Thursday, January 18, 2007

How Real is the Reality?

It's surprising that the reality TV is catching up wildfire in India. The Big Boss kind of shows are making headlines. Somewhere in the world an Indian actress is getting harassed with racial remarks. I ask this simple question. Are we really keen in the reality?

There are certain aspects of reality we just do not want to see. If reality is all we are interested in in real sense. There was a wave of reality depiction that happened through a parallel cinema industry which focused on social issues and struggle of human in India, frustration of license raj and its effects. Today we do not need those any more. The number of such parallel movies are not many but slightly milder depictions of the same with movies like Mr and Mrs. Iyer, Page 3 kind are getting audience appeal. Similarly, the news channels reporting gory crime reports and talking through the issues all the time are bringing us to realism everyday. It scares me to see sometimes how unsafe is our society today. But, I will probably not like to see the details of the realism.

As humans we want to be told the reality the stark naked truth but in a milder manner. We do not want the whole truth which is too gory to stand. Similarly is true for the reality shows. Every celebrity has a role to play in the society. Confining them to that level of reality is enough. But getting to his/her bedroom and reporting what his/her internal feelings are not something that should give us pleasure. That's just too real. After all at every level the celebrities are as human as you and I are. They have same reservations, same kind of prejudices and fears. Is there any need for us to know all that? I don't how can it be entertaining to know these. Lets keep our entertainment to fiction and not mix with reality. Let human creativity still rule masking / moderating the reality in the best possible manner.

Will love to know what you think.

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