"A book, film, or other creative work produced solely to make the originator a living by catering to popular taste" - This is the definition given for the word 'pot-boiler' on the internet.
But the pot-boilers I am about to discuss have a similar as well as an additional meaning - "Creative work that make people forget their pots that remain boiling (and eventually spill out) on their stoves."
If you have not yet picked up what this post is about, I would be happy to lay it down plainly - Tamil tele-serials!
The following account describes an episode of a tele-serial I was forced to watch as I sat down for lunch at my home one fine day.
An old man in the tele-serial had been informed that his son-in-law urgently required an operation for his damaged kidneys that would cost a few lakhs. The old man, whose family belonged to the lower-middle class, had been shocked hearing it from the doctor and had left the hospital, devastated.
I honestly admit that I was a bit intrigued as to what would follow. And, to my utter shock, this is what followed.
The old man came walking down a road as slowly as possible. A melodramatic music started playing. The camera showed, primarily, the left side of his face. Then a shot with the camera before him showing his entire face. A shot followed showing the right side of his face. And finally a long shot showing him walking down the road. I was surprised for a moment at the way the cinematographer had tried to effectively convey the old man's emotions when it all began again. Left face. Entire face. Right face. A long shot. Repetition to probably stress the character's emotional state, I thought. And it happened again, the melodramatic music reaching its peak. Left face. Entire face. Right face. A long shot. And the character started speaking to himself, not worrying about the helpless situation but instead, literally - and I stress this to the maximum, literally - started narrating the incidents that had happened in their home from the çommencement day of the serial to the present day.
Seriously?! What the hell?!
And having mentioned 'repetition' and 'emphasis', the one aspect of the Tamil tele-serials that drives me totally crazy is the so called 'close-up shots'.
Most of the families in these tele-serials have a considerably large number of members. And if a happy event occurs (which is quite rare) in the family, the viewer is guaranteed to be subjected to two full minutes of 'close-up' torture where a close-up shot of every single member of the family is shown. The mother is happy. The father is happy. The son is happy. The daughter-in-law is happy. The sister is happy. The younger brother is happy. The elder brother is happy. The grandmother is happy. The maidservant is happy.
Fine!! We get it that every single member is happy!! Move on!!
And if a sad event occurs (which is close to every episode), the viewer is guaranteed again to two full minutes of 'close-up' torture of the family members' sadness.
And the one thing that never fails to miss out in any of these 'close-up' torture scenes is that in the occurrence of any happy event, the entire family would be happy except one fat aunt who would be twisting her lips in frustration and in the occurrence of any sad event, the entire family would be sad except the same fat aunt who would be smiling a cold,evil smile.
Seriously?! What the hell?!
With the increasing availability of foreign tele-serials in a very easy manner, I find a lot of my friends, here at college, dismissing Tamil tele-serials outright. And they wouldn't be wrong since every tele-serial that comes out of the foreign land (especially the United States since 'foreign' automatically relates to the U.S. to many) - be it The Big Bang Theory, be it Breaking Bad, be it House of Cards, be it Homeland, be it Da Vinci's Demons, be it Suits, be it Orange is the New Black - represents a different genre varying from science-comedy to crime to political to espionage to historical to legal to prison drama whereas every Tamil tele-serial that comes out here falls under one simple genre - Heroine's struggle.
The role of a tele-serial is often undervalued in our state, perhaps even in our country. The tele-serials have the great responsibility of entertaining (and if possible, educating - which I would say is mandatory) every family that watches them together, in the comforts of their home, giving it a status equal to a family member. But most of the Tamil tele-serials fail to do so sticking to the so called pot-boilers with a self assurance that families - women in general - prefer emotional dramas.
In spite of having had experimental and yet successful predecessors like 'Marma desam', 'Balu Mahendra'vin Kathai Neram', 'Veetuku veedu looty', ' K.Balachander's Sahana', the Tamil tele-serial makers hesitate to switch to different genres/storylines. I wouldn't call for an extreme leap to the science-comedy genre as in The Big Bang Theory or a CIA operational thriller as in Homeland. But why not set more tele-serials in a rural milieu? Why not showcase the life of women attached to the gangsters of North Madras? Why not set a tele-serial with the Koyambedu market as its backdrop - if the marketplace does not buzz with life and stories, I don't know which other place does?! Why not try a tele-serial based on the so culturally rich Tamil history? Why not showcase the lifestyle of a local tribe like the Toda tribe settled near Ooty?
The stories (even the emotional dramas which can be handled in a different way) that suit the taste and sensibility of the Tamil audience lie aplenty around us.
But then, I guess a significant part of the blame should be directed towards the settle-for-the-average audience as well. A maker, after all, caters to the general taste of the audience. When the viewers begin setting their standards high and the general taste surpasses the mundane 'evil aunt-struggling heroine' banalities, would the maker have a choice other than resorting to newer and higher forms of storytelling?!
And discussing the general taste of the audience, I remember a conversation I recently had with one of my friends. We had been talking about films and for some reason, the conversation had moved towards television and had landed on the now cult-status-attained 'Mahabharatham'.
Though I had had reservations earlier (a result of the memory etched watching the many over-the-top mythological serials telecasted in DD national when I was a kid), I had changed my opinion and had developed respect for the serial as it had made 'our' so called Eminem-listeners and Gucci handbag-wearers sit back and notice one of India's greatest legends.
And so, I asked my friend eagerly as to her opinion on the serial. I expected a comment about the Kurukshetra war or the Pandava/Kaurava clan or something related to the story. But her statement stunned me. She said,
"The guy who plays Duryodhana - with his free flowing hair and well toned physique - He is just too damn hot!"
Seriously?! What the hell?!
But the pot-boilers I am about to discuss have a similar as well as an additional meaning - "Creative work that make people forget their pots that remain boiling (and eventually spill out) on their stoves."
If you have not yet picked up what this post is about, I would be happy to lay it down plainly - Tamil tele-serials!
The following account describes an episode of a tele-serial I was forced to watch as I sat down for lunch at my home one fine day.
An old man in the tele-serial had been informed that his son-in-law urgently required an operation for his damaged kidneys that would cost a few lakhs. The old man, whose family belonged to the lower-middle class, had been shocked hearing it from the doctor and had left the hospital, devastated.
I honestly admit that I was a bit intrigued as to what would follow. And, to my utter shock, this is what followed.
The old man came walking down a road as slowly as possible. A melodramatic music started playing. The camera showed, primarily, the left side of his face. Then a shot with the camera before him showing his entire face. A shot followed showing the right side of his face. And finally a long shot showing him walking down the road. I was surprised for a moment at the way the cinematographer had tried to effectively convey the old man's emotions when it all began again. Left face. Entire face. Right face. A long shot. Repetition to probably stress the character's emotional state, I thought. And it happened again, the melodramatic music reaching its peak. Left face. Entire face. Right face. A long shot. And the character started speaking to himself, not worrying about the helpless situation but instead, literally - and I stress this to the maximum, literally - started narrating the incidents that had happened in their home from the çommencement day of the serial to the present day.
Seriously?! What the hell?!
And having mentioned 'repetition' and 'emphasis', the one aspect of the Tamil tele-serials that drives me totally crazy is the so called 'close-up shots'.
Most of the families in these tele-serials have a considerably large number of members. And if a happy event occurs (which is quite rare) in the family, the viewer is guaranteed to be subjected to two full minutes of 'close-up' torture where a close-up shot of every single member of the family is shown. The mother is happy. The father is happy. The son is happy. The daughter-in-law is happy. The sister is happy. The younger brother is happy. The elder brother is happy. The grandmother is happy. The maidservant is happy.
Fine!! We get it that every single member is happy!! Move on!!
And if a sad event occurs (which is close to every episode), the viewer is guaranteed again to two full minutes of 'close-up' torture of the family members' sadness.
And the one thing that never fails to miss out in any of these 'close-up' torture scenes is that in the occurrence of any happy event, the entire family would be happy except one fat aunt who would be twisting her lips in frustration and in the occurrence of any sad event, the entire family would be sad except the same fat aunt who would be smiling a cold,evil smile.
Seriously?! What the hell?!
With the increasing availability of foreign tele-serials in a very easy manner, I find a lot of my friends, here at college, dismissing Tamil tele-serials outright. And they wouldn't be wrong since every tele-serial that comes out of the foreign land (especially the United States since 'foreign' automatically relates to the U.S. to many) - be it The Big Bang Theory, be it Breaking Bad, be it House of Cards, be it Homeland, be it Da Vinci's Demons, be it Suits, be it Orange is the New Black - represents a different genre varying from science-comedy to crime to political to espionage to historical to legal to prison drama whereas every Tamil tele-serial that comes out here falls under one simple genre - Heroine's struggle.
The role of a tele-serial is often undervalued in our state, perhaps even in our country. The tele-serials have the great responsibility of entertaining (and if possible, educating - which I would say is mandatory) every family that watches them together, in the comforts of their home, giving it a status equal to a family member. But most of the Tamil tele-serials fail to do so sticking to the so called pot-boilers with a self assurance that families - women in general - prefer emotional dramas.
In spite of having had experimental and yet successful predecessors like 'Marma desam', 'Balu Mahendra'vin Kathai Neram', 'Veetuku veedu looty', ' K.Balachander's Sahana', the Tamil tele-serial makers hesitate to switch to different genres/storylines. I wouldn't call for an extreme leap to the science-comedy genre as in The Big Bang Theory or a CIA operational thriller as in Homeland. But why not set more tele-serials in a rural milieu? Why not showcase the life of women attached to the gangsters of North Madras? Why not set a tele-serial with the Koyambedu market as its backdrop - if the marketplace does not buzz with life and stories, I don't know which other place does?! Why not try a tele-serial based on the so culturally rich Tamil history? Why not showcase the lifestyle of a local tribe like the Toda tribe settled near Ooty?
The stories (even the emotional dramas which can be handled in a different way) that suit the taste and sensibility of the Tamil audience lie aplenty around us.
But then, I guess a significant part of the blame should be directed towards the settle-for-the-average audience as well. A maker, after all, caters to the general taste of the audience. When the viewers begin setting their standards high and the general taste surpasses the mundane 'evil aunt-struggling heroine' banalities, would the maker have a choice other than resorting to newer and higher forms of storytelling?!
And discussing the general taste of the audience, I remember a conversation I recently had with one of my friends. We had been talking about films and for some reason, the conversation had moved towards television and had landed on the now cult-status-attained 'Mahabharatham'.
Though I had had reservations earlier (a result of the memory etched watching the many over-the-top mythological serials telecasted in DD national when I was a kid), I had changed my opinion and had developed respect for the serial as it had made 'our' so called Eminem-listeners and Gucci handbag-wearers sit back and notice one of India's greatest legends.
And so, I asked my friend eagerly as to her opinion on the serial. I expected a comment about the Kurukshetra war or the Pandava/Kaurava clan or something related to the story. But her statement stunned me. She said,
"The guy who plays Duryodhana - with his free flowing hair and well toned physique - He is just too damn hot!"
Seriously?! What the hell?!
No comments:
Post a Comment