Himalaya Roadies has kicked off and is already raising eyebrows among many. Kathmandu Tribune points out as of why the program is bad for Nepali society.
- It’s offensive and humiliating. Watch the clip below and you’ll know how the judges speak with the contestants. Psychologists term ‘swearing‘ and ‘sarcasm’ as a negative language. They assert that it can affect a person’s mental health.
2. It tries to instill negative attitude and aggression in youths. Nepali society suffers from various anomalies. And it will take many years to change things. But dismissing someone because of their viewpoint is negative. Have we forgotten how our dear PM Deuba dismissed an audience? “Chup lagnus tapai, barta bolnu huncha tapai!” And Diya is doing the same with her inflammatory word ‘chas’. The other judges are no better in offending the participants.
3. It tries to deconstruct the social construct albeit confusing and belittling the participants. The show has managed to construe the social construct instilled in the participants. Yet the show does talks about issues like rape, homosexuality, racism et cetera.
The social constructionism perspective says that we never know what universal true or false is, what is good or bad, right or wrong; we know only stories about true, false, good, bad, right or wrong. The social constructionism abandons the idea of constructivist that individual’s mind represents a mirror of reality. The constructionism is focused on relations and sustains the individual’s role in the social construction of realities. „Maps for the same territory” seems to be the essence of constructivist. The social constructionism is not interested in creating maps; it surprises the processes that maps form. Our maps are formed from our experience and how we perceive them. All our maps are differing maps of the same world. Each of us creates our own worlds from our perceptions of the actual world. The social constructionism sees the language, the communication, and the speech as having the central role in the interactive process through which we understand the world and ourselves.
4. Before trying to change others, we ought to change ourselves. The judges are in no position to dismiss the participants just because they are ‘judge’ and believe they are ‘right’ and the participants are ‘wrong’. It is a known fact that Roadies is a scripted show and most events are not ‘real’. Himalaya Roadies is trying too hard to become a correction jail! Even their motto–Rising through the Hell and Only the Toughest will survive–is nothing constructive but tells us that we are about to face a zombie apocalypse.
5. Himalaya Roadies tries hard to make the ‘macho-than-thou’ image relevant in the society. One has to be tough, bad-mouthed, and aggressive (approved by the judges) to get into the show or at least have the asserted humility to accept the kitkat! But even late Yama Buddha who was known for his verses to change the ‘society’ would switch off his TV and Internet after watching the show. Perhaps we can learn better by listening to the late MC’s realistic verses.
