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Dr Jernail evaluates the entertainment industry’s rapid growth, with OTT platforms and violent content. He raises concerns about creators’ social responsibility and an ethical sensibility, for Different Truths.
“Anything that violates the ethicalities of a society, can be termed as violent.” ~ Dr J.S. Anand
From jokers in circuses and jesters in the courts, entertainment has taken great strides not only to gain a respectable place in society but also to become the nerve centre of human activity of late. In previous times, people used to work in fields, in offices, or at their respective workplaces, and the entertainment part of their lives started when the national TV started its programmes at 7.00 p.m. Or an hour or so in the morning news. [I am talking of India]. The entire day was free to do their work.
But, by and by, the idea of entertainment has inundated all the reserved segments of a man’s daily routine. Rather, it is the era of hard-core entertainment, and work has been pushed to the periphery. Technically speaking, we need entertainment only after a hard day’s labour. But now, it appears we are so bored that we are served such heavy and dense doses of entertainment without doing anything.
Films are served on OTT platforms and data is freely available to the great mass of humanity, young and old, wise, and otherwise. Wherever you are, you are accessible. So, one issue is settled. Man is thoroughly bored, and therefore, he needs hard doses of entertainment.
Films, Media, and the Nature of Violence
We need to understand the nature of violence. Bloodshed in the streets, arson, and real-life murders – are not alone in violence. It appears we have no tooth for anything which does not show sufficient violence. Taking a cue from this human weakness for violence, the entertainment industry has broken all records, particularly, in OTT platforms, where naked violence is exhibited, and brutal murders and sex scenes are clinically shot.
If art has a social edge, do our films and media have no sociality? No social responsibility?
If the Censor Board approves them, how can we raise a finger? Perhaps, they take a liberal view of an artist’s freedom to express himself. But the way things are presented calls for a bit more introspection on the part of the creators. If art has a social edge, do our films and media have no sociality? No social responsibility? Is there no need to bother that what is being presented caters to the joy of the actors and directors, and falls foul on the younger generations who are watching these shows ad infinitum?
Tragedy Versus Melodrama
Let me bring to our discussion the difference between tragedy and melodrama. Tragedy has the power to purge the emotions of pity and fear and bring about a catharsis in the hearts of the people witnessing the tragic event on stage or screen. The screen has a far vaster possibility of displaying emotions than the stage. Still, a tragedy is a tragedy. How is violence presented in a tragedy? Rather than going to Shakespeare’s tragedies, I would prefer to invoke Sholay. Everyone has seen this film, and everyone knows how Gabbar removes a moving insect on his arm, which signifies that a young boy has been killed. A lesser director or artist would have shown clinically how the boy is captured, and then, his fingers chopped off, and then, presented to the adversary.
This is called melodrama, which we see in Webster’s play ‘The Duchess of Malfi’ where half a dozen dead bodies are seen lying on the stage, or the Duchess is killed clinically by Basola.
Redeeming Aspects of Entertainment/ Tragedy
Murder loses its redeeming aspects in the hands of a propagandist, whereas in the hands of a master, it is elevated to the level of a tragedy, which has every stake in uplifting the consciousness of the viewers.
Do our OTT people who sell in millions have any regard for the soft tuning of society? Do they have any welfare agenda? Or do they regard it as a one-way ticket bankruptcy?
Where are they going, and where are they taking us all, in the absence of social commitment?
Where are they going, and where are they taking us all, in the absence of social commitment?
If literature has an elevating character, how can we excuse filmmakers and media men from this responsibility? Better, call it accountability?
What is Violence?
What is violence? Anything that violates the ethicalities of a society can be termed as violent.
It is violence when fear is sprinkled on the masses so that they do not speak. It is the pre-violence stage, as inflammable though. Then, don’t we see how girls are dealt with in our society? Is it not violence when they are forced to act against their wishes even by their parents in the name of love? Kids who must be in schools, when forced as day labourers, is it, not murder? Do we still need real-life murderers? The ‘jhoppar pattis’ [slums] are breeders not of Slumdogs, but Slum Minds also. Most of the criminals can trace their descent to these chawls – disturbed maps of human consciousness.
Just imagine how many murders, rapes, and molestations a small boy watches on his mobile?
We are talking about violence in OTT platforms. In films, which are out to entertain us. Just imagine how many murders, rapes, and molestations a small boy watches on his mobile? In thousands. Can he have a nice sleep at night? Can he grow up to be a happy youth? What do we expect from such people? Can they be decent citizens of this world? Disturbed minds, distorted visions, – they are denizens of the Wasteland, which is expanding just in front of us, and under our very feet.
Stop Showing Brutality
The International Academy of Ethics believes that artists need to realize the fact that excessive doses of brutality shown in the films, in the name of hardcore entertainment, or creative freedom, are no doubt, bringing in good returns, but at the same time, destroying the young crop. They are imbibing evil notions. Monsterisation of the mind, in which: Fair is foul, and foul is fair, – as the witches in Macbeth say, is underway on a huge scale. As actors and artists, can we allow it to go on? Can we hasten the pace of this monsterisation? Thrills have killed the man in man. They will kill the child in the child. Do you want us to commit ‘hara-kiri’?
Demons and monsters are great cheesy food for the imagination.
Demons and monsters are great cheesy food for the imagination. We have now brought them down to the real level. In films, we see evil enacted in great detail, as if this is the only way to release the pent-up emotions of a person. In fact, I would say, this entertainment is brutal and inhuman, and in every sense, unbecoming and unworthy.
Noam Chomsky talks of the “culture of violence’ in one of his interviews and goes on to accuse America of sustained violence in various forms. Are we too a part of the crime that the advanced world has committed? If we perpetuate this crime or become silent spectators, we are on the side of the criminal gangs who are spreading nonsense in the disguise of entertainment. Let us stop this nefarious practice. Enough is enough!
Picture design by Anumita Roy
