I am sorry if this post comes across as a rant. I don't have the energy to be funny right now.
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For the last three months, I've been subject to Tamil serials in the evenings - from when I come back to work until ten-thirty. Thankfully, work ensures I get home only by nine-thirty on most days. Tamil serials are loud, brash, depressing. Characters only show the most disgusting emotions - of hate, jealousy, taking offence (a la the Culture Vultures), anger, 'honour', revenge.

The "bad" are intolerably bad - they always (and I mean ALWAYS) talk as if they're scheming (For instance, there was this scene where an evil mother-in-law was asking the cook to get milk for her granddaughter. She somehow made even that line sound evil!). Usually in the pettiest of manners. For instance, there is this lady who is behaving like she's unwell so that she can take advantage of her divorced daughter-in-law who takes pity on her. There's this other lady (in another serial) who (with her son) is trying to play some really really random politics in her brother's house - like creating a huge fuss when her nephew buys some expensive (Rs. 6000) jewellery for his wife. There was this other scene where the man's family troubles his pregnant wife only because she's earning and her husband is jealous of the whole deal. They complain that the coffee she's made is watery, that the cups in her house are too small, that the house is too uncomfortable.

Then there's all the ridiculous corporate battles they fight. Where they kill each other off without any trouble or remorse. Nobody is ever happy. Nobody is ever nice to another person. Except the VICTIM. The VICTIM is a central character who is simply too nice to everyone around her. (No, the VICTIM is never a man. A correct reflection of society, although a bit exaggerated.) Her niceness is always taken advantage of. People are always screwing her over. Always. And she still finds the strength to be intolerably nice to everyone. Only, she cries so much that you'd prefer her just getting screwed over instead of trying to be nice about it.

I wont even begin on the gender issues - every stereotype is reinforced. The thaali sentiment, dowry (In one serial going on right now, a wedding is stalled due to dowry issues, and not one voice is raised against the practice itself. Not even in the households watching these serials, I bet.) (Ok. Right now, as I type, the mother and daughter are having major issues because the daughter spilt rasam, thereby creating food shortages in the household.) Then there's the ubiquitous chinna veedu (literally, small house - "second family" of a man). Everyone seems to have one. And the domestic political possibilities of such a situation seem endless. There are always people to be jealous about, people to cry for, people to kill, illegitimacy and status to squabble over.

The music - can it be a little less harmful on the ear? Slightly?

I know that Tamilians as a class are highly petty people. But even by those standards, these serials are a bit much. Surely there are better stories to tell, no?