NL Interviews Jayant Kripalani

Comedy TV veteran, Jayant Kripalani speaks to Anuvab Pal about how comedy on television has changed over the years, the inadvertent humour of news TV, the putrid smell of Bigg Boss, his new book and Ganguly Genjiwala.

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NL Team

| Feb 12, 2013 in NL Interviews | 13 comments

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(12 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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http://twitter.com/JubbanOnJeans SA

aah the elitists! I mean, Ji Mantriji was so “originial”
Pallavi

oh god, this is hilarious. what the hell is “intelligent” comedy? who are “intelligent” people? certainly not you guys. this interview stinks of classist elitist arrogance. the interviewer already assumes a hierarchy in different forms of humor. the number of people who watch “unintelligent” comedy far out number this “intelligent” bull. i thought this forum critiques exactly this kind of stuff. pls delete this video before this website begins to need another forum that critiques the critic.
http://twitter.com/Travellingslack Travelling Slacker

Nowadays if anyone criticizes the current pop culture, he’s termed an “elitist” by the apologists… wonder what makes them so defensive… it doesn’t take much intelligence to understand that most of the TV programs nowadays are indeed pure garbage…
Prs

Mr. Pal you need speak lesser and get more out of the guest…
Pallavi

@twitter-25707727:disqus that is untrue. It is not just a critique of pop culture. It also depends on the position from which the critique is carried out. These guys are making ridiculous assumptions about certain kinds of comedy and people being “intelligent” while others are not. Noone is getting defensive, just calling for a discussion which is neutral atleast in its assumptions about people’s intellect. Also it disagree that TV programs are garbage. There are a large number of people who do not think that they are garbage. They watch them and enjoy them. There is no single definition of what is bad and good television.
- http://twitter.com/Travellingslack Travelling Slacker
  
  Only majority patronizing something does not make it pure gold…
  This is not to say that people who watch them are fools… it is the combined impact of lack of options and exposure on part of the viewers and complete artistic failure on part of the makers…
  
  DD used to make far better serials till the early 90s, they had good viewership too… now everybody follows Ekta Kapoor… this sudden intellectual decadence cannot be explained so easily… something must have gone wrong somewhere…
  
  and please don’t get me started with those MTV reality shows featuring that baldie and his friends…
  - Pallavi
    
    No one is disputing the fact that Indian television is on the path of rapid decline. But i find it ridiculous to imagine a hierarchy of intellectual ability on the part of viewers. Who are intelligent people? what is intelligent comedy? I disagree with the idea that there is a certain class of english speaking indians with pseudo western tendencies who have all the intellect at their command while the masses are suffering from some catastrophe in their judgement of what is worth viewing. Both the interviewer and interviewee have assumed the role of intellectuals who have risen above the cliche of mass television and reached an abode of superior cultural taste. I agree that what the majority patronises is not pure gold but what a minority eilte audience patronises isnt the standard for gold either.
    - http://twitter.com/Travellingslack Travelling Slacker
      
      Forget what others say, my criteria is pretty objective… repetitive storyline often dragged to elongate the duration and milk advertising money, very limited worldview that only talks about joint families and scheming relatives, silly “detective” serials with giant plot loopholes, not to mention sensationalist news channels…
      
      While I can see that you dislike elitist snobbery but in this case your protest is likely to be misconstrued as support for horrible TV programs…
      - Pallavi
        
        except that i do not support horrible tv programmes. i am simply critiquing the assumptions of the interview. the interviewer seems like a milder version of arnab who is pretty much a symbol of horrible tv news anchoring. interviews like this perpetuate elitist snobbery in the name of providing fruitful critique to mainstream media practice. i am sure one can critque “horrible tv programmes” in ways that do not hierarchise levels of intellect and viewer perception based on levels of mental capability. In sum, i actually agree that class divide is a different issue altogther from the one about bad television and in fact, that is the point I am making.
    - http://twitter.com/Travellingslack Travelling Slacker
      
      I was not talking about the class divide and the impact of English speaking elite class who are ruining vernacular literature… that is an entirely different topic which can be discussed in detail but not here…
Manjro

Has Mr. Kriplani ever seen Taark Mehta Ka Ulta Chashma? Way better then any of the stuff he ever did on TV. O
- Deepak
  
  Tarak Mehta? Seriously?
asa

What the fuck is the cameraman up to? CrashZooms!

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