Pamela in Big Boss 4 : Viewers suspect reality

Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson's entering the Bigg Boss ring, the recent Sara Khan - Ali Merchant wedding row are attracting eyeballs to the reality shows, even as viewers are beginning to question if these shows are, in fact, a melange of reality and fiction or merely the latter. While reality shows target homemakers and the youth as their primary audience, such shows are becoming increasingly outrageous, objectionable and unbelievable to be real anymore, they believe.

" Reality shows are not real. It's fairly obvious that they are scripted and exaggerated simply for entertainment value. They're farcical, but people still watch them, only for lack of better options," says 20- year- old Kabir Mehta.

Sensationalized scenes, daily scandals and lurid content are the basic ingredients of these shows, and that is what makes viewers question just how ' real' they are.

"Reality can tend to become boring and mundane. No one wants to watch a show that is slow-moving and lacks action, even if it stars celebrities. What keeps audiences coming back is high drama. And reality cannot always provide this high drama, which is why producers brazenly infuse their shows with fictitious situations and allow it to masquerade as reality.

Personally, I refuse to watch them because as a viewer, my intelligence is affronted," opines 22- year old Nauheed Tambawala.

Geetanjali Sharma, a 34-year-old homemaker, is a loyal fan of most Indian reality shows. " It doesn't matter to me whether they are real or not. It's something interesting and exciting to watch while I'm doing my daily chores, and that's good enough". Several like her also follow these shows for the same reason: entertainment.