That’s a self goal
23 Sep 2014 10:16 PM GMT
Now that pixellated sex has been editorialised by the newspaper that proudly boasts of its own figures (in terms of circulation), we can all bow before the Times of India and give it credit for setting a brand new standard in sex, lies and videogate. While almost every newspaper worth its stats, overtly or covertly, has stooped to conquer, some openly brand themselves ‘tabloids’ and frontpage what other newspapers accommodate in their page threes (on page 16, in our case), few stand up to defend a faux pas so huge and so obvious.
The largest English-language daily in the world flipped and slipped on the banana peel of a nauseous headline, captioned no better than what describes a teenager’s high at absorbing her first downloaded sexually explicit MMS. But did we expect any better from these continents of commercial inanities? While all the other pooh-poohing media houses are warming themselves from the neighbour’s house that’s on fire, can they really look in the eye of the said Deepika Padukone and say they aren’t guilty of the same offence? They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Not any more. Now a picture, or a video, can be zoomed into, stretched, compressed, lengthened, slowed down, hastened, and generally broken into parts, which do not all add up to their sum. So, as we hyperventilate, grandstand, opinionate and generally use Deepikagate to feel good about ourselves, let’s not also completely lose track. Words, like images, matter.
What we say is as important as how we say it. And it’s not just a particular section of a woman’s morphology that is at the heart of this hurricane. Taking your spy cameras under a woman’s skirt or a man’s pants, without her/his knowledge, and broadcasting it for mass consumption, again without consent, is a rapacious behaviour. It’s disgusting and should be made illegal. Even if, rather, especially if, the woman is in the so-called ‘show business.’ It’s business precisely because she gets to decide what to show, how much and when. Without those terms, you, Big Media, are just a peeping tom.
The largest English-language daily in the world flipped and slipped on the banana peel of a nauseous headline, captioned no better than what describes a teenager’s high at absorbing her first downloaded sexually explicit MMS. But did we expect any better from these continents of commercial inanities? While all the other pooh-poohing media houses are warming themselves from the neighbour’s house that’s on fire, can they really look in the eye of the said Deepika Padukone and say they aren’t guilty of the same offence? They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Not any more. Now a picture, or a video, can be zoomed into, stretched, compressed, lengthened, slowed down, hastened, and generally broken into parts, which do not all add up to their sum. So, as we hyperventilate, grandstand, opinionate and generally use Deepikagate to feel good about ourselves, let’s not also completely lose track. Words, like images, matter.
What we say is as important as how we say it. And it’s not just a particular section of a woman’s morphology that is at the heart of this hurricane. Taking your spy cameras under a woman’s skirt or a man’s pants, without her/his knowledge, and broadcasting it for mass consumption, again without consent, is a rapacious behaviour. It’s disgusting and should be made illegal. Even if, rather, especially if, the woman is in the so-called ‘show business.’ It’s business precisely because she gets to decide what to show, how much and when. Without those terms, you, Big Media, are just a peeping tom.
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