User:Sumitatiss

Entry of Porno Star in Big Boss Season-5: Attempt at Objectification of ‘Women Body and Image’ Reality shows have become an “in-thing” on Indian TV channels and are attracting plenty of viewers’ attention and make a good case for TRPs for the producers. Big Boss, the ongoing reality show in India has also attracted large number of viewers. It is very interesting to watch how under an extreme controlled situation, various social actors having celebrity profile become mundane and gradually behave /misbehave in an unconventional way through team-building, association, group-conflict, leadership games, exhibit extreme individualisation, inter –personal conflicts, the desire to win, political mechanizations, psychological trauma, aggression, verbal and physical violence at times and so on. For me it is an opportunity to observe behaviour of a “controlled group”, analyze their reactions to continuous interventions made by Big Boss from a sociological perspective. While watching the show, Indian value system of human conduct never came to my mind to be associated with the participants’ overt behavior, liberal dress code or assertive actions of their “highs n lows”. In fact, I perceived this show just as an imitation of the west where individual space and liberty has no boundaries as observed by me being exposed to the west for more than a decade through my visits and stay during research assignments. As far as I knew such a show was first introduced in the name of Big Brother by Endemol, an international television production and distribution company based in the Netherlands and became a very popular reality show in US and was later introduced by UK in the year 2000. While doing my research assignment at LSE during 2008-09 in London, I watched a few episodes and am aware of the original version. Mostly, the selected participants were already exposed through popular visual media and had gained some footage by participating in various activities like modeling, drama, singing, social activism, sports etc. Imitation of Big Brother in the name of Big Boss in Indian television also started on the same footing casting participants from similar backgrounds a few years ago. But very recently, the show started getting bolder and rebellious by selecting participants from unconventional backgrounds, overt behavioural gestures, selected game preferences and innovative process interventions etc. I was quite comfortable watching a dacoit or a famous convict conducting themselves under 55 cameras in the house of Big Boss with other inmates having a wide variety of social image and professional standing in public imagery. Of late what has become a bit questionable in my mind is the entry of an Indo-Canadian porn star Sunny Leone in the Bog –Boss, season – 5, currently underway. As a feminist scholar, it raises questions in my mind as to how far media has gone in projecting ‘objectification of women body’ as a commodity and popularizing it through such reality shows. I would have felt rather appreciative of the show, if Big-Boss season- 5 could have given an opportunity to an anonymous prostitute in the bylanes of Indian small township or big cities to honour her on the same podium as a participant with other actors. As I understand prostitution is an age old social problem which is an offshoot of patriarchic social structure to meet men’s sensual orgies and therefore resulting in victimization of women as a product for the desired sexual needs of their counterparts. Such entry could revealed experiential trauma and subjugation of a woman in a vivid narrative ways through her gradual revelation of personality and life situations than a producer and a star of pornography like Suny Leone who can boast her pay check more than the Oscar winner Indian actress Freida Pinto and also millions of fans following to see her talented performance in the movies like Shut Up and ‘F*** Me’ (Economic Times, December 4, 2011) on the internet/U-tube. On the contrary same reality show, Big Boss Season -5 can take the credit by bringing in famous transgender Laxmi Narayan. If viewers in case have taken some interest to know her (which I doubt whether there were any such viewers), they would have know an unique case of Laxmi who held the distinction of being the only Hijra in the UN’s Civil Society Task Force on HIV/AIDS and her active participation for the ‘Hijra’ community through her campaign group ‘Astitva’. Such move also was experimental and might carry positive image for these marginalized section of our society labelled ‘Hizra’. But popularizing a porno star and, therefore tacitly glamorizing ‘pornography’ through most accessible visual medium like TV show to millions of Indians across the nation is no experimentation of art and culture. On the contrary, pornography is a conscious attempt to ‘objectify’ women body in various sensual contexts to please men’s pleasure towards sexuality. Such sexual objectification encourages treating ‘women body’ merely as an instrument (object) of one's sexual pleasure (popularly male), and making ‘the woman ‘as a sex object’. Pornographic projections and reconstructed sexual acts therefore pose a threat to women in all contexts be it west or east. Feminist scholars may argue that once it is paid for sex, woman gives away her freedom over sexuality. Selling “sex” and projecting “sex” through visual medium can stigmatize and cripple woman’s social identity. Such projection can jeopardize standards of sexual morality and promote negative attitudes towards sex, which needs to be challenged. Overt display of women sexuality and consummation of women body as desired by the male perception, sexual fantasies, unnatural urges may dominate the behavior of males encouraging rape, domestic violence or physical violence against women. Hence promoting such experimentation in visual media might have negative impact on society like India where approximately 70% women are victims of domestic violence and overall violence against women is also on the rise (United Nation Population Fund Report (UNPF), 2005 as cited http://www.wecanendvaw.org/gender-fact-file/india ; Crime in India, 2010). Ms Sunny Leone is not only a popular porno star but also a porno movie producer in the US. My concern area here is that post-liberalised era has already brought significant erosion of values in terms of breaking up of age old traditional social and normative structures leading to various socio- psychological anomies like breaking up of joint families, rising of divorce rates, single parenthood, drug addiction, rave culture, speed dating and violence among youth etc. By adding such “spicy item”, i.e., a porn star through a popular TV reality show what media is trying is to  propagate the acceptance of pornography as a part of modern life further denting the fragile fabric of Indian culture and value system. Ms Leone’s interview (printed by Times of India) recording her bold life story of breaking her virginity at 16, choosing to be a porn star consciously over her previous ambition of becoming a nurse and how she was awarded ‘Penthouse Pet’ through her bold and nude exposition of ‘sex play’ can possibly affect young minds.

How many of them by now might have searched pornographic sites and given a single US dollar membership to watch sunny Leone and enjoyed nudity and women sexuality can be anybody’s guess? Hundreds of Leone’s videos have gone viral since her interview followed by her entry in Big Boss (Economics Times of India, December 4, 2011). Women in post liberalised era have already been targeted to be objectified, exploited and misused through various social mechanisms and instruments to deprive them of the fruits of their labour, capital, political, economic rights and so on. But commoditization of women body and image is one of the aspects media has captured, capitalized and utilized at large in the last one decade. Several advertisements projecting ‘ideal body and women image’ through popular print and visual media to sell products be it soap, a film, a piece of cloth or a high tech laptop corroborates the foregoing views. However, popularizing ‘Pornography’ can be an unintended consequence of entry of Ms Leone in reality TV. In India derogatory projection of objectification of ‘women body, image and sexual space’ is legally banned and has attracted several penal provisions (Sec.292 of the Indian Penal Code which was incorporated from the Act 36 of 1969). Pornography is a systematic objectification and public display dehumanizing women body as ‘human furniture. British artist Aalen Jone’s "Hat Stand and Table Sculpture" incorporates similar concept by exhibiting semi-naked women into furniture could be a prominent example of ‘sexual objectification’. Big –Boss Season 5 hosted by leading Bollywood stars Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt by including a porno star and producer Ms Leone for the first time in the reality show has prominently objectified ‘women body and sexuality’ through evoking interest of variegated audience. Projection of the porno star by the media evinced massive response from the viewers to stop her eviction from the show on 3rd December, 2011. Media seems to have successfully influenced thousands of viewers who would love to watch her a little longer in the ‘house’ so that they can have more opportunities of visual pleasure like striptease style of performance swinging her curves around a pole with the tune of remix of “ ye mera diwanapan hai”, yamma yamma of old film song ‘Sholey’ or rain dance and many more in the offing! Not only the ordinary viewers but even a Bollywood producer-director is keen to offer her roles in the movie. Such shows may endanger the moral texture of our society and can have serious ethical implications of wider consequences for women at large. The negative legacies of the sexual revolution of nudity and exposition of women body in the west and its propagation in India by media does not amount to any constructive service to the society. May be such popular visual media needs a modest re-think towards understanding, intricate and entrenched value system of our society that still thrives in our bone marrow. Should popular media be driven to push up the TRP ratings by projecting such ‘objectification’ of women? What should be the limit of projection of ‘women’ as a muse of entertainment? To what extent we can import and imitate western culture and propagate through media? All these questions   may have potential to raise serious debates and discussions. Hence, entry of a porno star in a reality TV show, though, was a bold experiment by the media in consonance with the global trends but is highly questionable in the context of a multi-cultural and ethnically complex societal gamut like India. Even in the 21st century India, the mind-set represents a continuum where on the one end extreme conservatism and on the other neo-liberalism co-exists. Therefore such flirtations with the perception of viewers can add more to women vulnerability. Such shows are likely to influence male ‘psyche’ to expect women as subservient and an instrument to please to male desires like the present porno star who is willing to perform anything and everything as ordered by the host. Media has the positive and negative power to impact society but by promoting ‘objectification’ through reality TV show Big Boss Season-5, what stand has it taken is left to the imagination of the readers.

- Dr Sumita Sarkar, Dean, IBSAR, Navi Mumbai.