Kiss ’n tell

Kiss ’n tell
Shailaja Bajpai

Oh dear: where is that Fire extinguisher? ‘‘Somethin’s burnin’ and I think it’s luv.’’ Yup. That’s what it looks like. There’s no mistaking those flames licking their lips, there’s no ignoring the sparks which fly as they rub up against each other in a dance of wanton, sensual ecstasy.

‘‘You wanted to kiss me...?’’
‘‘I have an urge to kiss you.’’
‘‘May be we should...’’
Smoke rises from the screen as Ally lowers her head and lips to meet the other’s parted ones...
On second thoughts, call in the Fire Brigade.

By a strange coincidence or may be by total design, while the culture-vultures swooped down on Valentine’s Day celebrations across the country, Ally McBeal and Ling were, calmly, exchanging glances and ahem... kisses On the mouth. On television.

Spreading disease, bad breath and God knows what other infections through our body politic. If only you could have read their lips what a tale they had to tell: ‘‘It’s almost as good as !!!!!!!!...’’ remarks one after the first lingering smooch. Oh, my sweet Lord: call 101, this four-letter word, love, is threatening to flare up.

But Ally McBeal (Star World) stopped short of going for broke. After smouldering at each other, Ally and Ling agree they are not made for each other. ‘‘I’m not gay,’’ explains the latter with a flinty look in her tigress eyes. No, they admit, this is not as good as it gets. It’s not the real thing. Coke is. Blokes are. And so just in the nick of time, they douse the flames and save themselves (and us) from a fate worse than death or everlasting perdition: cultural corruption.

Not that we actually saw them mouth sweet nothings. What with Valentine cards being torn up and Fashion TV almost in tatters, TV channels are learning to exercise self-control. Sorry, self-censorship. Therefore, at the exact moment when Ling met Ally head on, Star World took a commercial break that lasted as long as their kiss did. When we returned to the serial, all hot and bothered, the two had parted company. We had witnessed the smoke and missed the fire.Just as well. Otherwise someone might have been tempted to alert the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to these terrible goings-on and the Minister might have had no option but to declare: off with her head.

The latest episodes of Ally McBeal are teetering on the verge. It’s not so much a case of right or wrong, as a question of taste.

What is right and what is wrong depends on your value system: it is an open-ended matter. But bad taste is simply bad taste. When Elaine pulls out her tongue and plunges it into John’s ear, murmuring, ‘‘hot, hot biscuit’’ (!?), there’s nothing precisely wrong but it does leave a bitter taste in the mouth.

Hers and ours.

Earlier, Ally McBeal was subtle and imaginative. It pushed forward the frontiers of television by showing how the medium could go beyond straight narratives to explore emotional and psychological states and swings. The ‘‘all new episodes’’ of Ally McBeal are loud, crude and in your face. Where’s that light touch gone?That’s one side of this story. The other is that once you begin policing culture, there’s no where to stop. Fortunately, our politicians have stopped short of banning fTV. They simply want it to receive a dressing down and then a dressing gown. Which means: let’s see the clothes, not the human body. Can it be done? Ahdunno: that’s the George ‘Dubya’ (W) Bush way of saying, ‘I don’t know’. Mrs Swaraj is wrong: fashion is not about clothes. Fashion uses clothes to celebrate the human body. To reveal its beauty, to revel in its form. Telling fTV to cover itself in clothes is like telling the Miss World or Miss Universe Contest to omit the swimwear round.

It’s a little silly: there, they are laying bare our genetic make-up and here we wish to hide the flesh and bones. What’s wrong with seeing the human body? It’s far, far superior to perversion, pornography, violence or sado-masochism.

On fTV what you see are semi-nude, three-quarter nude, four-fifth nude bodies. Obscene? May be but may be not who’s to decide? Our politicians? The culture-vultures?

One thing’s for sure: there’s seldom any sense of proportion. Last week, the Academy Award nominations were announced. The briefer than a blink announcement was telecast live on Star Movies, BBC World and CNN.

Star Movies is understandable, but BBC and CNN? They really went to town with Uncle Oscar. After the live telecast of the announcements, both news channels had on-the-spot reports, followed by lengthy, ‘academic’ discussions on the nominations just as they would have discussed the latest killings in the Middle East or the bombing of Baghdad. After a complete run down of the major nominations, experts were asked to rate the contenders chances, etc.

‘‘Julia Roberts should be dressed and ready to go,’’ said one. So should Russell Crowe in the opinion of another ‘‘if they don’t blame Russell for home-breaking with Meg Ryan.’’

There were interviews, there were updates only ‘Breaking News’ was missing. CNN, with its links to Time-Warner might be excused for blowing the event out of proportion but what is BBC’s excuse?

Hollywood hegemony? Tut.Tut.