The Great American Hegemony - Bring back the British!
Out of the myriad of television channels available for viewing pleasure (Sony Pix) or in most cases, displeasure (Star Plus) to the Indian market, there is one commonality that has been scratching my brain like an infected rash. Namely, why the hell are all the English channels in India catering to American shows and American shows only?
In the insanity of crapula that Indian TV throws at the viewers, I used to find refuge in Star World. But lately, I have been second guessing myself. Watching American sitcom 'gems' like "According to Jim" and "Yes Dear," I have come to appreciate how really retarded commercial humour can be. Here's how to make a typical dialogue in an American sitcom:
Person 1: "Blah de blah blah"
Person 2: "Well, blah de blah blah blah"
(Play fake but assertive laugh track)
-Repeat-
The other day I had the chance to spend some time at a friend's house and use his Tata Sky DTH TV service. Having read that Tata Sky is the only service showing the "BBC Entertainment" channel, I decided to check it out. Not to my surprise, I found the shows compelling, substantive, and more importantly not intended for the brain dead (well most of them at least). But that is not to say that the shows are pretentious or intellectually condescending. The pity is that even Tata Sky only shows this channel from 6pm to 6am.
What's worse is the attitude of channels like Star world and Zee Cafe who take pride in "bringing [us] the latest American hit shows" - as if that should give us all a collective hard-on in our pants.
Taking this argument further, one of my pet peeves about Delhi, and perhaps India in whole, is the dismal standards of Movie halls here. On any given day, open the paper and check out the movie listings. Every move hall will show exactly the same movies - all Hollywood 'Blockbusters' - one mind numbingly stupid ass slapstick comedy / chick flick / retardo action movie after another. And while it's trite to argue that this is what the audience wants, I would contend that this is what the audience knows. People aren't necessarily stupid (though all evidence points to the opposite). But they are not movie 'buffs' at the same time, and people will largely eat what they are fed, unless they know any better, and my contention is that they don't.
But where did we as a society throw in the towel and bend over for the American media / Hollywood? And more importantly, why the shit do we continue to do so?
I can only hope that with news companies coming in to the TV industry and new technologies emerging like IPTV, the consumer is given more choice, and we get to see not just American, but British, European, Chinese, Japanese etc. shows and movies.
