Bigg Boss! 'entertainment' or 'perverse pleasure', Karan Oberoi questions?

Irrespective of the positive and negative criticisms surrounding it, Big Boss is breaking all the records of TRPs every single day. Despite being one of the longest-running shows, there are people who are not in favour of the concept as a medium of entertainment. One among these is Karan Oberoi, an actor who has contributed to the Indian Television Industry for quite a long span of time.

Karan compares the plot of the show to that of “reminiscent of the gladiatorial fights in the Roman arenas when people cheered bloodshed! Goaded, urged to kill! Just for the sake of their viewing pleasure.”

Speaking further, he says, “A couple of individuals locked in a house, reduced to their most primal instincts, bereft of any dignity and under duress to see who would crack first, emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually, and call it a “Game” and survival of the  “fittest”. The trauma these individuals go through gives vicarious pleasure and entertainment to millions of onlooker and their voyeuristic appetites. They bicker, we snicker! They break, we judge! They cry, we take sides! The weak suffer and we cheer on the strong! The physical death of a human being is now reduced to an emotional, spiritual death of us as an audience and them as participants.”

So, are we getting increasingly de sensitised, Karan Questions?

Considering the degrading conditions of the society, the actor cum singer raises concerns over the prevailing scenarios in the entertainment industry. Citing another example of Russia, he stated, “Funded by a billionaire, the spin-off has already happened in Russia where people are supposed to kill one another for a prize money while simultaneously entertaining the millions of viewers. Is this civilisation in reverse? Or is there a paradigm shift in what we call ‘civilised’ now?”

Karan is still searching for the answers and so are we.