My Thoughts

Interviews are dime a dozen these days on YouTube but again only a few of them are actually watchable. There are so many channels these days on YouTube and on TV that there is some interview either for movie promotions or just a chat with an actor almost everyday. While there are lots of interviews there aren’t many with substance. The interviews mostly at least in Tamizh are boring, unimaginative and sometimes downright embarrassing.

Previously there were a handful of Satellite channels but now there are so many of them that there is always a competition to put up a click bait headline go get views for the video. Most of the interviewers do no homework on the actors career and come up with mundane questions for which we get robotic responses from the actors. Not all interviewers are bad, some of them are brilliant like Baradwaj Rangan, Abishek and Rukshanth to name a few but again there aren’t many.

Here are some of the issues I have about especially Tamizh interviews (I don’t watch other language interviews much to form an opinion on them. Just a disclaimer before someone attacks me)

Too much hero worship:

Most of the times the conversations with famous stars become a ego massaging exercise more than an actual interview. Most of the anchors go overboard with praises which sometimes even make the actors uncomfortable. The interview does not offer anything to the audience who watch it other than to give satisfaction to the fanboys of the stars. Most of the times I do not even watch after the interview after the first few questions as I know how it is going to go.

No research or homework done

Most of the interviews have repetitive questions and we get standard answers from the stars. There is no research or homework done about the movie the actor is promoting or about the career to actually ask meaningful questions. The stars mostly go through the motions and most of these interviews turn into boring one with the anchor trying to fish for some click bait title for the video on YouTube.

Female actors completely ignored in interviews with the movie crew

When we have the movie crew come in to promote a film, the fixation of the anchor on the male star of the film is jarring. The female actors are ignored completely to a point where we can actually see them bored out of their wits. This not only happens with newcomers but also with established actors. The Tamizh anchors are notorious in doing this if you follow movie crew interviews closely. Suddenly they will remember that there is a female actor and resort to some mundane questions like “How did they get a chance to act in this project?” and then, wait for it as this is a brilliant question, “How was it to act with the hero of the film”, once these questions are answered, they will be back to the male stars. This becomes worse for female actors who cannot speak the language. It is not their fault that they cannot speak the language. The fact of the matter is that most of the anchors just don’t bother to do any homework on the female actors careers to actually ask any meaningful questions.

Female actors asked about male stars in their interviews:

This is the worst of all. Even when female stars/actors are interviewed the questions to them will be to share their experiences acting with multiple male superstars. The if they run out of questions about male superstars, they will ask the female actors when they are getting married or what kind of life partner they are looking for etc. These interviews are the most cringe of all. You just cannot sit through it. It is almost like these actors have done nothing in their careers to have a conversation about.

Tamizh anchors need to learn how an interesting interview can be conducted. May be watch videos of a Baradwaj Rangan or Abishek or even someone like Rukhshanth whose recent interviews with couple of female stars were brilliant and fun to watch. The anchors that I mentioned above don’t ask monotonous questions and actually come with proper research about the actors career to ask questions which keeps the celebrity as well as the fans interested.

Yeah praising stars and getting praise out of others about a star for a click bait title might please some fanboys but again that is not all there is for an interview. YouTube channels themselves need to strive hard to give better content to the audience. These days I don’t watch any interviews as they are boring. An actor from a big film will be interviewed but the entire conversation will be about the star in the film and not about the actor who is being interviewed. This needs to change in Tamizh media and channels need to realise that just the ability to talk does not make someone a good anchor.