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Talent shows, euphemistically called reality shows, have overwhelmed our entertainment TV viewing habits. Turn to any channel, and you have singers and performers in all shapes and sizes doing their stuff in front of a live audience and before a panel of judges, belting out their accomplishments, hoping to win the jackpot. But while the standards of the various shows remain uneven, the standards of judging remains, uniformly I feel, below par. Seeing IPL Rockstar on Colors, the latest song contest extravaganza, brought out this element even more strongly. The music show is being judged by established singers Sukhwinder Singh and Kailash Kher and anchored by rapper Hard Kaur.
The judges, while announcing their marks, are seen as fillers, adding to the celeb quota of a show, rather than any value addition as pundits. And what is even more offensive is that these talent shows will be used by stars and their publicists to promote their latest film releases. So given all the shows we are seeing these days, who is a good judge? To my mind Simon Colwell on American Idol is a good model to follow. With his minimalist wardrobe, cranky turn of phrase and an almost negligible upper lip, he still manages to display his expertise and experience. Apparently on his last American Idol (Season 9), which is being aired these days, he has single-handedly been able to convert the show into some kind of a juggernaut. Over all the seasons of the show, he has managed to get bang on what is wrong with the singer. Mostly, his opinion coincides with yours. Only, you can’t articulate it the way he does, possibly because creating pop stars is not your ultimate goal in life. Colwell doesn’t rip contestants off for the sake of ripping them off, but he also savagely says why. Of course he is not all perfect, sometimes he does get lazy and his criticism of a shoddy performance ends up with a karaoke reference, but most of his reviews are complete and competent. A lot of it sounds more evolved then the comments of the other judges on the same show. Reference to context, judge Randy’s normal comments: "Here’s the thing ‘dawg,’ you nailed it. Man, you’re hot." Then there was the definitely dyslexic Paula Abdula, who had the creepy ability of not saying anything negative about any contestant. Ideally, a judge needs to be a useful critic. Sometimes to help the public to make an informed choice when it is voting, but mostly to help participants better their performances for the next round. But they can’t be idiots, because that lowers the level of the show, and that’s a travesty of our intelligence. They need to have highly tuned bullshit detectors. It would be fair to say that all judges should be "Simonised." Having said that it would be unfair to say that all Indian judges of reality shows are substandard. Judges Javed Akhtar (Indian Idol) and Shekhar Kapoor (India’s Got Talent) showed charisma and expertise. You could see how closely the contestants listened to Akhtar’s advice, which was a sound critique of song choice, singability and presentation. Have you noticed that these days channels have started, especially the English ones, minding their Ps and Qs? Offensive words are being beeped out, including words like "pot," which made one episode of Friends rather hilarious. But what is even more comic is the subtitled programmes. While graphic words are being deleted, let’s also have a filter for the excessive violence, blood and gore being aired not only on entertainment television but also on news networks.
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With their expertise
the judges definitely should know a good song from a bad one, and they
do, but unfortunately they cannot pinpoint the reasons either behind
their criticisms or their praise. So they end up by passing platitudes.
Ditto Dance India Dance on Zee TV, tagged as India’s most
popular dance show. The judges were Mithun Chakraborty, the original
disco dancer, and Dia Mirza. It was a truly brilliant performance by
Jacky and Shakti on the show last week. A hip hop type of rendition of
the number Hum tum ek kamre mein band hon from the mega hit Bobby
received the predictable "mind blowing",
"amazing" responses from the judges. The sharp insightful,
micro-targeted critiques you hear from the judges (Nigel Lythgoe, also
known as Nasty Nigel or Mary Murphy) of So You Think You can Dance
(AXN) were completely absent. With contests aplenty on our screens, what
separates an average show from a great show apart from the three Ps —
participation, promotion and presentation — is one J — the quality
of judging. Most of the judging is full of maddening and aimless banter,
huge amounts of padding and is mostly an opportunity to showcase
wardrobes provided by X and jewellery by Y. As committed viewers and
participants, when you see that Sonali Bendre’s jewellery (India’s
Got Talent) is provided by a particular designer, somehow the shine
goes out of the quality of scrutiny.