Indian TV serials are a circus as it is. But Telugu TV serials are a whole different level absurd. They are filled with villainous women, victimized women, traumatized women, and women who revel in being cry babies. Why don't these television soaps feature female achievers, for instance? Or, just fun-loving women who work for software companies and chill on the weekends? Such characters are not TRP-friendly.
Speaking at an event on Wednesday, a serial Telugu TV serial writer, who is a woman herself, said that rural women, in particular, want to watch negative or sobbing women. "When TV serials were new to Indian television, in Telugu, experiments were thoroughly discouraged. I proposed to write a motivational story about a woman achiever. The TV management actively dissuaded me from doing so, saying only melodramatic serials where women are going through suffering are watched by the majority of the audience. TRPs are garnered by TV serials where women are in trouble. The more teary female characters your serial features, the higher the TRPs. At times, I would wonder if the female audience hate comedies, for example," the writer said, adding that TRPs would drop whenever a female character asserts herself and fights back. She should once again be given problems!
It's straight from the horse's mouth. The women out there deserve stupid TV serials.
