Censor Board snips sleazy shows on TV

Vague moral policing rules small screen censorship in India. For instance, lifestyle channel FTV had its transmission barred for 10 days following an order dated March 28 last year, for showing what was considered “obscene and women-denigrating content” on innerwear fashion shows.

Last year, NDTV Good Times’ popular show ‘Life’s A Beach’ was hauled on the same grounds for certain episodes telecast in April and May 2011. The show features a female anchor mostly dressed in swimwear exploring beaches all over the world. The action taken constituted an advisory issued to the channel on April 2.

While a one-day ban was imposed upon Manoranjan TV for telecasting A-certificate film ‘Ek Chatur Nar’ in May 2013, the channel got away with a warning for telecasting several films without showing the censor certification in December the same year. Details such as these came to the fore in the reply given to a query in Parliament which pertained to content telecast in Indian homes over the past three years and the current year.

The broad outline that seems to define television censorship is thus: any show that has a woman in lingerie or swimwear is normally considered obscene and can lead to a channel being banned for one to 10 days. The vaguely-coined “obscene and women-denigrating” seems to form a blanket definition for all sexual content that may feature the female body ranging from sensuous to sleazy.

It was the catchphrase cited in an order in January 2014, to take the cinema channel WB off air for one day after it telecasted the rom-com ‘It’s a Boy Girl Thing’.In contrast, action taken on sexually suggestive advertisements seems less strict. Telecasting a certain shower gel commercial over the past year drew a mere warning for IBN 7, MTV, VH1 and Colors. Channels are mostly just warned for showing violence.

Malayalam channel Amrita TV received a warning for telecasting the A-certified film ‘The Don’ in March. The film was certified as adults-only on release owing to extreme violence.

 

For more news from India Today, follow us on Twitter @indiatoday and on Facebook at facebook.com/IndiaToday


For news and videos in Hindi, go to AajTak.in. ताज़ातरीन ख़बरों और वीडियो के लिए आजतक.इन पर आएं.

<!–
var zflag_nid=”821″; var zflag_cid=”2165″; var zflag_sid=”2″; var zflag_width=”1″; var zflag_height=”1″; var zflag_sz=”84″;

–>

Mail

Print

Share and Enjoy