The house of ill repute:Malayalee House, reality television and morality debates in contemporary Kerala

What is it about?

This paper maps the production history of Malayalee House (2013) a reality television show telecast by Surya TV, one of the many Malayalam satellite channels in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Publicized as a Malayalam edition of Bigg Boss, it soon ran into controversy with the filing of the injunction at the Bombay High Court by Endemol group, the makers of Bigg Boss who alleged copyright infringement. This was followed by protests by women’s organizations and an outcry for television censorship. The making and the telecast would leave the participants and the producers at loggerheads about the unsaid norms which govern the so called “appropriate” content to be telecast during the prime time. Using an ethnographic lens, I map out the varied circuits taken by the television program and the “afterlives” of the participants, to explore the social dynamics that shaped the debates in the post-telecast phase. In doing so, I try and see how rather than a mere deployment of “electronic eyes” and voyeuristic gaze, Malayalee House was an attempt to push the limits of tolerance that Malayali society would have towards the open expression of intimacy and sexuality.

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