So, when I finished puking over Splitsvilla, I started thinking this post out. Why was it so offensive? Was it the shallowness? Well, it’s a TV show, how deep can it be? Was it because it was a show about girls making up to guys so as to ’survive’? Bingo!
The show’s basically the patriarchy, stripped of its veil of respectability or acceptability or tolerability (depending on your attitude to the patriarchy!) What is the patriarchy? Let me direct you to the Hon’ble Twisty, who says:
patriarchy is a violently tyrannical but nearly invisible social order based on an oppressive paradigm of class and status fetishizing dominance and submission.
Excellent. If you want details, go to Feminism 101.
Now, one of the cornerstones of how society is organised in the patriarchy, is the control of women’s bodies. You see, as one of my profs in college so eloquently put it, maternity is fact, and paternity is reputation. So the only way to establish and ensure constant paternity is to control how a woman’s body can be used. And to only allow a woman’s body o be used (a) for the pleasure of men and (b) at the pleasure of men.
And that’s what most of our society still does – works to establish and ensure that control of men over women.
Now let’s look at Splitsvilla again. See it? The girls exist in that villa at the pleasure of the boys. They exist to please the boys. They survive only if they please the boys. And what are they supposed to use to please the boys? Sex.
It clicks, doesn’t it?
6 responses so far ↓
Andre // July 7, 2008 at 2:37 am
Would a show where several men contested for the hand(s) of two women be less objectionable?
(Irrelevantly, I just realized that “hand” there is a synecdoche. )
madhumita // July 8, 2008 at 10:52 pm
hey have u come across this
http://feministcarnival.blogspot.com/
every 2nd wednesday a different blogger hosts it and show cases feminists posts ….it always makes interesting reading…
madhumita // July 8, 2008 at 11:06 pm
hey have you come across this
http://feministcarnival.blogspot.com/
the carnival happens every 2nd wednesday and is hosted by a different blogger each wednesday and compiles various feminists posts…
makes interestign reading….
maithri // July 10, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Hey, Madhu! Yeah, I’ve seen it. Very interesting, no?
Andre, welcome back, synecdoches and all! Two things to say about your question.
First, it’s not a fair question, is it? The point of the post is that the show is glamourising everything that the patriarchy uses to oppress women.
Secondly, Can you imagine a show where if men had to compete to be chosen by women? What would be the basis for choosing them? Would the show be advertised in such overtly sexual terms? Would machismo play a part? Violence?
And while such a show would still be disgusting and puke-worthy, one big reason this is objectionable is that it is endorsing patriarchal attitudes – would your imaginary show do that?
Andre // July 14, 2008 at 9:42 pm
I haven’t seen the show (nor the advertisements) , but it sounds repugnant. (The trailers are repulsive, but not for their politics.)
I asked the question because it seemed to me that a show on the other basis was equally repugnant. I think my disgust was caused by the tastelessness of the idea (and not helped at all by the fact that they are apparently located in “exotic Goa”: I have my own sore points, you see.
).
The implicit plug to the patriarchy didn’t bother me as much. If asked why I was disgusted, I might have used your explanation, but this counterexample made me realize that that didn’t wash.
All this sounds like I’m belittling the idea that such shows enforce an undesirable norm; I’m not. All I’m saying is that *my* antennae are not so well developed that I can see past my initial disgust to a second disgusting layer. Which is not cause for celebration.
maithri // July 18, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Thanks for that last comment, Andre! My only point was that a show on the other basis would not be *equally* repugnant to me – not in terms of degrees of repugnancy, but in terms of why I would find them so. So yes, I guess it’s a question of triggering the feminist antenna!