Leave the cameras running for long enough on a reality show, and people will reveal their true selves. Even when they’re playing characters, or pretending to be somebody else. For instance, the standout performer of the recently concluded Prime Video series The Traitors isn’t one of the contestants, but host Karan Johar. He saw an opportunity to unleash his inner queen and he took it. More on him and his outfits later. Karan wasn’t competing for a prize pot of Rs 1 crore, but he certainly didn’t phone it in like another popular reality show host, who, once upon a time, actually demanded a drink while he was on stage, and somebody magically presented one to him.
Indian reality television has a clear hierarchy; The Traitors mostly featured the sort of people who’d consider Bigg Boss to be beneath them. Not that they’re strictly above Bigg Boss themselves, considering how some of them behaved. Mukesh Chhabra, for instance, kept threatening people by saying ‘haaye lagegi’ if they vote him out. They did it anyway, literally on day two. Perhaps denying them an appointment at his Aram Nagar office would’ve been a better threat. But at least Mukesh survived longer than Raj Kundra, who got knocked out on day one. Someone had to be the first to go, but to go out like he did, which was basically by painting a target on his back, was just poor television.
In a sense, The Traitors was bookended by incidents that can be described as fully antithetical to the idea of great reality TV. The show ended with perhaps the most lacklustre finale imaginable, all because of the laziness of two finalists. When Harsh Gujral and Purav Jha — the last surviving ‘traitors’ — were overheard discussing their plans by Uorfi Javed, it essentially robbed the show of its most important conceit. With no room left for guesswork, all that Uorfi had to do was play Harsh like a fiddle and walk away with the trophy. Having to share the title with Nikita Luther — a poker player who might want to consider an alternate career — is probably the closest she’ll come to being in Javed Akhtar’s shoes. The poor man remains eternally attached to Salim Khan despite having forged an immense solo career.
The ‘circle of shaq’ in Prime Video’s The Traitors.
Like the great writer — this is the only time anybody is going to compare them with each other, so pay attention — Uorfi has a brash attitude and an inherent need to be the centre of attention. They also share a take-it-or-leave-it honesty that has probably earned them several detractors over the years. When Uorfi offered to forgo her half of the Rs 70 lakh prize money to Nikita, you didn’t doubt her. Not that she doesn’t need the cash; who knows? But the look on her face revealed a certain vindication, as if she’d just proven to the world (and herself) that she’s capable of achieving something.
On the other hand, Nikita would be the first to admit that she didn’t deserve to win. Having a hit-rate of zero would’ve been funny anyway, but having a hit-rate of zero despite being a professional poker player is… funnier. Perhaps she should’ve taken a leaf out of Ashish Vidyarthi’s book; the veteran actor would walk up to people menacingly, look them directly in the eye, and ask, “Are you a traitor?” He would then gauge their response based on nothing but a self-proclaimed ability to read people. He got knocked out in the first half of the show as well, becoming perhaps the first reality TV contestant in history to earn precious air time for afternoon siestas.
When he wasn’t napping, however, Ashish was definitely playing a character. His performance was so over-the-top that his peers voted him out the second they could; not because they really felt that he was a ‘traitor’, but because he was getting to them. But at least they considered him worthy of being called an actor, because the same courtesy wasn’t extended to Sudhanshu Pandey, who survived till the very end with a look of sheer bamboozlement on his face. During one of the final ‘circle of shaq’ sessions, Purav straight-up forgot what Sudhanshu does for a living. What’s worse; a middle-aged actor having to do a reality show, or a middle-aged actor being outsmarted by a bunch of Gen Z kids on that same reality show?
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One of those young contestants was Sufi Motiwala, who was instrumental in knocking Raftaar out. After doing so, Sufi retreated into a corner and began weeping, not because he was wrong, but because he thought that this would make him ‘the villain of the season’. Sufi wishes. It’s one thing to make cruelty your personality — it gets old real quick — but it’s another thing to reveal how cruel you are despite your best efforts to present yourself as a green flag. The dishonour of being the show’s real ‘villain’ belongs to Harsh, who not only made a terribly sexist remark at Uorfi, but then threw a hissy fit directed at her when he was evicted. He went out whining.
What was she supposed to do? Let him (continue to) use her? There’s a reason why Uorfi and Apoorva Mukhija — another standout contestant — didn’t see eye to eye on the show. It’s because deep down, they’re very similar. And similar personality types often clash. It’s true that Apoorva coasted on the strength of her memorable dissection of Raj Kundra’s antics in the first episode, but she never stopped playing the game like it’s meant to be played. Unlike Purav, who began crying because of all the traitorous stuff that the show was making him do, Apoorva and Elnaaz Norouzi saw the humour behind the sham.
Karan Johar in The Traitors.
The Traitors nosedived the moment Elnaaz left, which just goes to show how heavily it was relying on her. Her decision to project herself as, essentially, a dumb blonde exposed the sexist and xenophobic mindsets of common Indians. Of course a pretty foreigner must be stupid, right? While everybody continued underestimating Elnaaz, she was running circles around them. She’s the real winner of the show, along with Karan, of course. He seemed to be channeling Cruella De Vil every time he stepped into frame, wearing the most outlandish costumes and savouring every word that rolled off his tongue. “Rise and shine, it’s dhoka time,” he said at breakfast every morning, before pulling a framed photo of an eliminated contestant off the wall and letting it shatter on the floor. He never broke character, at least not on camera, and seemed to be entirely in his element even when things become visibly tiresome in the latter half. It’s a crime that he didn’t act after Bombay Velvet; there’s an alternate career out there for him.
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Post Credits Scene is a column in which we dissect new releases every week, with particular focus on context, craft, and characters. Because there’s always something to fixate about once the dust has settled.
