Discipline, control and children in tamil reality television

Abstract

Reality television programmes that revolve around the lives of children and teenagers have become attractive to the audience of all ages, which is evident in their success across diverse channels and various demographics (Palmer in Stud Popul Cult 36: 123–143, 2013). Whether the children are secondary characters or central to the show, part of the appeal of the programming is the access it provides to the lives of minors (Neifeld in Hast Commun & Entertain Law 32: 123–143, 2010). In today's social and political scenario, we are in a situation to critically think about what is in the limelight and what is not? What takes the priority space in today's media and what is kept as a secret? When “Me Too” campaigns gain momentum, why are children in the television industry not seen as victims? Tamil television industry's reality television production practices are examined in this chapter to discuss the threats to the well-being of children who are forced to work as child artists by their parents and peer pressure. Based on the author's inside experiences as a member of the production crews and the auto-ethnographic accounts that result from the same (besides in-depth interviews and focus group sessions with the child artists), this chapter maps distinct patterns of child abuse in Tamil reality television.