Reality TVs’ unreal shows
More people come out to expose the reality of music shows
The controversies around the forced sequences and deliberate attempts to bury talent for the sake of TRPs in reality television are now threatening to expose the drama behind such shows.
Earlier, late singer Kishore Kumar’s son Amit Kumar had criticised
the show Indian Idol for making a mockery of the legendary singer’s songs with an off-tune Anu Malik, Neha Kakkar and Himesh Reshammiya singing his songs as if in an antakshari programme rather than a talent show for good singers. Now, former Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant has also come out against the very nature of shows.
“TV channels and subsequently the production houses want to know your backstory and how poor and needy you are rather than checking on how very talented you are. There are times when a rich person can lose out on a show even though he is a good performer. Look at shows in regional languages and it is about pure singing. But Hindi singing shows are only about reality and TRPs,” says Abhijeet who’d won the first edition of the show.
Veteran writer and historian Imtiaz Baghdadi, who has also been a part of the television industry for thirty years, also agrees with Abhijeet’s claims. “A lot of talent who have been part of other shows are used in new talent shows without the show organisers even mentioning their past singing talent. The singers are presented in a way that suits the poor man’s narrative of wanting to be successful and rich after winning the talent show. And that is the basic narrative a lot of TV shows use—be it Indian Idol, Super Dancer 3 or anything else,” he adds.
reality