It is no secret that television dramas are religiously followed nationwide and hence have a strong impact on our youth and children as well as the mature viewers....
HEALTHWISE
To be continued...Another year has (nearly) gone and it’s unfortunate that despite the increasing psychological problems in our society, there’s still a huge population who is not even aware of what mental illness is let alone know of means to address it. In the sixth virtual international conference conducted by Kazim Trust, Angeline Malik, who is part of the media industry since more than two decades as actor, director and producer, discussed the influence of broadcast media on our lives and whether it can play a positive role in mental health.
It is no secret that television dramas are religiously followed nationwide and hence have a strong impact on our youth and children as well as the mature viewers. They shape how we see the world and the people around us. The question here is do the channel owners and content writers take this into consideration or are they only interested in TRPs given all the channels follow the same trend of glorifying misery (abuse, harassment, aggression, injustice, rape, etc.).
According to her, the dramas pick up an issue and instead of addressing it, it is shown as part of our culture and encourages the same mindset. For instance, every single play would tell you that a girl’s focus should be marriage; can you imagine the emotional trauma of a girl who’s been rejected time and again and sees it repeated on the screen? Or someone who’s apparently crossed the age of marriage as set by society? It intensifies the distress they might already be in; feeling vulnerable and unwanted often has serious consequences.
Then there’s the typical storyline of a guy falling for a young beautiful flawless girl; this love-at-first-sight stuff is basically showing that beauty has a precedence over any other quality girls might have. Anxiety and depression becomes a reality because the TV actually forces them to feel inadequate and insecure with these beauty-related concepts.
The boys have a hard time taking ‘No’ for an answer because all they’ve grown up seeing on TV is anything is acceptable as long as a male protagonist does it. Their disruptive behaviour would be forgiven even if they cause harm not only to themselves but to everyone around them.
And then the most important thing is the distorted representation of psychiatric disorders! It’s very common and very dangerous and yet the drams keep on repeating the same narrative of portraying people who are diagnosed with a mental disorder in any way as violent. The onus is on them for the tragedies that occur. A villain would go mad at the end and would be admitted to an asylum to pay for his sins, implying that people with any kind of mental disorder do not fit in or belong to the society. It further treats them as a threat that should be isolated and kept locked up.
The makers may have ‘good intentions’ but with lack of research and information, the dramas are not making the right impact. Most people don’t have an experience with mental illness and they rely on the TV world. Feeding them the wrong perception is to make them believe the worst of people who are in any way different. If you are trying to create awareness (as most of these recent dramas claimed) then it should be followed by a solution. Our nation has very less exposure to the outside world and very less knowledge so they assume that what they see on TV speaks for the rest of the world and is principally right.
Thus, the media plays a strong role in encouraging the stigma attached to mental illness. When people who are a part of the industry don’t take their responsibility seriously, the little support those suffering have would be lost.
-SZ
