Is AIB Knockout-Roast of Ranveer & Arjun a new low in entertainment and humour?

I think YES..and let me start from the verdict so that people who think otherwise have a fair chance of choosing whether to read further or not....

Before I outline my views as to why I think its a new low in public entertainment as a whole (As-a-whole Not Ass*** ..hmm..sorry..after effect of AIB   :)   )  and humor/comedy in particular, allow me to specify what I am not against.....

• I am not against freedom of speech and expression.
• I am not against people's right to decide, what they want to watch...how they wish to be entertained...after all, there are enough people who find, movies of Farah khan, Sazid Khan, Karan Johar etc, extremely funny and entertaining...
• I am not against self deprecating humor...on the contrary I encourage that..big celebrities doing it, is actually fun and in good spirit...
• I am not against use of expletive cuss words..in fact all of us do that in our private lives..

Did I laugh while watching it? 

Yes I did...at least intermittently..

Was It funny?

Yes it was..at least in bits and pieces..

Does it mean there is audience for such content?

Yes indeed..

But does above alone justify public performance and public circulation of such content?

Hmmm....????...I have my doubts...

So what next then? How about live pornography? 

Hey that's a great idea..involving celebrities will be fun...how about we check with Deepika/Ranveer, or may be Karan/Ranveer/Deepika ( :) ) if they could do a live show...After all AIB sold "Roast" tickets for Rs 4000..I think we can easily price something like this at Rs 50000. And we can package it with some nice charitable cause, so that audience with conscience can go back home guilt free, thinking they paid for charity...  

In essence, my point is where are we leading with this? The moment you do something which no one has ever done, you give someone else an idea to go even further...now that's a good thing if subject is technology, science, or even craft of film making...but questionable if it pertains to rules of society..

This become all the more complicated when you involve celebrities...celebrities command followers, power to influence people...so celebrity endorsement also means something which could have been considered "Gross & vulgar" can be looked as "cool and hip"....

Let me present a scenario...Now what stops people from considering this as acceptable humor at work place too...so if some people start using such language, gestures with their female colleagues, or take a derogatory dig on their personal lives, will it qualify to be an attempt at humor or harassment at work place?

Let me present another scenario, if you are a women walking on a random street, and you pass by a group of unruly men. Those men did exactly the same..used filthiest of the words, gestures etc, and mind you, not directly at you (may be just talking among themselves but loud enough). would you consider it acceptable? 

If I am guessing it right..I think genesis of this idea (humiliating celebrities publicly), must have been that, we Indians are often blamed for having very poor sense of humor..we don't appreciate humor, we don' laugh much, least of all at ourselves...we get offended too soon (latest example being Deepika Padukone getting hugely offended by Times publishing her cleavage photo with juicy headlines...I will come back to this later)

Yes, our society is a bit too intolerant..which is not a good thing...but food for thought is, while we expect society to be tolerant, do we know where to draw the line?

All of us at some point have been outraged by moral policing, online or offline. It is anyways sad that our society (and by extension our institutions such as police/judiciary) still looks down upon public display of affection...so there are young couples being arrested for kissing/holding hands in public...But at the same time if we allow this, some other group might demand cuddling/being intimate in public places as their right...than some other group will emerge demanding right to fondling of "private parts" in "public places"....and finally some morons will even claim that "having intercourse" in open public places as their birth right...

So again question is where to draw a line..

To conclude, what AIB and Karan/Ranveer/Arjun did in "Roast" is nothing new. In fact that kind of humor is very much part of our lives. We indulge in such humor on a daily basis, BUT in our own privacy or with close circle of friends (including those naughty WhatsApp groups all of us have)...any one who have ever lived in a hostel, would tell you that they have seen and been part of even worst...but again that is within a close knit circle..

Problem with this AIB approach is that they made it too public...and by doing that they may have opened another pandora's box...what will it lead to next is food for thought...

A society lives by rules....some rules are law driven hence legally enforceable, some rules are in the nature of self censorship...and every society needs to find its own balance....How to find a balance between legally enforceable rules and self censorship rules is a big question.....

P.S: 

By the way coming back to Deepika, isn't it amazing how sportingly she took all those nasty comments in the AIB show? just few months back she was so furious when TOI published that cleavage pic and all hell broke lose. She invoked all sorts of adjectives for the paper and reporter including blaming them of being misogynist. Well I think people change.