Fourteen strangers under one roof for 90 days,with around 30 cameras following their every move,all the time,Bigg Boss has consistently invited immense curiosity. The reality show is well into its fourth season,but what is striking this time round is how many of the celebrities chosen for the show have had a close brush with the law.
The contestants this time include senior criminal lawyer S.G. Abbas Kazmi,who was sacked as the counsel for Ajmal Kasab,Rahul Bhatt (who hit the news for his acquaintance with David Coleman Headley,who is now charged with scouting targets for 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks),Seema Parihar,an ex-convict who spent 18 years in the jungles of Chambal,and Devinder Singh aka Bunty Chor,who has nearly 500 court cases pending against him and inspired the film Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!.
Bigg Boss has made big news on its own. While Bunty has already been evicted from the show,during which he covered the camera lens with a sock and abused the producers,the show has been slammed by forces outside the house too. The Shiv Sena wants the show scrapped because of the Pakistani contestants Ali Saleem,who uses the alias Begum Nawazish Ali,and is the host-scriptwriter of a well-known talk show in Pakistan,and Veena Malik,a model and former girlfriend of Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Asif,who was in the news for her revelations on the Pakistani cricket match-fixing scandal. Now being shot under high security,the show is operating under heavy pressure. One wonders how this will bear out on the other participants.
This isnt the first time that news channel favourites have been part of mass entertainment on TV. Rahul Mahajan is the obvious case in point. Soon after his father,the BJP politician Pramod Mahajan died,he was arrested by Delhi police on charges of possessing and consuming drugs. And while news of his failed marriage was still doing the rounds,he was seemingly perfect for the show. Mahajan hasnt stopped at one reality show though he went ahead and found himself a wife on another television contest. Now,his new wife has accused him of domestic violence,news that again brought him back into the public glare. For those whom the news television cameras have tired of,entertainment shows like Bigg Boss are the perfect opportunity to revive their sagging popularity.
But why do these shows work? Clearly,there is an avid audience out there that wants to see Veena Malik put on her make-up and chatter about shady dealings in Pakistani cricket,or wait for Kazmi to throw in an interesting new detail about Kasab. Part of their appeal is that viewers want to know more about the news,with all the anecdotes and asides that news stories may not provide. Apart from the sheer fun of watching contestants live in a television hothouse,struggling to survive on the show and sparring with each other which is the draw of all reality TV these new participants exert a special fascination. They are already interesting to us,thanks to their news splashes.
Of course,the appeal of such shows is still the sense they give you,of being a fly on the wall and a silent judge of these personalities.
The logical extension of these reality show formats is,perhaps,a camera recording the messy legal proceedings of a celebrity divorce,or even a plastic surgery and all this voyeurism will still be justified by the important-sounding tagline,promising you the real person behind the celebrity mask.
sharon.fernandes@expressindia.com
