The comedy of Errors

(A Critical Analysis of The Kapil Sharma Show)

Comedy refers to any talk or work for the most part proposed to be clever or diverting by
making people laugh or giggle, particularly in theater, TV, film, and stand-up comic drama. It
originated in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian vote-based system, the general sentiment of
voters was affected by the political parody performed by the comic writers at the theaters.
Comedy is anything which is done to make someone laugh.

Comedy is anything which is funny, but the question that arises here is ‘what is funny?’
something which is funny according to one person may not be funny for another. Comedy is
not a science, it is an art and hence there are no rules to comedy, it is subjective in nature, it
differs from person to person. One thing significant is that while analyzing comedy when
you attempt to analyze it directly and investigate it excessively, the majority of the cleverness
vanishes and it no more remains comedy, it is rather taken as an offence.

Stand-up comedy is one field which is coming up recently. The stand-up comedians make the
audience laugh by instantly making one-liners or even using sarcasm and ouns, they practice
a lot before every performance and they recall their life instances in a funny way, it is not an
easy task, but after all of this sometimes this difficult task becomes even more difficult when
the lines of dignity are blurred.

One such example of a well-known stand-up comedy show is “The Kapil Sharma Show”.
The Kapil Sharma Show is an Indian Hindi stand-up comedy and talk show initially
broadcasted by Sony Entertainment is now telecasted on Colours. Hosted by Kapil Sharma,
the first season of the show had its premiere on 23 April 2016. 

The main characters showed in the show are as follows:

1. Kapil Sharma as himself / Kappu Sharma / Inspector Shamsher Singh / Rajesh

Arora / Gapu / Tapu / Khatrughan Sinha

2. Sunil Grover as Dr. Mashoor Gulati / Rinku Devi / Piddhu / Amitabh Bachchan's
mimic / Dharmendra Singh / Navjot Sidhu's mimic

3. Ali Asgar as Nani / Begum Luchi / Amitabh Bachchan's mimic / Dr. Mashoor Gulati's
Father
 4. Kiku Sharda as Bumper Lottery (Nurse in 50-50 Hospital) / Santosh (Rinku Devi's
sister-in-law) / Inspector Damodar Ishwarlal Gaitonde / Bachcha Yadav (Milkman) /
Achha Yadav (Bachcha Yadav's twin brother) / Sunny Deol's mimic

5. Bharti Singh as Babli Mausi / Lalli

6. Chandan Prabhakar as Chandu (CEO of Dubai tea stall) / Abhishek Bachchan's

mimic

7. Sumona Chakravarti as Sarla Gulati (Dr. Mashoor Gulati's daughter, Kapu's

childhood friend and love interest of Chandu also )

Specific instances of Glaring Misogyny from the show

1) Appearance of Kapil Sharma on-screen-wife Sumona

In the show Sharma would never speak to his wife with respect, resorting to insulting
punches all the time, asking her to go back to the kitchen instead of coming on stage.
Granted, it’s a comedy show but must misogyny remain an inherent part of a comedy?
Why don’t we see his wife insulting him back with twice as much ‘comic’ venom? Oh
yes, because as per the format, the males always get punch lines leaving female
counterparts either succinctly dumb or overtly titillated. Even his male colleagues Kikoo
Sharda or Ali Asgar gets to dress up as amorous aunties ogling at the male guests – young
or old.

2) The December 2016 episode 

The December 2016 episode with Aaj Tak’s Sweta Singh as a guest showcases the height
of sexism. Sharma welcomed the female anchor with a taunt, “Sweta, you’ve created a
revolution in news. Earlier, only old people used to watch news, now all young men
watch it because of you.” His uncanny speech went on for about four minutes as he
added: “Why didn’t you try in films as you look so beautiful reading news?” Kapil also
insulted legendary Doordarshan female news readers when he told Sweta, “Probably they
used to knit sweaters below the bench while reading news.” Shockingly, Sweta Singh
played along and only responding with “Are you praising me or pulling my leg?”

3) The January 21 episode

Not content with sexism, the show also plays with colourism. In the January 21 episode,
while promoting his film Raees, Nawazuddin Siddiqui was asked if he had taken a bath
 (Siddiqui is dark-skinned). Siddiqui, the humble man he is, laughed it off. Sharma added
that if he had the lead role, the film would have been named after some beggar and
not Raees. Sharma received many comments on the Youtube link of the show berating
him for his treatment of the actor. One of the comments read, “I love Nawazuddin just
because of his simplicity. Kapil you lost your fan just because of the way you treated
Nawaz.”

4) Role of various male playing female characters

In the show, at least three male characters, on a daily basis, play the roles of females.
These characters are shown to be not only over-exposing their bodies as females but are
the ones, who hit on the male guests of the show every two seconds. In that sense, they
are not only adding to the already trending vogue of objectification of women, but also
typecasting the ‘queer’ people. These males in the guise of females are shown to be
overflowing with uncontrollable libido (for example, the character of Dadi, whose daily
job was to give a forceful “shagun ki pappi” to the visiting guests on the show) and every
now and then jumping on the males onstage. Thus, in an indirect way, the comedy show
might seem to be overtly contributing to the offensive stereotype regarding people of
alternative sexual preferences that they happen to be sexually promiscuous and keep on
forcing themselves on people often in their hunt for partners.

5) Body shaming and Name Calling

Kapil’s treatment of the female characters (playing as females) onstage also seems highly
disturbing. He continually abuses them, calls them names, body-shames them
unapologetically and sometimes even physically manhandles them. In the previous version of
the show, that is “Comedy Nights With Kapil”, Kapil was even shown as cursing his wife for
dowry and complaining how his in-laws tied him ‘dhokey se’ with this unattractive ‘bade
honton wali’ (thick-lipped) lady, fetching mindless claps from the audience including the
Laughing Buddha, Mr. Navjot Singh Siddhu, an ex-cricketer and a former MP from Amritsar.

People’s views:

A US-based PhD research scholar Pradnya Mangala said, “Misogyny and color biases are
deep-rooted in the caste culture of our Indian society. Not just the Kapil Sharma show, most
other TV serials and most of the Bollywood industry is a reflection of that. Here, misogyny
and sexism is normalised and is presented as entertainment. It’s gross! It’s annoying that we
have such an apathy and we are okay with it.”

Riya Singh, who shot into national limelight after topping the Tata Institute of Social
Sciences entrance exam , has strong views on the show. The PhD in Women’s Studies said,
“It’s ridiculous to see such a show on national television where utterly patriarchal jokes on
women and her family are normalized as if they have no respect and identity of their own. I
am happy that the show is completely taken off the television. I am also relieved to know that
my 10-year-old nephew is now away from one of such stupid satire which propagates sexism.
No such programs should have any space on television on the internet.”

Conclusion:

Perhaps, it’s time to introspect what kind of representation of Indian society comedy shows
as such provide worldwide. It is disturbing to watch day after day such a show that encashes
on our masculinist, misogynist, patriarchal discourse in the name of humor. I am afraid I may
get tagged as the “feminist killjoy”. But I think, sometimes it’s alright to not laugh at
everything that goes in the name of “comedy” and understand the politics behind the joke.
Perhaps the time has come to stop, take a moment, and think before laughing things off.

PARTICIPANT DETAILS

AMULYA KAUSHIK

B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) SECOND YEAR

VIVEKANANDA INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES