My subscription to several YouTube channels was a naturaloutcome of living in the times of touch culture. It is in such ambiance theoutreach of idea of being a YouTuber had already rapt lot of Kashmiri netizens.While at the outset new notifications from Kashmiri comedy channels would be ane-treat that conditioned the moments of hysterics for me. But as winter turned to spring, I could smell thefishiness of the content that was conditioned into public imagination.Genderally I could see content of these texts nurtured from phantasmagoria andnormalized with patriarchal injections. It is such videos/comedies as culturaltexts which reproduce the hegemonic ideologies and also impediment thedevelopment of an egalitarian society.
Amid the streets busy dissolving blood of innocents, airsmelling of rotten politics, the normalization of curfews, encounters and stone pelting; insuch tempestuous time the access to comedy has a therapeutic effect on themental geographies of people. While comedy in such trying times serves thefunction of catharsis, it also becomes important for us to be critical of thediscourse that motivates the production of such comedy. This links it with thesignificant number of Kashmiri YouTubers producing comedy through variousYouTube channels. The reflection of problems in Kashmiri society with comicwitticism and extensive use of theatrics are some of the eclectic features ofthese channels. But as far as the discourse of gender is concerned, they areschooling the society with sexist texts that are derogatory to women andtransgender community. Women continue to be sketched as characters drawn frompatriarchal imagination.
The critical inquest into the select episodes of thesechannels throws surprises, as far as the politics of representation of women isconcerned. The episode “Be Hayayii Ka Natija” is about a woman character who isharassed on the road after she refuses the proposal of a boy. Apparently theboy and his associates cannot face the rejection by a girl wearing jeans.”Blackmailing Girl” justifies and rationalizes an act of blackmailing the girlwho wears the jeans. The episode has a closing message for public to normalizethe violence for women wearing jeans. Similarly in “Tiktok” a viral video of agirl leads to the heart attack of her father. “Baikal Zein Part 1” crosseslimits with a story where a married stupid Kashmiri women is shown washing amobile phone with water in their washroom. “Women Antics/Zanan Makhir” reflectsthe essential qualities of women to be devilish and villainous in nature. Theepisode warns the men to be away from this character of women. In a similarfashion “Unmarried father” portrays sexually frustrated man who aspires tomarry at an old age and keeps unremittingly pushing his son for his marriage. Iwas wondering about our reactions for making the same episode with the oppositegender.
The reductionist and simpleton understanding of watchingthese comedy episodes only with the lenses of entertainment needs to becritiqued. With lacs of subscribers for consumption, these video texts act asaudio-visual therapies to condition the public imagination with sexism. Thepatriarchal and chauvinistic imaginationis at the core of these videos that are meant to entertain people. Theconsumption of such episodes reproducesthe ideology that leads to the sexist social construction of gender. Theaccessibility to such entertainment leads to an Althusserian Interpellation ofgender insensitive subjects, that have a huge tendency to bolster the exclusionand marginalisation of women in the society. It is further in such context thatsuch consumption goes a long way in mythification and stereotyping of women, that acts asan impediment for materializing the goals of a polished society. Given theturbulent and trying ambiance in Kashmir, we wish to see a comedy that bringslaughter to the wretched souls of Kashmir, but not at the cost of pigeonholingwomen.
While mis-represented women characters of these episodes arein search of gender sensitive authors to complete them, I too conclude withquestions that are in search of answers. How long will it take to make a comedywithout body shamming and sexism? Howlong will it take for us to stop a comedy episode that disrespects women andother genders? How long will it take, not to glorify and over- sexualize thetransgender community? How long will ittake to stop the cross dressing of men as women? How long will it take to laughat our idiosyncrasies, without marginalizing any gender? How long we have todream to dream such dream.
Aamir Qayoom is a research scholar of Comparative Literature,Delhi University. He also works as research assistant for University of WesternAustralia (UAW).
aamirqayoom97@gmail.com.