Stark reality: Nothing’s too vulgar to show

MUMBAI: A drama queen host shoots off vulgar, sexually explicit questions at a contestant on her show. On another show, young men are made to slide over the oiled bodies of white women as a “task”. And the latest indignity meted out to a contestant was to administer him an enema when his partner failed to answer a GK question.
The bizarre world of Indian reality shows seems to be hitting new nadirs with every passing season.
It’s a deterioration that has caused some serious concern to onlookers but reality show producers are unapologetic, maintaining that they are not showing anything objectionable.
What’s more, even contestants play along in this clearly TRP-garnering game—a former contestant points out that reality shows are surefire launch pads for a career in soaps, and participants are willing to do just about anything for this.
Any wonder then that the vulgarity on Indian television continues unabated?
When Taranjit Kaur Raina could not name the First Lady of America during a general knowledge task on MTV’s reality show Roadies, her partner’s response was to unzip his jeans. Vinay Abhishek slumped his head, walked fatalistically towards a wooden cabin and allowed a plastic tube to be inserted into his anus. What followed was a montage of tortured facial expressions, teeth-clenching , squeals and Abhishek scurrying to the bathroom.
“Enema is a medical procedure to pump in a liquid that will clean up the intestines. Indigestion ka sara saamaan bahar nikal aata hai,” the show’s host Ranvvijay Singh says, nonchalantly chewing gum.
Enema could soon also be a procedure that television audiences get used to, given the increasingly indigestible nature of reality shows. From pixelated vital organs and Brazilian waxing to spanking and licking chilli sauce off skimpily clad women, the world of reality TV is busy creating new lows for itself with every passing season.
“I am appalled by reality shows in general,” says Arunabh Kumar, whose collective ‘The Viral Fever’ did a hilarious spoof of the Roadies auditions on Youtube. Called Rowdies , it shows a lookalike of Raghu Ram barking pointlessly at a contestant who, unlike the ones in the original show, knows his answers. “You think this is a reality show?” Ram shouts. “This is Rowdies. This is life.”
And life is the gap between enemas and nudity. Likening reality show “tasks” (contestants being asked to slide over the oiled bodies of white girls, for instance) to “soft porn” , Kumar quips that he fears reality shows might actually slide into the territory of the recently released The Hunger Games, where contestants are forced to kill one another to survive. He is also genuinely concerned about the branding of reality show winners as youth icons.
“That is why we are coming out with a show called The Reality, where we will feature people who are cool in the true sense,” he says.
It’s isn’t just Roadies—objectionable content is on offer everywhere. In an episode of Gazab Desh Ki Ajab Kahaniyaan , host Rakhi Sawant threw questions at her guest, a crossdresser named Phool Babu, that were astounding in their vulgarity. Not only was Babu asked to reveal how he spent his first night with his wife but also the circumstances that led to her conceiving. “When did you find out that your husband was a man?” Rakhi asked the pregnant wife, who even answered the question. “Did you feel good inside when you found out?” she probed further, receiving a nod in reply. “What kind of good?” she continued, making the wife blush and cover her face with her saree.
According to Siddharth Tewary, producer of serials such as Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya Hi Kijo, reality show audiences are intelligent enough to know that drama is manufactured. “Yet, they watch it for the surprise element,” he says. Unlike soaps, which he compares to “dal chawal” as they have to be consumed every day in order to establish a connect, “in most reality shows, you can watch any episode and so there is a constant effort to make the audience stop while surfing channels”.
The quest for new nadirs, then, is clearly a shot at TRPs. But Raghu Ram, the angry bald man and executive producer of Roadies, says the only thing that makes reality shows work is human drama. “My focus is to keep pulling the rug from under the feet of the contestants , to push them out of their comfort zone, fluster them and draw genuine emotions . I’m not showing anything objectionable—the only thing I’m showing is a shocking thought,” he says, adding that every bizarre task on the show is first tested on crew. So did he get an enema? “No, but another crew member who suffered from acidity did; it’s very good for you,” he says.
What make contestants agree to this indignity? “They can refuse,” says Ram. “But in nine seasons of Roadies, only one man has walked out of a task that required him to get a bikini wax. They don’t want to chicken out in front of the TV audience and of course they don’t want to be eliminated.” Former Spitsvilla contestant and Big Boss housemate Siddharth Bhardwaj adds that the desperation to stay on comes from a keen awareness that reality shows are known to launch careers in soaps and other entertainment shows. “Contestants are aware of the stakes,” he says. “So they’ll do whatever it takes to be on camera for as long as possible.”
Entertainment channels too were shocked at the MTV enema episode—Prem Kamath, executive vice-president of Channel V, calls it “desperate” and not the kind of stuff Channel V would do. “Each channel has its own internal standards, and we, for sure, would not do anything degrading or offensive,” he says. Strangely, internal standards are something even Ram swears by. Ask him why only the male contestants were administered the enema and he says: “I cannot do that to women. I can treat them equally but cannot mistreat them equally. It’s just not me.”