Sachin=GOD Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 How Self-Censorship Is Ruining Game of Thrones and Other TV Shows in India Except even that's not true. While television in the US is being allowed to grow up and push the envelope - which has resulted in some of the best shows in recent memory, such as House of Cards, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones - the standards for what's acceptable on Indian television are actually regressing, which is probably the result of a decade and a half of saas-bahu serials. It might just be nostalgia, but it seems that late 80s-early 90s were the golden generation of television in India, and everything has been downhill since. Unlike films, television shows don't need to go through the censor board before being aired. If viewers are offended by the content, they can make a complaint, and the result of these complaints can be quite severe for channels. So, in 2011, the Indian Broadcasters Federation created a set of self-regulatory guidelines that all non-news channels would follow, so that they wouldn't draw run afoul of the government. Paranoid about their licenses, the channels decided to backtrack until every piece of content was as inoffensive as Spongebob Squarepants. Words like Hell, Jesus, sex and sh!t all are deemed offensive by one channel or the other, and while some will mute the word entirely, others just change it in subtitles. Just think about it for a second - no one asked TV channels to do all this, they definitely don't have to do this - they go through all the hoops in the odd chance that someone might be offended. Two characters in Downton Abbey - aired on Star World - were having a conversation about traveling to Switzerland to cover up a pregnancy. In the background, there is a marble statue - a female nude. The statue is small, in the background, and bereft of detailing. But the channel decided to blur its chest and groin regions just to be safe, a move that did nothing but draw attention to the statue, and away from the rest of the scene. :facepalm: Television that was allowed to air 10, 15 years ago is now being chopped, blurred, muted and mangled. Shows like Friends and Seinfeld, which both aired in India with no real concern or outrage about their content, are now losing entire scenes that you might still remember if you watched the series on TV years ago. http://gadgets.ndtv.com/tv/opinion/how-self-censorship-is-ruining-game-of-thrones-and-other-tv-shows-in-india-679483
moniker Posted April 13, 2015 Posted April 13, 2015 Though I agree that they have gone too far by censoring some words that are obviously not explicit, and that it's absolutely ridiculous to censor parts of a statue, I'm not comfortable with allowing graphic nudity on tv. Repeat telecasts of stuff like the game of thrones are shown throughout the day on HBO, replete with all the nudity here in the US. The general Indian tv viewer is not yet sophisticated enough to use child locks or parental controls on their TV. Zapping through channels and hopping on to an intimate scene could be pretty shocking and embarrassing for the family, especially if there are kids around.
Texan Posted April 13, 2015 Posted April 13, 2015 It might just be nostalgia, but it seems that late 80s-early 90s were the golden generation of television in India, and everything has been downhill since. 100% agree with this statement. The quality of programming available on Indian television is truly pathetic. Abysmal. Distasteful. Ekta Kapoor serials and similar other serials have ruined any creativity that was remaining. The late 80s/ early 90s was the golden era of Indian television. Even though options were fewer, the quality was far far better.
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