Cheerleaders

The use of Cheerleaders in IPL matches has created a furor and I find it amusing how small insignificant things which are intended to provide entertainment create a chaotic situation and thus create entertainment of a different kind.

At one point people talk of cheerleading as a source of entertainment and there is different group of people which deem it to be against Indian culture and values.I wouldn't say it’s against Indian culture or values as it’s something which is purely for entertainment and Indian culture did have dancers to entertain Kings, and nautanki groups to entertain the common people.

The only manner in which it’s against Indian culture is, the west, especially the US as such is a new country with no traditional folk arts to call its own, and thus they came up with things like cheerleading to provide entertainment. India, on the other hand has a long tradition of many folk arts such as the Kalbelia dance of Rajasthan, the famous Indian Rope technique(who says we can't have magic shows during a match?), the Tamasha troupes of Maharashtra to name a few, which could be called more entertaining than cheerleading any day. My belief, thus, is that the IPL matches could have been used to promote such arts, which would have then helped in the revival of such folk arts and provided such artists with a source of livelihood.

On the issue of obscenity and how cheerleading depicts the degradation of Indian values, I only feel that how a woman is dressed hardly makes any difference, men are known to have raped even infants and actually if the Indian male can't stand the sight of a few scantily dressed women, then it just means that there is something wrong in the way we are bringing up our boys.The Indian male seems to be objecting to everything, from women wearing jeans, or skirts to women dancing in bars, to women working in a multinational.Does this mean that Women in India are at wrong and should do only what men expect them to do, or does it mean that men in India are being brought up in a manner that they have forgotten that it’s important to respect women and to respect the way they lead their lives? I think it means that there is something seriously wrong with our society and how we are imparting values to the coming generations and its time we took corrective measures.

There is also a need to distinguish between entertainment and culture, everything in entertainment does not reflect culture because ultimately in the end entertainment is a business, and things which may be culturally degrading yet fast selling would be liberally used in entertainment. Its society and individuals in a society who should have the maturity to understand this distinction.