Soap Operas

Posted by: whitephosphorous on: January 8, 2007

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If there is anything I have a really hateful feeling about, it is Soap Operas.

Sopa Operas were originally concieved in the west. They were melodramas, meant to entertain the homemakers of the 70s, and were sponsored by soap companies, and hence the name “Soaps”.

 The first Soaps I got to know were in the early 90’s, which came with the advent of Cable TV and Foreign Channels in India. Those days, the “in-thing”was to be updated about what was going on in “The Bold and The Beautiful”, “Dynasty” , “Santa Barbara” etc. I was in high school at the time, and did not understand head or tail of the show, but was conversant with the names of all the characters, and being a teenager, was constantly having a “one-minute crush” on one or the other male character.

If you did not know about these shows, you were unpopular and were literally ostracized because of your ignorance. Such was the hold of these shows.

 But, even today, I fail to fathom the complex relationships the characters share. Suppose there is a family of 4, with Parents, son and daughter-in-law (DIL), for 6 months, son and DIL stay together. Father divorces mother and son divorces wife. Then DIL marries Father in Law. Then they both divorce. Then mother remarries father. Daughter-in-law marries someone else, divorces him and gets back with the son. Then the same cycle repeats. Gosh! Why make life so complicated?

Verncacular Channels did not stay far behind and cooked up their own stories. Since India is still having a few values, people did not dare to copy the story line directly. But they found something better- Mother-In-Law Versus Daughter-In-Law. They wear heavy make-up, decked up in Sarees, loaded with jewellery and are always talking about “Sanskaar”, “Adarsh Naari”, “Maryaada” etc.

 One among these is a evil lady, conspicous by garroulous make-up, different mannerisms and a scheming evil smile.She enters the family with the sole aim of putting the others on the streets. And each  soap is based on a “Super Rich” family, where people only speak of 500 crores or 600 crores and nothing less.

Worse, these soaps run for more than 10 years, with more than 5000 episodes. According to the story, each person must be having a lifespan of not less than 200 years, and though the characters are quite old, the people portraying them look 35 or 40 at the most. 

And they run almost 24 hours. Worse still, some channels have started airing reruns of their soaps.

Can not the discerning viewer do without them? Lets hope that in 2007 at least, restrict the entry of new soaps and end atleast a couple of the old ones.