pre dated the development of moving picture by many years. But there is no such thing as a “still” sound; so the development of sound recording, of necessity, took place all at once. In many ways, it is more extraordinary than cinematography, since it has no antecedents to speak of. Because of technical problems posed by Edition’s mechanical recording system, mainly synchronization – the effective marriage of sound and images did not occur thirty years later; but the desire to reproduce sound and image in concert existed from the early days of cinematography history.

THE REPRODUCTION OF SOUND:

The recording of sound from its very beginning has been very fascinated; whereas an image that is photography clearly reduces the three-dimensional original into two dimensions. Sound appears to reproduce the original faithfully, in its full three dimensionalities. By and large, critics remain convinced that sound is literally reproduced by high quality recording and play back system. Sound, cannot be constructed independently of the volume of air in which it is heard. Typically we notate sound (through writing or musical notation) as if sounds were ideal entities. But volume, frequency and treble cannot exist independently of several material factors, which preclude reproduction as such. To be sure in sense, G is G, whether it is played at home or in stage, but that does not make the two sounds identical. All we want to know about is, that it is G then all the Gs are the same; but if we care about the material difference between the two sounds and the spatial configuration that are present there, then we must recognize that no recording is possible to reproduce an original sound. Recording do not reproduce sound, they represent sound. According to the choice of recording location, type of microphone, recording system, amplification, postproduction, manipulation, storage medium, playback arrangement, and playback location each recording proposes an interpretation of the original sound. To be sure, one of the common strategies involved in this process is to attempt to convince the audience that they are listening not a representation but reproduction. Considered as reproduction, recording seems to fall under the aegis of technology and engineering construed as a representation. However sound inherits the double mantle of art. Simultaneously capable of misrepresentation and of artistically using all the possibilities of representation, sound thus recovers some of the fascination lost to its reputation as handmaiden of the image. Indeed it is recording’s very ability to manipulate sound that makes it so apply worth of our interest.

REALISM AND INDIVIDUALISM:

In order to show that recording cannot possibly reproduce the original sound, critics have regularly made the following points:

Sound exists as pressure within a volume.

It is possible to collect all the sound of a particular performance, since it disperses differently into various part of the theatre or other surrounding space.

Even at a live performance different spectators hear different sound, depending on where they are seated and which way the performers are turned.

Sound system always enforces a particular set of volume in selecting microphone, location, frequency response, volume levels and many other recording and playback characteristics.

Playback back involves in the same set of differences and choices involved in recording. For example there is a difference between the sound heard in the orchestra and same as heard in balcony.

This is a problem of communication having heard the ‘same’ sound to overcome that they actually perceived physically different sound. This is precisely where we stand today sound. Every audition of the same performance actually hears different sound; we need actually to interrogate the cultural phenomena that permit us to communicate about the sounds, which are heard. It is more important to remember that signification can occur only through repression of the signifier and to call for increased sensitivity to the many strategies adopted by various cultures to assure the differences in favor of language’s communicative value.

Reality Television shows

Reality Television shows and Sympathetic Exploitation of Participants

       Dr.Nivedhitha Devdas

This paper is about the study on Reality shows and how private Television Channels exploit real emotions of the average common public in the name of talent hunts and divulging their talent to the world. These reality shows survive like parasites by sensitizing the emotion of the public. These shows are special of its kind that participants become the viewer and viewers become the participant. The television channel obtains the talents, relatives and friends as their permanent viewers in order to run the show successfully and thus increasing their TRP ratings.

            This study focuses on how private Television channels exceed the limit of entertaining the audience at the cost of small children’s mental vilification and physical labor with specific reference to Vijay TV’s Airtel super singer for juniors. Textual analysis will be done to study the following parameters such as family story, personal problem, parent’s expectation, audience expectation at time, temporal duration, and temporal frequency and program structure to ascertain the idea. These parameters are used as tools for sympathetic exploitation.

Key terms:  Sympathetic exploitation, at time: temporal duration, temporal frequency, program structure.

The oxford dictionary defines the word ‘reality’ as a quality of being real; that which is something real and not imaginary.  Reality television came into India when Gajendra Singh created antakshri, a reality show, in the year 1993; another popular reality show sa re ga ma pa in 1995. Next astonishing popular reality show- kaun banega crorepati (kbc), with  Amitabh Bachchan as host. This attracted most of the Indian viewers of different States.  That even made an impact in Hollywood and Slum dog millionaire is the result. Now reality shows on small children who first started as talent exhibiting show and rose to the level of musical show competition which has made lots of stress on the children.

Down south, STAR Vijay first introduced Reality shows to the audiences.  STAR Vijay is a popular Indian entertainment channel broadcasting in Tamil. The channel is available in India, Sri Lanka as well as the US, catering for the Tamil Diaspora. It is best known for serving its viewers with a mix of content, not limited to mega serials/daily soaps like other Tamil channels. The main reason for the success of STAR Vijay is its share of reality shows. Some of its popular reality shows which brought a huge chunk of revenue for the channel includes Super Singer, Jodi No.1, Kalakka Povadhu Yaaru, EQ etc. It also introduced an intellectual show Grandmaster which is the first of its kind in Tamil television.

Almost all the private Television channels have introduced concepts of all areas like dance, music, game, debates, adventures etc.  Reality shows are sold very effortlessly in the marketplace of private Television channels. The simple reason is, once the concept is designed and formed the producer need not put in lots of effort in creating the new ideas for further production. And on the production side of these shows, unlike for producing fictional play or drama, creativity is not required. It is just the management of the programs and organizing the shoot. The popularity of the show is not due to high standards of production or of creativity but it is about common people to the common people. The increase of viewership and business is very much built in. That is, again the common people are used as the participant and they become the viewer. Indirectly, through word of mouth and because of the participant’s strength, the viewership is built.

           From the beginning till today almost all private channels exploit and survive with the help of commercial feature films. Right from showing feature films and dubbed versions of feature films to other cine-based programs like comedy times, interview of the film personalities, programs anchored by film personalities, star nights, film award shows, film reviews, film personalities as judges for all kind of programs etc. Now the Television channels have changed the direction of exploitation towards the real life experiences of people through reality shows and especially with small children.

Kids' reality shows are one of the most successful formats. In middle-class India, kids are the ones driving most family decisions, and they are the ones ensuring that the whole family comes together and watches these shows. This provides a break from the regular diet of family melodrama and warring in-laws that is the staple of Indian daily television. For the kids who participate, this is a ticket out of their small-town existence and a shot at fame and fortune. This stereotypical thinking misguides the children to think that this is a short route to a better life and the private channels play no role in changing this instead they only fuel the process by promising contracts and deals and national popularity. Almost every one of the parents who bring their kids to a show thinks their kid is the next star, which, is a dream created by the channels.

The Producers are the sole beneficiaries of this entire mess, the children are used for monetary benefits from TRP’s because they are strong subjects to affect the audience and especially the prime time audience. There are so many downsides to using children as the main attraction in today’s reality TV shows. Although children have been acting in feature films since times immemorial, performing in the fictional films, the children are aware of the fact that they are performing an imaginary role. The child feels very proud to say that it is in the commercial film industry. But in reality shows they have high hope on them and they compete in front of scores and scores of crowd, exhibiting their talent. If the child is selected, he/she is appreciated by everyone and pampered, if not selected the child feels ashamed of itself in front of a huge mass. At the cost of child’s disgrace, physical effort, education, the parents’ hope, time and money, the private channels gross profit and yet the child receives none of it, they are merely pacified with chocolates, goodies and various gift hampers and “fame”.

Those days have gone where the child’s mark was ranked in annual report cards. The education system has adapted a very modern way of assessing the students without offending the basic prestige of the same and there is no more exhibiting of the marks or grades and sowing happiness in some while sorrow in others. The reality shows on the other hand only bring back this practice and that too in the presence of an audience watching the children’s every move, the children are made to stand in a line, being judged and then the marks are provided, to hype the fun some more, the reactions of the child are shown in close-up’s, the parents’ reactions and the crowd’s reaction are all played around with using excellent editing techniques, all so that there is a sense of suspense and the thrill of watching real emotions.

Also to be considered in detail is the concept of the audience that the child is facing, whether winning or losing, and thankfully for the kid it wins, but there is this group of people consisting of the family, friends and relatives that are present at the studio to watch their loved one go on television, become a big TV star and then be crowned the queen of some dreamland, these people are the ones the child has to immediately face, the ones that he/she will be looking at, identifying each and every one of their faces and thus called the identified audience. The larger part is yet to come, this is the millions of television viewers that are watching all over the world, in this case, Vijay TV’s viewers are spread all over India, Sri Lanka and also the United States and this is the unidentified audience. The child not only has to face humiliation in front of the audience that he/she identifies but has to also fear humiliation from a larger number sitting out there in front of televisions.

Many social activists have voiced against reality shows especially those that use children. In Andhra Pradesh, social activists appealed to State Human rights commission and got a ban on Zee Telugu's 'Aata', a children's dance reality show, but the organizers got a stay by appealing in court. Justice Subhashan Reddy, chairman of the Human Rights Commission, has threatened to stall the show, arguing that “…no reality show had the right to violate children's rights.” The participants' provocative dances and dresses in the TV show were quite demeaning in nature  he said and also added  that a committee would be set up, if necessary, to probe into the matter further. Reddy further stated that these shows have a bad impact on the society in general, and on those children watching the shows in particular. He admonished parents for channeling their children's focus on reality shows, which caused a lot of unhealthy mental stress and agony, along with untold physical stress.

For a week, various child rights protection organizations and its members in the city had campaigned against 'Aata' across the media. Brewing concerns over children’s' rights made them file a petition demanding for a halt of the show. Devi, a social worker, said that the reality shows involving children rake in a lot of money and are a form of exploitation. Considering the unlimited numbers of hour’s children invest in practice, it is like child labor she further expressed.

In their defense, participants' parents said that everything on the show was a matter of personal choice. They said they were simply encouraging their children's interests in participating in the dance competition, and that as parents, they had the authority to take a decision over their children's life. The parents have filed a petition now, demanding that the charges filed against them be dropped. Looking at this counter argument that they had the authority to take decisions in their children’s lives; will they be patient if mentally challenged individuals make rash decisions of their children? After all, they too are parents who have rights in their children’s lives and why do people create such havoc about abortion and female infanticide, isn’t that also a decision made by the parents, in their child’s life? http://www.fullhyderabad.com/hyderabad-news/reality-show-aata-must-be-stopped-human-rights-commission-610?sort=most+helpful&horder=DESC%29

In a group discussion conducted on the topic if reality TV shows using children should be banned in India, some opined as below:

·      “Yes, it should be banned.............. I think not only should reality show allow children under the age of 10 but they should not be taken to any hard competitive level where elimination is present.”

·      “Yes, this sows happiness in very few and distress in many in the immature stage. Children aren't matured. They take things like elimination very seriously and this may harm their mental growth. It is emotional manipulation for profit at its worst.”

·      “I agree with some points, but nowadays reality shows are for just drama, not true entertainment, all reality shows end in SMS voting (robbing customer by cellular companies with help of such show).”

·      “yes these realty shows involving children should be banned , as answered by our learned members
they lose their studies, unnecessarily hyped in their school/class , they may develop inferiority complex ( due to the fear of losing), may develop a vexation towards the society , (as their parents argue that their ward is better but due to politics he/she was eliminated to an inferior competitor), the amount of strain they have to undertake to make a grade and the amount of abusive language make them mentally sick

·      The reality shows are of long time and also hampers the child lessons and mental health.
I think the shows like boogie-woogie which is not as timely as other reality shows should be promoted for children's talent. Banning might be little unfair because some of them wants to be actor or media personality. Every child will not be doctors, engineers, CA’s, etc in future. So the best thing is reality shows must be of few days.

·      Yes, they should be banned. In fact the parents are treating their kids as money making machines and making them bonded labor and robbing their childhood. They are causing immense pressure on the minds of the kids and creating an opinion that unless they come first in a reality show, (I like to call it a stage managed shows to make money,) there is no life for those kids. In some shows the children aged between five to six years are imitating sexy vamps of cinema world and the male mentors, are abusing the bodies of girls which is nothing but child abuse.

·      If it is hindering the education of the children and keeping them ignorant, then it should be banned. If it also becomes a distraction for other children who see this as a means to fame and fortune without hard work, then it should be banned. The reality TV craze seems to have taken over the world but these children should be encouraged to get sound education instead of parading them on TV.

The technical aspects of the shows also have to be kept in mind, public sector channels for e.g. Doordarshan, during the black and white period used to have closed auditions in that the participants never had to appear in front of people and even the results used to be posted to their address avoiding any confrontation of the audience and avoiding any embarrassment but with times, this process has also changed and now private channels use every small detail to create a suspense criteria in the people. Traditionally, all channels followed the selection and rehearsals/practice sessions but broadcasted only the performances but the lust for money and TRP has driven channels to broadcast even small intimate details of their participants life and sometimes even make them do things that might tickle the audiences’ curiosity and keep the secret hidden behind confidentiality terms that the participants have to sign beforehand.

Program structure: The general duration of the program is one hour. In that hour more than ten minutes is allocated for advertisement. Parents interview about their children, their special nature and inclination towards music, about their family background will be for more than ten minutes and a very great praise and appreciation about the channel, program and their reach. Children’s interview about their aim and ambition to get the award given by that particular channel, interest in music and about their practice speaking about their interest in music and about their practice.

Anchor inviting the guests and praising the program, and telling about the selection criteria, giving introduction about the judges, music, and about the participants. Judges before listening to the song inviting and warming up the children, and after listening to the music,  judging and critically analyzing and appreciating the song that is sung and discussing among themselves and finally announcing the results, consoling if the child has not sung and appreciating if the child sings well. 

The prime time: The child singing is the prime time of the show, of the judge, of the parents, of the media people and the business people. The music show except few minutes of music it is actually full talk show which is of sheer waste. During this singing time when the child is more important but even during that prime time, judges reacting to the song, audience appreciating and seeing the song, parents seeing the child will be shown. Hardly the producer cuts very few shots of the child. So what is the point of calling this a musical show?

Carnatic musicians who have chosen as judge, they don’t judge the child’s musical knowledge by listening to classical music nor they appreciate a child singing classical music but they ask her to sing film based songs to judge her capacity as a singer, which means that classical music does not have any value or is it the motive of the reality shows to motivate the children to become film playback singer to get popularity very quickly.

It is traditionally followed that the art of Bharatnatyam is taught in three sections;

• Natya - dramatic art of story-telling.
• Nritta - pure dance movements.
• Nritya combination of abhinaya and nritta

The teacher starts training little children only with the art of Nritta, because Abhinaya insists the portrayal of 9 human expressions such as amour or love, wrath, ridicule, etc and these can be perfected only because people have experienced it and children at their tender ages cannot be expected to perform Bharatnatyam at competitions and more so at competitive TV shows. These shows treat children like they have come for some fancy dress competition and that too to wear clothes that the channel provides. The channel forces the participants to dress in a certain way and if it is a themed round then according to the theme, this only makes the children look like they are clowns who are parading around for the benefit of the producers.

These reality TV shows are only travelling away from reality if there needs to be a direction defined for this process, the use of background score in itself is a step faraway from reality and then forcing the participants to appear in a certain way to be able to fascinate the audience is already the second non realistic step taken. Repetitive cuts while shooting so that the actions can be rectified or groomed also, scripted remarks by judges’ takes away all that is real from the show and only an illusion of reality is left behind for the viewers. The producers manipulate the audience and the show so well that very rarely do individuals separate the reality from this illusion.

References:

 Andrew, Dudley. The Major Film Theories: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976.

Bord Well, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, New York: 1997.

Hayward, Susan. Key Concepts in Cinema Studies. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.

Manvell, Dr. Roger. (Ed) The international Encylopedia of films. New York: Rainbird Reference Book Limited, 1975.   

Roberge, Gaston, Chitra Bani: A Book on Film Appreciation.

 Calcutta: Chitra Bani, 1974.