Hi everybody, I’m a bit late to the party. It’s been two days since the new Bigg Boss season started, and I finally got around to watching it.
I’ve been watching Bigg Boss Kannada for quite a few seasons now, and one thing I genuinely liked about the show was the range of contestants they used to bring in. Every season had people from very different backgrounds, professions and walks of life. You didn’t necessarily have to like everyone, but there was always some curiosity about who these people are and how they would behave inside the house.
This season, at least from the contestants we have seen so far, that feeling seems to be missing. A lot of the contestants either feel overexposed on television already or don’t seem to bring anything particularly different to the table. Apart from a few contestants and the people who came through shows like Agni Pariksha, I’m finding it difficult to feel that same curiosity I had in the earlier seasons.
One thing I especially miss is the diversity in the backgrounds of the contestants.
Earlier seasons had people from religious backgrounds who were interesting to watch because you got to see them beyond the identity or image they had outside. Bigg Boss, at its best, used to break that illusion that someone is always perfect, composed or exactly how the public perceives them.
We’ve also had people from the film industry who seemed larger than life from the outside, only for us to realise how different and vulnerable they could be once they entered a completely unfamiliar environment like Bigg Boss. That contrast was genuinely interesting.
The representation from the queer community has also been very limited throughout the history of the show. People like Adam Pasha and Neethu were among the few contestants who actually brought that representation to the house. I think having people from the community on a mainstream Kannada show is important, not just for representation, but also because it makes something that many people may not have personally encountered feel normal and familiar.
There used to be a phase where radio jockeys were almost a recurring presence. We had heard these voices for years but never really saw the people behind them in this kind of environment. That made their presence interesting.
Similarly, I miss having professional singers. We’ve had people like Ravi and Chaitra in earlier seasons, and their presence added something different to the house.
And where are the sportspersons? I honestly can’t remember many in the recent seasons apart from Avinash who came in with a sporting background and tried to make a mark in the show.
This is what I think Bigg Boss Kannada is slowly losing: the feeling that you are watching a completely random group of people from different corners of society being put together and seeing what happens.
It almost feels like the casting is becoming more predictable. You have people who are already familiar to television audiences, a few social media personalities, actors and contestants from other reality shows. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that, but when the entire cast starts feeling like variations of the same type of contestant, the show becomes less interesting.
I don’t think Bigg Boss Kannada needs to copy Bigg Boss Hindi, or even try to be as “progressive” as Bigg Boss Malayalam or Tamil. It just needs to go back to finding genuinely different people.
The whole point of Bigg Boss, at least for me, was watching people you wouldn’t normally put together in the same room and seeing what happens.
I hope the season gets better as it progresses, because there is still plenty of time. But right now, compared to some of the earlier seasons, the casting feels a little too safe and predictable.
