If you watch (or are forced to watch because of your mom) Indian daily soaps, you will quickly realize there are probably 3-4 central themes all of them revolve around.
- The protagonist is always the cultured and mild mannered woman who has fairly mid aspirations.
- The “modern woman” in the house, the one wearing sleeveless blouse and extravagant jewelry is the villain who wants ill for the protagonist
- Protagonist is always paragon of virtue, she will forgive anyone, trust everyone and is liked by all the neutral characters. The characters are always black and white. There are no shades of grey, there are no complex characters.
- The whole story would revolve around the family life. Most of the times it is not a working woman, and if it, then somehow the work and the home life is deeply connected.
Why do all the daily soaps follow the same themes?
Some time ago, I had written about medium-message fit. The idea was that for any medium of communication, the content will eventually optimize to medium where the content creator can extract maximum value with minimum risk(read creativity) and effort.
The daily soap market has reached this medium message fit. And all the themes and tropes above are direct result of their target market i.e. middle and lower middle class housewives. All these tropes are optimized to make the serial highly relatable. Because if you make it relatable, you don’t have to invest in a good story, production quality or anything else.
- The protagonist is cultured because every housewife likes to think she is a cultured and traditional woman
- The “modern woman” in her life is probably a rich relative or someone who got way more opportunities and freedom in her life. She got what the housewife did not. She is the villain.
- You always think you are the paragon of virtue. No one thinks that they are the bad person.
- When your family life is your whole life, there is nothing else to think about other than your relationship with your partner, kids and in laws. The world outside this, the politics, the sports, the social issues, are something your husband worries about not you, So your serials will dictate the same.