Soap Opera

A family friend visited our house a couple of days back. She was known to be a sucker for the multitude of the soap opera on the idiot box. So when we teased her about some of her favourite serials, we were surprised to hear that she had stopped seeing them all. Thus she spoke, “The portrayal of the depths to which a human being can go to find happiness in others’ faults and making others fall for one’s own upliftment was too much for me.”

The statement had so much truth in it. We have to just stop and think about it for a second. Why is it that most family serials, irrespective of the language, tend towards the blackness and villainous aspects of the human society? All one has to do is just see a few scenes in any serial, and one can feel the negative vibes coming out of it. What kind of happiness can be derived by being a sadist or by showing sadistic actions amongst one’s own relatives?

A kid, oblivious yet to the good and bad in this world, watching such an episode can learn so many negative actions and behavior, and on top of it, shall also consider it to be the norms within a family. Shouldn’t we be highlighting the positive energy, celebrating happiness, portraying the goodness of family bonding and strive to popularize the making of better citizenry all around us?

I am reminded of wonderful serials like Small Wonder, The Full House, Darpan, Malgudi Days which invariably brings a smile to the lips at the end of each episode. Those serials, to me, were of great moral value, and each episode was like a gem of knowledge and understanding. Shouldn’t that be the goal of the serial-maker?

Instead the serial-makers create a plot that absorbs the middle-aged populace with such a grip that they cannot let go of the serials in the middle – somewhat akin to a smoking addiction – and at the same time, create this disharmonious ambience in which even the viewers themselves keep shouting at the actor, director and the whole crew of the serial, by way of trying to add some sense in a scene completely devoid of it, and even go to the extent of cursing the same episode which they are seeing, but are just unable to stop seeing it altogether…