Malayalam TV serial makers soften feminism for the market

In Kerala womens’ worlds are made and unmade every day on TV channels as mutually contradictory messages on womanhood are aired.

 M P Basheer


"Stree is dead; long live Stree!" is the new mantra of Malayalam TV channels. The phenomenal success of the tele-serial Stree on Asianet,  Keralas first private television channel, prompted this intriguing philosophy. The serial proved so successful, and the bond it forged with its female viewers so strong, that two other different serials with different stories, but with the same name followed it! "Stree is a branded bottle. Anything you bottle in it will be welcome by the female audience of Kerala," says Madhu Mohan director of Stree  tri-serials which completed a thousand episodes through its third incarnation in October 2002. 

Viewers of these syrupy serials ranged from daily-wage labourers to highly educated professionals, from seven-year-old girls to 80-plus grandmothers. It would be no exaggeration to say that everyday life in Kerala  came to a standstill at 7.30 pm primetime. The social significance of this tele-event in a highly literate state deserves to be closely examined. And it was widely believed that Indu alone, who was transformed into a social icon overnight, carried the serial, crawling through its 390 episodes at a snail’s pace, along.  Stree  could well be considered the magic word that triggered a new era in the  Malayalam television industry, as channels vied with one another to grab the attention of the women of Kerala

Although the Stree serials by their very format drew in a wide range of female characters, they managed to keep the focus on one or two central characters. In the first story that started telecasting four years ago, the heroine Indu maintained her physical and spiritual purity against all odds. Indu enacted the roles of a daughter, lover, sister, wife, and mother all fighting off sundry challenges to her physical and spiritual chastity. At the initial stages of the story, Indu was stubborn and bold and appeared to be a feminist.   At later stages, audience response gathered by the channel made the director soften the heroine.  Unbelievably good, patient and self-sacrificing Indu thereafter never questioned the patriarchal fabric of the society.

 "Kerala society always loved the feminine aspects (read submissive behaviour) of woman. The channel people, advertisers and even the women artists of the serial made us to write and rewrite the storylines," admits Madhu Mohan.  Characters made and unmade, emotional wars fought and settled, story schemes created and vanished, the two previous Strees ended up  a big commercial success, though even the director cannot recollect the whole story.  The current edition also is forging ahead with a heroine Shalu, full  of  submissive qualities, taking on  the anti-heroine Malu who is more realistic in her stubbornness.

While the first edition of Stree was meandering through 390 episodes with a weepy heroine, television down South had begun cutting into print.  Among the regional languages that saw the launch of the maximum number of new television channels during last five years were Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada, and the readership of the pulp magazines in these languages registered a slump. The print media was forced to take note of the astonishing popularity of these serials.

Stree was not the first woman-centred serial to be aired on Malayalam television. Doordarshans regional Malayalam channel was already tailoring its policies along lines laid down by Delhi Doordarshan, and was encouraging programmes that boosted the cause of women’s empowerment. But the representation of women on television has been discussed only in the context of the North Indian television experience. Television, like any other cultural form, has to address and negotiate the local experiences of women and their socio-cultural specificities in