A few months back, a magazine took me by surprise and I thought to myself, “Hey, Indians are becoming increasingly progressive”. It was the Malayalam magazine Grihalakshmi with a photograph of a model breastfeeding.
Fast forward to June.
While casually switching channels, I decided to watch ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S’ on Comedy Central India and something else took me by surprise this time.
They had removed the word ‘breasts’ from the subtitles.
It’s hard for me to decide where exactly we’re heading as a society. The ‘breasts’ incident is not the only one, there are many more.
Judge for yourself:
“Wanna Have Gender Tonight?”
I often wonder what the person (persons?) hired to come up with these subtitles is thinking.
Here’s another shining example for you – would you ever turn to someone and say, “Wanna have gender tonight?”
Confused? Yes, so was I!
Just what is this code language these channels are trying to teach us?
A Homosexual Encounter on TV? What? No Way!
I think I've convinced you by now that censorship on Indian TV is problematic. In fact, in 2015, Star World received a notice for broadcasting a homosexual encounter in Grey’s Anatomy. The notice said that it “denigrates women” and that the scenes were “indecent and vulgar”.
Well, you know what really “denigrates women”?
When Bollywood spices movies up with item numbers like, “Main toh tandoori murgi hoon yaar, gatka le saiyaan alcohol se...”
No one really took their scissors out for this one.
Free the Nipple
Now, the ‘Free the Nipple’ movement has been a global one, but who would have thought that we would have to explain to our censors that nipples are a regular part of our bodies?
Remember the time when Chandler, on ‘F.R.I.E.N.D.S’, told everyone about his “nubbin” which was like a “third nipple”?
You do?
Well, the Indian TV audience will never know.
The Bottom Line
What does one censor? Cuss words? Sure, that we’re used to.
But do ‘breasts’, ‘nipples’ and ‘sex’ fall in the category of cuss words?
There’s still a long way to go for our schools to incorporate sex education in the curriculum. The little that teenagers could be exposed to, through pop culture and TV representation, is taken away because of our fantastic Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF).
And, did someone say ‘Freedom of Expression’?
After witnessing all the chopping, snipping, and omission of words and scenes that are vital to a narrative, it’s obvious that FoE isn’t really important for our IBF.
PS: If you find logic in our censorship, do comment and let us know.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)