The unreal Reality TV!

https://www.reddit.com/r/LGBTindia/comments/1mgqjr8/l
esbian_couple_in_bigg_boss_malayalam_7/

Everyone's actions and inactions are being scrutinised with a fine-toothed comb. Their activities may become a yardstick by which their downline can measure themselves. People are always on the lookout for gossip as well as something new to try out, no matter how outlandish or impractical it is. In other words, monkey see and monkey do, bypassing the higher centres altogether. It is referred to as fashion or high culture, depending on the context.

Fashion and culture are constantly shifting. What is considered the latest avant-garde idea today could be outdated in the blink of an eye. Tomorrow's runways in Milan and Paris will feature fashions that your grandmother wore in the 1970s. 

The media plays a vital role in determining what is in and what is out. What magazines and newspapers used to popularise in the 20th century is now done by TV and social media. People perform outlandishly silly and dangerous things just for the fleeting moment in the limelight. 

It started with putting the camera in front of people to see how they would react in a potentially embarrassing moment. The final outcome turned out hilarious. Everyone had a good laugh. The antics seen on "Smile! You are on Candid Camera" remain iconic to this day.

Then somebody thought, "Why not put the camera in front of the faces 24/7 and see how they react!" Thus was born the concept of reality TV, as seen in shows like Big Brother and Survivor. People became accustomed to living their day-to-day lives under scrutiny. Slowly, their real, hidden, ugly sides began to show. When elimination of contenders remained the mainstay of the game, the contestants had to dig deep to make a pact with the devil to bring down the other.

Maybe because it is actually voyeurism—a trait scorned in decent societies—reality TV provides a legitimate avenue to peep into people's private lives and vote them in or out. If voyuerism is an accepted behaviour, surely bad-mouthing, foul language and evil intent are alright, as that is what happens in real life. They must call it reality TV for a reason. So that kind of behaviour is the norm, then bitching and cuzzing must surely be. 

What people fail to realise is that, even though it is called reality TV, the whole thing is, in reality, scathingly scripted to boost viewership. The producers will continue to push the boundaries of obscenity and impolite social etiquette just to earn money. People, being spineless, will use them as the yardstick for what it means to be current, just as the Kardashians set the standards for how family dynamics should be.

Recently, on Big Boss Season #7 Kerala Edition, the participation of an openly lesbian couple, Adhila Nasarin and Fathima Noora, created a lot of discussions amongst the conservative section of society. Whilst the younger generation feels everyone has the right to live life as they wish, and moments like this were profoundly affirming, others think shows like these try to normalise LGBTQ culture. By the way, after years of struggle, the couple obtained a landmark injunction from the Kerala Courts in 2022, affirming their rights as consenting adults to live together.

Broadly speaking, Donald J Trump is actually the product of one such reality TV show and is currently living in an illusion of an episode of his 'The Apprentice'. He makes sudden, unprovoked, random statements, then retracts his statements. Then one of his sycophants would sing his praises and suggest something outlandish, like nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize, to get everyone talking. Like in these shows, where viewership and rating are everything (to draw advertisers), he is perpetually in the headlines all the time to boost his own rating. This is complemented by the constant blowing of his own horn. It is out of tune, but who is going to tell?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

div style="text-align: center;">

Sandwiched!

https://davisfinancialllc.com/financial-planning-in-the-sandwich-generation/

The other day, I had a long chat with an old secondary school friend of mine. It was simply an ordinary conversation covering various topics of mutual interest, like many times before. We fondly recalled the carefree days of a bygone era when the future was a blank sheet of paper eagerly waiting to be coloured with our choices and imagination, guided by our family and friends, whether positively or negatively.

So, during the last phone call, my friend went on a rant about one of our mutual friends who had no control over his children. He claimed they had him wrapped around their fingers. This common friend, let's call him Joe, is a widower who lost his wife ten years ago to cancer. He had to play both mother and father to his two teenage girls then. Over the years, despite the ups and downs of their adolescence, he managed to raise them into independent women who have carved out their own futures. 

What is Joe's problem, then? He feels that his common friend's daughters are not sympathetic to his situation and do whatever they please without considering his feelings. He worries that Joe will be left alone in his twilight years to fend for himself. The daughters are already planning to live their lives abroad. 

I wanted to tell my schoolmate, "What's your problem? You are in no position to comment. You don't have children. You don't talk!”

 

Being the nice person I am, I didn't say that. I just told him it was complicated. 

You see, my classmate was so full of himself that he never hitched up to anyone until he was 50; that too in a long-distance relationship with someone beyond the prime of her youth. 

What my schoolmate feels right now is no different from how my wife and I felt before we had children. We had such grand ideas about how we wanted to shape our children to perfection when the time came. We once scorned tantrum-throwing kids and promised our children would not behave that way. Of course, all of that proved to be false in real life. Many compromises had to be made, and ideal parenting only existed beautifully in our imaginations. 

Then there were the external influences in the form of TV, especially sitcoms, which gave a composite picture of what ideal parents should be like. These TV parents never raise their voices. They take in all abuses and forgive them in the spirit of learning. They allow dating and weekend sleepovers. A bear hug resolves all uncertainties. 

After that, Oprah and her new wave of human empowerment strode in. Suddenly, traditional values disappeared. In came Dr Oz and his quackery. Everyone at some stage believed they had PTSD of some sort and felt they had to speak out against the cruelty of the world. If the boomers thought they would be strong, they were mistaken. They saw the world as hostile and threatened to retreat into a safe space they would create for themselves. The rest of the world would be shut out, and time would seem to stand still for them.  

The internet crept in, which no gatekeeper could hold, throwing parental control into disarray. What parents had aimed to teach through their example over the years was shattered as an unseen force, from God knows where, rattled everything overnight. There was no turning back.

 

My classmate would never realise that people of my generation are part of the sandwich generation, meaning those with both children and elderly parents. We have to kowtow to our parents and bend backwards to meet the whims and fancies of our children, sandwiched between two dominant generations. One demands its way or no way. The other wants things not now, but yesterday!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A problem many would like to have...

While scavenging around for the next topic to ponder, I came across a conundrum a friend of a friend was going through. Not many would find it a big problem. Many would not mind inheriting that problem. Others would say, "What problem?"

After working all their lives engaging with various businesses to pull themselves out of the shackles of poverty, they can say they have arrived. No, thanks to the governmental racially discriminatory policies, and despite this, they had managed to give their three children an overseas education. Again, the children had opted to settle overseas because of the national social re-engineering policies. The roots are so deeply embedded elsewhere that they find it pointless to return to the roost. Their occasional summer vacation and digital connections would suffice for family bonding.

The couples are left to fend for the coop and the empty nest. To complement that, there are multiple landed properties, real estate assets, various incomes, and a stash of moolah to lubricate their silver years.

None of the children are keen to take over the legacy the parents will soon leave. In the minds of the foreign-educated liberty thinking, socialistic minds of the offspring, they do not want anything with their capitalistic parents' money, which they would be thinking was earned through the blood and sweat toiled by the bodies of the working class. And they want none the part of it.

So, the elders are left with a dilemma. How will they will off their legacy when none of their kids want to inherit it. In a world where siblings and relatives clobber and murder each other to get a piece of the meat, here they have to deal with no one wanting their hard-earned.

Many individuals with apparently noble intentions (?really) have no dearth of suggestions and avenues on how to dispose of their wealth to the world. There is no shortage of NGOs willing to put their money to good use, more than a hundred orphanages and homes that are always short of contributions, the house of worship with their bottomless pit of donation kits and private entities that could set up trusts to aid the needy. Yet, they decided to spend it all with close friends, fine dining, rewarding their palate and seeing all the things that they could see in this lifetime. Who knows what holds for them in the future when this life is through? An abyss? A new beginning with no recollection of what transpired here and now? Or…

I attended a friend's 80th birthday recently. It was a celebration of a man's life who had every right to show and motivate others through his slow journey of rags to riches. After a fulfilling life in the civil service, corporate world, and academia, he is engrossed in spirituality. He took it his life's mission to pay back to society. He finances needy students and also engrossed himself in social activities. His secret to success and happiness is his outlook on life. He shields off every hurdle that comes his way with a smile.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The schizophrenic society...

Das Lehrerzimmer (The Teacher's Lounge, German; 2023)
Director: Ilker Çatak

I feel lucky to have been born at the time I was born. If I were born to be a young adult at the present time, living in a 'so-called' developed nation, there is no absolute reason why I should not be a raving lunatic. The society is broken. Nobody respects anybody anymore. Power is too democratised. People with the most miniature brains are given on a silver platter the right to manage something they cannot handle - their rights. People think they know what they want, but they know diddly-squat. The individual is more important than the community. Personal liberty is more important than the common good of the community. Everyone demands the right to know about everything, but at the same time, there is a compulsion to protect information and privacy.

This schizophrenic environment of today makes eccentricity the default mode of people's response. For every move perceived as offensive by the other, the whole extent of legal jargon is employed. The long arm of the law is utilised for what will make everyone more miserable than they already are. The lawyers are the only ones who seem happy in the process, laughing all the way to the bank.

The society members immerse themselves in a pool of paranoia, low-esteeming and suspicious of their neighbours, and high-strung in a cesspool of siege mentality. 

The movie takes us to a German secondary school where somebody notices money goes missing in the teachers' lounge. The disciplinary teacher decides to run a spot check on students. A student of immigrant background is found to have a lot of money. The student's parents insist that the money was his allowance and accuse the school of racial profiling. Carla, a newbie class teacher of the student, decides to conduct her own investigations. 

She leaves her laptop camera on to record the possible thief. She thinks she possibly recorded a probable offender and confronts that person, Kuhn. Unfortunately, the accused denies everything and turns against her, accusing Carla of invading her colleagues' privacy. Carla reports the situation to her principal, who worsens the problem. She decides to report the case to the police. Kuhn is suspended. 

That soon develops into a living hell for Carla. Kuhn's son, who studies in Carla's class, demands to know what is happening? As investigations are ongoing, the school board decided to keep it under wraps. Soon, all the students' parents insisted on knowing what was happening. The student editorial board demands to know the whole truth. They publish truths and half-truths under the banner of freedom of expression. The school is in mayhem, doing everything except teachers' teaching and students' learning. 

In this modern generation, schools are doing everything except learning. They try to pinpoint scapegoats for all their failures and bring down others for making the level field lopsided, in their minds, of course. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Fighting the system?

Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016)

Director: Alankrita Shrivastava

This is one of those movies which could not be screened at a film festival in India because the censors could not clear it for public screening. I was later accused of being too 'female-centric' and pornographic in its audio and visual narration. After a few cuts, it was passed for viewing.

The fact of the matter is that they cannot be too kosher when the theme of the story is about female sexuality and its suppression thereof. To be frank, this 2016 film is mild compared to what people in 2023 can access on their streamed platforms in their dialogue and boldness in showing skin.

On the subject matter, one cannot help but compare it to 2023'sAmazon Prime's 'Four More Shots'. Both may appear to be talking about women's empowerment or feminism. At deep scrutiny, one will realise that the emphasis is different, poles apart. It also shows how the women's movement had evolved from one demanding their deserved rights to equal opportunities to one which wanted to dominate the other.

'Lipstick Under The Burkha' shows how ladies of a time screamed discrimination and yearned not to be pushed down from doing their own thing. It tells the story of four ladies who want to escape social oppression. A teenage girl from a conservative Muslim family dreams of a carefree life where she dresses up like her pop idol, Miley Cyrus - dressed sexily, with makeup and accessories that go with it. Forced to don a hijab and spend time in the family business of tailoring, she wants to participate in a band, wear sexy clothes and join the popular clique of students. To sustain her secret lifestyle, she goes shoplifting.

Next, a hijab-clad housewife is living a fearful life with a hostile husband who wants sex on demand and refuses contraception. The husband hardly brings home money but rejects the idea of his wife going to work. The wife, on the sly, works as a door-to-door salesgirl and a very good one at that. She even wins the best employee award. One day, she spots her husband in the romantic company of a young lady.

The small-time beauty parlour artist wants to be able to see the world. She desires to escape the rat hole she lives in. She lost her father at a young age, and her mother worked hard to sustain life. Her mother wants to get married as marriage assures her a respectable place in society. She knows because she went through hell trying to earn some money. The mother tries to matchmaker a groom. The groom wants to make her a full-time housewife, but the girl has a sizzling affair with a photographer who is only interested in her body. They plan to elope.

The final character is a 55-year-old spinster who is a respectable figure in her colony. She plays a matriarchal figure in handling day-to-day issues. Her secret indulgence is reading trashy romance novels. While babysitting some children at a pool, she is tricked into jumping into the pool. The children's swimming instructor offers her swimming lessons because she cannot swim. She develops a crush and starts stalking the instructor, engaging in phone sex. The instructor has soft spots for another girl and assumes the caller is the girl he fancies.

All the clandestine activities finally come out into the open - the shoplifting, the part-time job, the plan to elope and the double life of the 55-year-old spinster. The ending is not pleasant, highlighting the double standards of society. It is predominantly patriarchal and cultural as well as religious teaching just gives an authoritative seal of approval for it to continue. 

On the other hand, 'Four More Shots Please!' (FMSP) gives the vibe that its message could be anti-establishment, anti-patriarchal or downright anarchical. The four ladies again, seen in FMSP, range from a divorcee, one in the marriage market for a suitable match, a free-spirited bisexual, to a lawyer who all share a common bond. They enjoy meeting up in a drinking joint, overindulging and pouring out their hearts' discontent about life with no restraint. It is said to be India's answer to the U.S.' Sex in the City' (SITC). LUMB and SITC try to educate their viewers about an entity called female sexuality or the lack of its awareness in India (in the case of LUMB). In my view, FMSP portrays all males as shallow and evil. They paint a picture of Indian ladies swimming in a cesspool of male toxicity. To be able to stay afloat, they need to fight the patriarchal society, the system and fellow members who are immersed in the system.

Hindu temple in Lahore

Even under slavery or apartheid, people were not in unison supporting the status quo. Pockets of dissent were heard from people who were victims as well as those who benefitted or were not involved in it. One should assume that if the other party is not one of them, they must be against them. Jews would not have escaped Germany. Pakistani Hindus are still able to fulfil their Vedic requirements despite the presence of an intensely hostile environment against idolatry there! It is the system, not the people. But then, people make the system and can be herded to change their thinking, which could change the status quo.

N.B. Why is the lipstick generally red? It is postulated that sexual arousal increases blood perfusion to the lips. In fair-skinned females, lips assume a redder hue. Hence, the application of red lipstick entices the observer to see what is in store!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Blame it on the State; nobody takes any responsibility anymore!

Mare of Easttown (Miniseries, Season 1; 2021)

HBO

Even though this miniseries has been showered with praises and accolades for its outstanding storyline and exciting characterisation, I cannot stop thinking of the society it depicts. Sadly, such dysfunctional families are the norm and maybe a prescient occurrence in the near foreseeable future.

Mare @ Marianne Sheehan is a detective in the local police department in a small town in Pennsylvania. So many things are playing in her mind. Her adult son had recently hung himself. His toddler son, Mare's grandson, is under her care as his mother, Mare's daughter-in-law, is institutionalised for drug addiction. Mare's teenage daughter is angry with her for her brother's death, while Mare's ex-husband, living just behind her home, is getting engaged. Meanwhile, Mare's mother, who stays with her, breathes down her neck, critical of her every move.

At the work front, things are not looking too rosy either. A one-year unresolved case of a missing girl is making its rounds in the media again, and a new murder of a young teenage mother takes centre stage. Since it is a small town, many of the people she knew were somehow implicated or have to clear themselves in the murder inquiry.

On a personal level, her close friends become murder suspects one by one. There is so much of falling in love, out of love and affairs in the town that it looks like everybody is or has been linked romantically at one point or another. Many youngsters there are psychologically disturbed and yearn to find an outlet for their perceived 'stress of modern living'. Even Mare, a grandmother, is hot on the trail of the dating scene as two men woo her to be their beau.

I could not help but wonder what brought society to this - a culture so confused and struggling with its day-to-day handling of life. It is not just Tinseltown's picturisation of an imagined family. It very much portrays reality. Someone was commenting on this topic recently. 

Between the beginning of the 20th century all through the 1960s, the  USA was considered the most powerful nation in the world. The country was endowed with very working citizens and immigrants who were one-minded in wanting to progress in life. They followed the mantra of holding his ambition as his sole purpose in life and work towards this end. He had his set of rules to follow, and he took responsibility for all his actions. The State did not interfere with his day-to-day living. A man's failure is his own, no fault of others, and nobody is going to bail him out. At the end of the day, this man did well. Even if he did not reach the stars, he did at least the Moon.

A few things derailed this arrangement. Firstly, it is the demand for rights. Everybody felt that it was their divine right to the entitlement of some basic needs in life. The desire to do whatever they wanted was enshrined. And the State became a Nanny to ensure it is carried out. If one wants to have a child outside the confines of marriage, it is her right. The State will intervene to offer financial and social support. The enforcement arms of the State will ensure it is done.

Secondly, contraception liberated society from the hustle of worrying about the sequelae of coitus. They had been freed sexually. They were in control of reproductive power. So they thought. They did not realise that contraceptive failure was a reality and had to be dealt with. Again came the State to help out. But what about emotional support when needed? Society's morality code that fit an agrarian society had changed to accommodate of industrialised one.

In 1950, when Ingrid Bergmann was riding high as the silver screen diva, known for her fabulous screen presence in Casablanca, was denied a visa to the USA. She was Swedish, had just done 'Stromboli' and had an affair with her Italian director, Roberto Rossellini. The illicit union produced offspring. Bergmann was denied entry on this account - a person of such stature, potentially influencing the doe-eyed fans with had dressing and morality, was a bad example to the then conservative American. The American Movie Industry had strict moral codes after the Roaring twenties, which led to the Prohibition Era. 

Things have indeed changed now. Look at the public rallying behind Britney Spears fighting her Conservatorship. In that case, her father had petitioned the Courts for guardianship. Because of her bipolar disease, he feels she is incapable of controlling her finances and making appropriate decisions of her fecundity. See the rallying cry behind Spears; they say it is her life. As if the elements of Nature are dutybound to bear the brunt of our follies!

With the human rights movement and the need for individual expressionism came feminism. Rather than toeing in line with the preset social mores, they demand rights. The right to stand alone, without the significant support by their side, plays victimhood for all society's past bullying and demand reparations. Unfortunately, the Universe does not work that way. It is indeed the union of the Male and Female cosmic energies that maintain the equilibrium of the celestial bodies.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The naked truth about gender equality!

Soni (Hindi, 2018)
Direction: Ivan Ayr

I always thought that having female-only buses and trains are steps in the wrong direction. We seem to be going back to the dark ages when members of the fairer sex were preferably not seen and not heard. Not only they were handed the dubious title of the root of sins, but they were also killed at birth. Even though we like to think that the ignorant era of jahiliyyah is over, in reality, it is anything but done with.

On the other spectrum, we have people who insist that gender is fluid, that gender expression (identity) is a social construct. They posit that gender is a continuum between masculine and feminine, can vary with time and is different from sexual orientation (attraction). 

Gender studies started as an interdisciplinary academic field to improve female representation in public life and pursue women's equality. Of late, however, the emphasis is more on LGBTQA+ issues rather than fulfilling their original objective, which, sadly, remains unfinished. The world is more interested in getting unisex toilets and giving the right to an individual to change his gender at will (e.g. transwomen)!

In their day-to-day life, the reality on the ground is that despite all the empowerment they have been given over the years, it is far from satisfactory. The slow-moving movie, minus all glitz and pomp often associated with Bollywood film, tells us how women get a raw deal in society. At the centre of the story is Soni, a police sub-inspector. She seems to have gotten through a rough patch with her boyfriend and lives alone in a rented flat. Her neighbour is a nosy but caring older lady who had her way of warding unwelcomed attention from roving eyes of male eyes in her younger days. She wore a sindoor even though she is Muslim. The vermillion gave her protection. Soni is working under a kind female IPS officer who has problems of her own. Working in a male dominant force is no bed of roses. Add that to harassment from VIPs and politicians, at the home front, she is constantly reminded of her ticking biological clock.

Even though the force has assigned the power to Soni to uphold the law, she feels inadequate. The thugs only look at her sex, not the authority that she carries. Even her boyfriend feels she needs his presence to ward off the unsavoury crowd.

It is not all feminism in your face for viewers. In between the story, the screenwriter tells how ladies utilise their so-called vulnerable position for their advantage. A female tenant who is on arrears with her rental accused her landlord of molesting her. She thought she could get away from paying her outstanding rent. Sometimes the weak use their victimhood to their advantage.

Rather than just demanding and demanding more rights for women, advocates for women empowerment should call for a societal change in mindset. It is said that the aetiology of treating women as second class citizens starts with the family itself. Mothers treat their sons as their prized possession and their daughter playing second fiddle to the family needs. Mothers are told to knock in the idea into their sons the female gender need to be respected by example. And Bollywood has its hands tainted for picturising females as objects that need replacement ever so often, whilst the male actors still perform as heroes even at 70. The love interests, however, are young enough to be their granddaughters. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.