People can not help but watch the biggest reality TV show-Bigg Boss-binge-watch. Season 13 has been a huge success, and season 14 is not behind it.
In recent years, it has been one of the most-watched and most talked about reality TV series. But did you know that your mental health can be affected by it? And not just the audience, even the contestants will suffer from many mental disorders.
We have seen a captive bunch of housemates behaving in a way that is far from natural since the time Big Boss was first broadcast, serving up their quirks, insecurities and instabilities for voyeuristic viewing and large ratings.
Situation even brings out suicidal tendencies at times
Some of the housemates have discussed how they have even been pressured to think about committing suicide by the situation inside the house. Isn’t it scary?
Life in the house is compared to living in prison by behavioural psychologists, adding that while the show itself encourages violent actions and normalization of violence, it also represents perversion among viewers who enjoy such “humility.”
Will the show have a lasting impact on the mental health of the contestants, as well as the viewers watching it, which makes us wonder? Can it be considered ‘natural’ to participate in such activity week after week in a captive domain or, as an audience, to gain gratification from watching such activity?
Rubina Shares Her Story
Maybe remaining locked away for months is also doing it to you. You want to exorcise your inner demons. After all, Rubina spoke of her need to consult a psychiatrist, after which she was asked by her husband, the now-evicted Abhinav Shukla, not to say these things on camera.
“Bigg Boss is a fascinating social experiment of people who live in a closed environment without any external communication. Even during the pandemic (when people were locked in the house), people were connected to mobile phones, but that was not there in the (Big Boss) house as well,” IANS quoted Sunil Mittal, DirectorCosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences (CIMBS). Mittal also compared the house of Big Boss with “living in jail”
It has an immense effect on the mental wellbeing of the people inside and the people watching it,” psychotherapist feels that the show promotes bullying, aggressive behaviour and abuse normalization.”
Psychotherapist added, “A certain language is normalized.” I accept that words of violence and cuss are used in real life, but the sense with which they are used in the show is (what about). There’s an improved drama for TRP, then.
Appeals To The Voyeur In People
Radhika Bapat, a clinical psychotherapist, said that such reality shows appeal to the voyeur in individuals.
In looking through a peephole and getting access to information, there is a perversion. They tell, ‘There is a forbidden beauty that makes it unspeakably desirable.’ There is also the psychological term ‘humilitainment,’ which is used with’ dramas ‘of such truth, which is the propensity for you and me as viewers to be drawn to real people’s spectacular humiliation and subjugation, Bapat added.
Samir Parikh, Director and Head of the Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare in New Delhi, emphasizes the need for media literacy to prevent this.
“People need to have the ability to understand that in real life it is something that is being depicted and does not happen. It’s a scenario being created, and if you can understand that, then it’s good,” he added.
