Friday, December 05, 2014

Bigg Boss-8 TV Reality Show Is Turning Into A 'Big Yawn'

Bigg Boss is slowly turning into one big yawn. And I’m one of the few people I know who is extremely accepting of its mediocrity. The one thing you can usually bank on Bigg Boss for is some high jinks drama. 

But ever since Kim Kardashian turned into a no-show, Bigg Boss seems to have run out of steam. It’s the same old screaming matches, faux fisticuffs and slightly suspect romances. So, what’s been going under at the Bigg Boss house in the last week or so?

1. Puneet Issar seems to be suffering from the Angry Old Patriarch Syndrome. Puneet Issar, Duryodhana of yore, seems to still be reliving that role. At any given moment, Issar is ready to scream, shout and threaten other contestants with physical abuse. He occasionally roughs up one or the other of the female contestants by crashing into them during some task or the other, and then doesn’t see it necessary to apologise. After all, he’s the family elder. It’s his right to be physically abusive. And then gossip about the everyone in the show, who are most probably a third his age. If you want to learn how not to behave when you grow old, watch Puneet Issar. Also, what’s with the crotch-hugging shorts into which he tucks his T-shirts? My eyes, my eyes.

2. If you like the boy, kiss him. The only impressive part of the show this time around is the fully blooming romance between Diandra Soares who must be in her mid-Thirties and the utterly horribly behaved Gautam Gulati, who must be in his mid-Twenties. Diandra and Gautam who occasionally vanish into various corners of the house to canoodle, decided to bring things out in the open when Diandra - to prove her love for Gautam and in a fit of anger – kissed him in front of the other contestants. I think this is the first time that two contestants have smooched each other on reality TV in India. And it’s always good to see a woman to take matters into her own hands. Good for Diandra, but if only her taste in men wasn’t so wretched.

3. All slumdog no millionaire. According to Issar - yes, he’s my all-time favourite as you can see, Pritam who is one of the other contestants who has fallen out of favour with him is a jhhoparpatti kind of guy. Which means he’s from a slum. Which you see is the worst thing you can be. Far better to be from South Bombay and screaming and shouting and punching people and wearing inappropriate crotch-hugging pants.

4. There’s a pecking order of celebrity. Even the algae of celebrities has some plankton to look down on. Dimpy Ganguly, whose only claim to fame is that she married the catch of the century, Rahul Mahajan in a television reality show, considers herself more of a celebrity than Pritam. According to her, Pritam has got his first taste of fame on the show, before this he was a nobody and this exposure has gone to his head. Now, Pritam is a well-known RJ in Bombay and has a fan following of his own. But that hardly makes him a celebrity. To be a true celebrity and wax eloquent on others you need to marry into a political family or have had some run-in with Bollywood at some point in your dodgy career.

5. Popular people who sexually harass others must be forgiven in due course. I had been most impressed that when one of the contestants, Ali, had inappropriately touched another contestant’s thigh, he had been roundly ticked off by all the participants. It had also been announced that he would not be eligible to be Captain of the Bigg Boss house for the rest of his stay. This is a fate worse than death in the Bigg Boss house. But since Ali is considered one of the most popular contestants on the show – yes Indian audiences, it doesn’t say much about you – last night it was decreed that his punishment had been revoked. So go forth and feel up women again. Just make sure you’re an entertaining popular fellow, and all will be forgiven.

Bill Cosby would have been very happy in the Bigg Boss house.

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