‘Image of Woman in Marathi TV Serial’ was the subject of discussion at Asiatic Society, Mumbai as a part of ‘Jagatik Marathi Din’ which is to be celebrated on 27th February. The panel of discussion consisted of Marathi film producer-director Viraaj Raje, Writer Ambarish Mishra, Aruna Joglekar, Marathi Film Critic Soumitra Pote and actress Rohini Hattangadi. After a brief introduction, Ambarish Mishra ,channelled the discussion by stating that TV serials do decide the cultural standards of the society.
Aruna Joglekar, who is a dialogue writer of many popular Marathi serials, stressed that the daily soap scenario is not dominated by creative people, but people with money bags. She stated, “An Advertisement company approaches a channel to make a serial, with a particular region in mind, because their surveys show that there’s huge untapped market available there. The interference is so much that I had to dilute my dialogues in ‘Zoka’ due to pressure from marketing team.”
Rohini Hattangadi was honest in admitting that image of woman in serials, is totally controlled by non-creative people. “The channels should at least make one thought-provoking serial, even if the TRPs are low, after making 3-4 successful serials,” she suggested. Soumitra Pote was of the opinion that in today’s daily soaps, woman characters are utterly unrealistic and there’s no value addition for young audience. Viraaj Raje stated “I have given up being creative head of TV serials, due to unnecessary, unwanted & unwarranted interference of marketing teams. “TRPs are supreme, but strangely and surprisingly the sample strength to measure TRPs is only 60 to 70 thousand,” he stated factually.
Ambarish Mishra concluded the discussion, hoping that the channels would project the women on TV, more realistically and the audience should exercise their right to switch off the TV for the programmes they don’t like, so that the channels are forced to cater to their demands.