Bigg Boss 11: Why making Shilpa Shinde the winner was most convenient
It made viewers happy leading to zero allegation of foul play.
Bigg Boss 11 grand finale came with no surprises apart from those 10 minutes for which voting lines were suddenly opened on Sunday night only to reassert the fact that there could be no other winner of the season apart from television’s popular face Shilpa Shinde.
Speculations were rife on whether the last-minute decision to open voting lines was to make Hina Khan the winner. But it was proved that the reality show had to tread on the predictable path as making Hina Khan the winner would not have gone down well with its audience. As the season was already ending, there was no need for controversies, it seems.
These are the takeaways of the predictable result.
The result was not scripted
This season of the reality show was scorned for being scripted throughout the last three months, and producer Vikas Gupta’s journey inside the house was the reason behind such speculations. The way he survived exultantly inside the house despite breaking the rules of the game, it was speculated that he would be declared as the winner of the show. His career as a producer, as an ex-creative head of Balaji Telefilms Limited, his closeness to producer Ekta Kapoor – all bolstered such thoughts, which turned out to be unfounded as Vikas didn’t even reach the top two.
Fan power was the king
Shilpa Shinde was the most popular contestant inside the house and she owes it to her long television career. She was a household name for her character Angoori Bhabhi in Bhabhiji Ghar Par Hai!. She was also in news after she got into a legal battle with the production house. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena stood by her and though she was out of work, she was not out of news. Soon after she entered the Bigg Boss house, she started trending on social media, though she didn’t have any official social media account. Every time she was nominated for elimination, she was saved by huge votes and the victory proved that the show was only driven by fan power.
Win of good over evil?
With the victory of Shilpa Shinde, the reality show also proved that it can’t go beyond the pattern of good winning over evil as Hina Khan and Vikas Gupta, despite entertaining the viewers with their antics, managed to create a negative image. Shilpa, on the other hand, was funny in her negativities and motherly in her other acts like cooking food throughout the day for all the contestants, sacrificing captaincy for others etc. Vikas was a “mastermind”, who plotted too much and Hina was an out and out negative character, fighting and shouting. None of them actually fit the idea of a winner in the minds of the Indian television audience. So, had the makers wanted to make Hina or Vikas win the show, they would not take the risk of upsetting the audience.
Not a game for commoners
It was proved that Bigg Boss has little place for commoners, an illusion created after last season’s commoner Manveer Gurjar won. It was a one-off situation last season as there were no heavyweight celebrities in the last season. This time, with Puneesh's eviction from the finale stage, it was all about celebrity power. No matter how well a commoner may play the game, it's not easy to impress the audience who are already awed by their celebrities.