1. Entry of Porno Star in Big Boss Season-5: Attempt at Objectification of
‘Women Body and Image’
Dr Sumita Sarkar, Dean, IBSAR, Navi Mumbai.
Reality shows have become an “in-thing” on Indian TV channels and are attracting plenty of
viewers‟ attention and make a good case for TRPs for the producers. Big Boss, the ongoing
reality show in India has also attracted large number of viewers. It is very interesting to watch
how under an extreme controlled situation, various social actors having celebrity profile become
mundane and gradually behave /misbehave in an unconventional way through team-building,
association, group-conflict, leadership games, exhibit extreme individualisation, inter –personal
conflicts, the desire to win, political mechanizations, psychological trauma, aggression, verbal
and physical violence at times and so on. For me it is an opportunity to observe behaviour of a
“controlled group”, analyze their reactions to continuous interventions made by Big Boss from a
sociological perspective.
While watching the show, Indian value system of human conduct never came to my mind to be
associated with the participants‟ overt behavior, liberal dress code or assertive actions of their
“highs n lows”. In fact, I perceived this show just as an imitation of the west where individual
space and liberty has no boundaries as observed by me being exposed to the west for more than a
decade through my visits and stay during research assignments.
As far as I knew such a show was first introduced in the name of Big Brother by Endemol, an
international television production and distribution company based in the Netherlands and
became a very popular reality show in US and was later introduced by UK in the year 2000.
While doing my research assignment at LSE during 2008-09 in London, I watched a few
episodes and am aware of the original version. Mostly, the selected participants were already
exposed through popular visual media and had gained some footage by participating in various
activities like modeling, drama, singing, social activism, sports etc.
Imitation of Big Brother in the name of Big Boss in Indian television also started on the same
footing casting participants from similar backgrounds a few years ago. But very recently, the
show started getting bolder and rebellious by selecting participants from unconventional
backgrounds, overt behavioural gestures, selected game preferences and innovative process
interventions etc. I was quite comfortable watching a dacoit or a famous convict conducting
themselves under 55 cameras in the house of Big Boss with other inmates having a wide variety
of social image and professional standing in public imagery.
Of late what has become a bit questionable in my mind is the entry of an Indo-Canadian porn
star Sunny Leone in the Bog –Boss, season – 5, currently underway. As a feminist scholar, it
raises questions in my mind as to how far media has gone in projecting „objectification of
women body‟ as a commodity and popularizing it through such reality shows.
I would have felt rather appreciative of the show, if Big-Boss season- 5 could have given an
opportunity to an anonymous prostitute in the bylanes of Indian small township or big cities to
honour her on the same podium as a participant with other actors. As I understand prostitution is
an age old social problem which is an offshoot of patriarchic social structure to meet men‟s
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2. sensual orgies and therefore resulting in victimization of women as a product for the desired
sexual needs of their counterparts. Such entry could revealed experiential trauma and subjugation
of a woman in a vivid narrative ways through her gradual revelation of personality and life
situations than a producer and a star of pornography like Suny Leone who can boast her pay
check more than the Oscar winner Indian actress Freida Pinto and also millions of fans following
to see her talented performance in the movies like Shut Up and „F*** Me‟ (Economic Times,
December 4, 2011) on the internet/U-tube.
On the contrary same reality show, Big Boss Season -5 can take the credit by bringing in famous
transgender Laxmi Narayan. If viewers in case have taken some interest to know her (which I
doubt whether there were any such viewers), they would have know an unique case of Laxmi
who held the distinction of being the only Hijra in the UN‟s Civil Society Task Force on
HIV/AIDS and her active participation for the „Hijra‟ community through her campaign group
„Astitva‟. Such move also was experimental and might carry positive image for these
marginalized section of our society labelled „Hizra‟.
But popularizing a porno star and, therefore tacitly glamorizing „pornography‟ through most
accessible visual medium like TV show to millions of Indians across the nation is no
experimentation of art and culture. On the contrary, pornography is a conscious attempt to
„objectify‟ women body in various sensual contexts to please men‟s pleasure towards sexuality.
Such sexual objectification encourages treating „women body‟ merely as an instrument (object)
of one's sexual pleasure (popularly male), and making „the woman „as a sex object‟.
Pornographic projections and reconstructed sexual acts therefore pose a threat to women in all
contexts be it west or east.
Feminist scholars may argue that once it is paid for sex, woman gives away her freedom over
sexuality. Selling “sex” and projecting “sex” through visual medium can stigmatize and cripple
woman‟s social identity. Such projection can jeopardize standards of sexual morality and
promote negative attitudes towards sex, which needs to be challenged. Overt display of women
sexuality and consummation of women body as desired by the male perception, sexual fantasies,
unnatural urges may dominate the behavior of males encouraging rape, domestic violence or
physical violence against women. Hence promoting such experimentation in visual media might
have negative impact on society like India where approximately 70% women are victims of
domestic violence and overall violence against women is also on the rise (United Nation
Population Fund Report (UNPF), 2005 as cited http://www.wecanendvaw.org/gender-fact-
file/india ; Crime in India, 2010).
Ms Sunny Leone is not only a popular porno star but also a porno movie producer in the US. My
concern area here is that post-liberalised era has already brought significant erosion of values in
terms of breaking up of age old traditional social and normative structures leading to various
socio- psychological anomies like breaking up of joint families, rising of divorce rates, single
parenthood, drug addiction, rave culture, speed dating and violence among youth etc. By adding
such “spicy item”, i.e., a porn star through a popular TV reality show what media is trying is to
propagate the acceptance of pornography as a part of modern life further denting the fragile
fabric of Indian culture and value system. Ms Leone‟s interview (printed by Times of India)
recording her bold life story of breaking her virginity at 16, choosing to be a porn star
consciously over her previous ambition of becoming a nurse and how she was awarded
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3. „Penthouse Pet‟ through her bold and nude exposition of „sex play‟ can possibly affect young
minds.
How many of them by now might have searched pornographic sites and given a single US dollar
membership to watch sunny Leone and enjoyed nudity and women sexuality can be anybody‟s
guess? Hundreds of Leone‟s videos have gone viral since her interview followed by her entry in
Big Boss (Economics Times of India, December 4, 2011).
Women in post liberalised era have already been targeted to be objectified, exploited and
misused through various social mechanisms and instruments to deprive them of the fruits of their
labour, capital, political, economic rights and so on. But commoditization of women body and
image is one of the aspects media has captured, capitalized and utilized at large in the last one
decade. Several advertisements projecting „ideal body and women image‟ through popular print
and visual media to sell products be it soap, a film, a piece of cloth or a high tech laptop
corroborates the foregoing views.
However, popularizing „Pornography‟ can be an unintended consequence of entry of Ms Leone
in reality TV. In India derogatory projection of objectification of „women body, image and
sexual space‟ is legally banned and has attracted several penal provisions (Sec.292 of the Indian
Penal Code which was incorporated from the Act 36 of 1969). Pornography is a systematic
objectification and public display dehumanizing women body as „human furniture. British artist
Aalen Jone‟s "Hat Stand and Table Sculpture" incorporates similar concept by exhibiting semi-
naked women into furniture could be a prominent example of „sexual objectification‟.
Big –Boss Season 5 hosted by leading Bollywood stars Salman Khan and Sanjay Dutt by
including a porno star and producer Ms Leone for the first time in the reality show has
prominently objectified „women body and sexuality‟ through evoking interest of variegated
audience. Projection of the porno star by the media evinced massive response from the viewers
to stop her eviction from the show on 3rd December, 2011. Media seems to have successfully
influenced thousands of viewers who would love to watch her a little longer in the „house‟ so
that they can have more opportunities of visual pleasure like striptease style of performance
swinging her curves around a pole with the tune of remix of “ ye mera diwanapan hai” , yamma
yamma of old film song „Sholey‟ or rain dance and many more in the offing! Not only the
ordinary viewers but even a Bollywood producer-director is keen to offer her roles in the movie.
Such shows may endanger the moral texture of our society and can have serious ethical
implications of wider consequences for women at large.
The negative legacies of the sexual revolution of nudity and exposition of women body in the
west and its propagation in India by media does not amount to any constructive service to the
society. May be such popular visual media needs a modest re-think towards understanding,
intricate and entrenched value system of our society that still thrives in our bone marrow. Should
popular media be driven to push up the TRP ratings by projecting such „objectification‟ of
women? What should be the limit of projection of „women‟ as a muse of entertainment? To
what extent we can import and imitate western culture and propagate through media? All these
questions may have potential to raise serious debates and discussions.
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4. Hence, entry of a porno star in a reality TV show, though, was a bold experiment by the media in
consonance with the global trends but is highly questionable in the context of a multi-cultural
and ethnically complex societal gamut like India. Even in the 21st century India, the mind-set
represents a continuum where on the one end extreme conservatism and on the other neo-
liberalism co-exists. Therefore such flirtations with the perception of viewers can add more to
women vulnerability. Such shows are likely to influence male „psyche‟ to expect women as
subservient and an instrument to please to male desires like the present porno star who is willing
to perform anything and everything as ordered by the host. Media has the positive and negative
power to impact society but by promoting „objectification‟ through reality TV show Big Boss
Season-5, what stand has it taken is left to the imagination of the readers.
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Dr Sumita Sarkar, Dean, IBSAR, Navi Mumbai.
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