Remember last year when Oviya had a meltdown, where she couldn’t handle all the mind games after a point, where her love was rejected and things took a turn for the worse? Or when Julie played to the gallery for sympathy but became a butt of all jokes and all her credibility from the past were forgotten in one instance? Or when Shakthi Vasu used words like ‘trigger’, indicating that stoking the bear will yield to something…unpleasant?
Manipulation practised on fictional shows influence the mind of the impressionable audience. While their intention is to not propagate such practices, it gets imbibed in them and might just affect the way they think. If a mother-in-law ill-treats her daughter-in-law in a TV show, some women come to a conclusion that all mothers-in-law are evil, all stepmothers are vamps, and the stereotypes continue.
But when manipulation becomes reality, something that people watch as enjoyment, where twists and turns are intentionally thrown your way just to see your reaction, that’s when we need to take a step back and re-evaluate where humanity has reached.