The Venom of Web Series & Indian Society

The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan expressed his anger on the web series “Tandav” for openly violating the code of conduct in the name of freedom of speech. He informed Mr. Prakash Javadekar, the Cabinet Minister I&B and asked for an immediate ban on the web series. The posters of ‘Tandav’ were burnt in Indore and Bhopal and the protesters appealed people to unsubscribe from Amazon as this web series is showing objectionable content and disrespecting religious feelings.

The immediate action on the OTT (over-the-top) platforms is indeed commendable but Tandav is not the only web series that is harming the societal norms; they are aplenty. The visual entertainment today is dominated by online web series that are showing sexual content, drug abuse, foul language and extreme violence. Just a few in written for you:A very popular web series showing a mother asking for a cigarette to her teenage son, the other representing broken relationships and extramarital affairs to be the ‘new cool’ trend of life and most of them showing earning luxuries by hook or crook should be the sole aim of human life which is really a growing threat to Indian society and its integrity where family is considered to be the basic unit as well as the strongest foundation. The scenes of violence and cruelty are spine chilling in almost all the crime series and affect viewers’ mind and psychology adversely. Even after having finished the 'important task' of watching these harrowing series such scenes keep haunting and disturbing the viewers’ mind and heart.

The nationwide row over the vulgarity and obscenity being shown by these virtual contents should not be appeased without getting results. The degraded abusive language has become today’s parlance for youth and teenagers with a long list of cuss words (gender biased). In these popular ‘venomous series’ women are mostly portrayed as temptresses and sexual objects as if they have no other motive in their lives and no prowess to make livelihood for themselves. The theory of Literary Criticism tells us about Catharsis, ‘the effects of purgation and purification of emotions especially pity and fear through visualizing something. when a spectator finds a protagonist caught in an ugly situation, he enjoys some relief for himself as the story helps his outlook and insight to be broader and relate himself with the protagonist. This is the only reason web series are so addictive. Human brain tends to relate or compare with what it sees and perceives and the same process happens when we get involved in binge-watching these web series. Despite knowing that the characters are fictitious we take the inspiration and try to imitate them in real life.

 If we talk about the increasing popularity of these web series we will find that not  just teenagers and youth but adults are also fascinated to entertain themselves through virtual content and such platforms. The entertainment companies upload the entire series at once to encourage binge-watching and the viewers fall easily in the traps with the cliff-hangers structured at the end of every episode. Many viewers agree to the ill-effects and report repercussions on their physical and mental health along with decline in productivity as they are hooked to OTT platforms for entertainment and can’t get rid of it. 

Thought Provoking Read : How Online Outrage Kills Innocence

Almost every series shows nudity, abuse, racism and derogatory remarks on religious and cultural beliefs as there’s no governing body to monitor and censor the content on OTT platforms and these web series are given free hand to vitiate the values of our society in the name of entertainment.

We agree that OTT platform has a great future and it provides opportunities to many newcomers to showcase their acting talents but there must be a check on these contents as they are easily accessible to all age groups. It’s time to stand against such violating sources of entertainment that pollute our society and our young generation. We urge the government to set up a regulation to check the obscenity on OTT platforms.