Sad state of soap operas

Director Ranjith Sankar, who started his career through tele-serials, lamented about the declining quality of serials in Malayalam in a Facebook post. Though the quality of such serials has been a point of discussion for a long time, his post puts into focus another issue, the representation of children and the impact such shows have on the minds of the young audience.

Explaining further, he says, “I was myself working in the field of serials in the mid 90s and many times I felt that the medium was  below par. Recently, I saw an episode of a serial and I felt depressed by the content.  As a kid, I grew up watching serials like Malgudi Days, Discovery of India, Wagle ki Duniya, Nukkad, Ye Jo Hai Zindagi that were very high in standards — be it children’s serials or even female-oriented serials like Udaan. From that level, they have depreciated to this current state. In films, at least there is an attempt to create good cinema. But in serials, even this effort is absent. Any element that introduces shock value, even a father raping his own daughter gets included in the plot to increase TRP today. The main culprits behind this are the television channels. They have a very commercial approach and are not even ready to set aside one or two slots for good quality content at the cost of TRP ratings. I think, this is creating a negative impact on our kids. The representation of kids in these serials is negative and is in a poor taste. Just as we show ‘Smoking is injurious to health’ in certain scenes to warn the audience, the content should also come with a warning as it is just as injurious,” says Ranjith Sankar.

Director Kannan Thamarakulam, who recently stepped into the field of films after working on serials, had portrayed the impact and issues of serials in his recent debut movie Thinkal Muthal Velli Vare.

“Many of the serials we have today are commissioned by the channels as remakes of Bengali or Hindi serials that have proved to be TRP jackpots and have crossed 2000 episodes successfully. So, we have little control over the content and there is constant pressure from channels to add gimmicks to raise TRP. Even the serials that are labeled as children’s serials are targeted at women instead of children for higher ratings. We don’t have a real children’s programme or serial in Malayalam today. As long as the visuals look like advertisements for clothes and jewellery, the audience is not concerned about how ludicrous the story line is. As far as the children’s representation is concerned, it is more or less a reflection of our society. Our 5 year olds talk the way we used to at the age of 16. Also, since very little focus is given to visuals, the story progresses through dialogues, making elaborate and over the top dialogues necessary. But I do admit that children do imitate such speech styles and gestures in real life after watching serials, which is a very negative trend,” he says.

Filmmaker Saji Surendran, who directed serials like Alippazham and Dhaya says, “When I was involved with serials, I had the fortune of working under banners and producers who considered the artistic value and content more than the commercial aspects. Though majority of the serials today are made with a focus on how to shoot maximum number of episodes in minimum time and with minimum effort, there is still a minority who focus on content-based serials, like K.K. Rajeev. But gimmicks like child abuse are used in serials to increase TRP ratings. If you see a child and a cobra in the same room while flipping channels, whether you watch the serial or not, you pause to find out what happens. A majority of our serial audience is women above the age of 35. Since they are addicted to such serials and TRPs increase with the use of such gimmicks, this trend will continue until the next generation grows up and we have a new audience.”