Keeping up with Indian celebrities: Moving in with Malaika trends after Bollywood Wives

• After the success of Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives on Netflix, Disney+Hotstar released Moving in with Malaika on the life of actor and model, Malaika Arora.
  
• Masaba Masaba, one of Netflix India’s top originals, is also a fictionalized account of the lives of designer Masaba Gupta and her mother, actor Neena Gupta.
  
• Lock Upp, hosted by actor Kangana Ranaut, garnered 15 million views in 48 hours.

Almost 15 years after Keeping up with the Kardashians made its debut, and after the Real Housewives franchise made it to every top American city — Indians are being treated to something similar.

Months after the second season of The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives debuted on Netflix, Moving in With Malaika has started trending too on Disney+Hotstar — showing that the Kardashian culture is slowly but surely being taken in.

Moving in With Malaika is highly discussed on social media with good reviews as well as bad ones — showing that it’s caught the audience’s attention.

An insider’s view

Indians who have been enjoying the inside news and gossip on Koffee with Karan, which is in its seventh season — were treated to an even deeper dive into celeb lives with Dharmatic Productions’ Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives on Netflix.

Netflix also came out with Smriti Mundhra’s Indian Matchmaking with Sima Taparia and BBC’s What the Love! with Karan Johar. Both these shows found their way to memes, more than audience hearts. Netflix got third time lucky after the show on four wives in the Bollywood circuit who Karan Johar is friends with, along with Shah Rukh Khan’s wife and entrepreneur Gauri Khan – found success.

The show focuses on the lives of jewellery designer Maheep Kapoor (wife of actor Sanjay Kapoor); actor Neelam Kothari (wife of actor Samir Soni); entrepreneur Bhavana Pandey (wife of actor Chunky Panday); and fashion designer Seema Sajdeh (ex-wife of actor Sohail Khan).

Season 2 of Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives was ranked in the Top 10 TV shows on Netflix for one week or more across seven countries.

Moving in with Malaika features only one titular character, and is produced by Banijay Asia — but is on similar lines as Fabulous Lives. So much so, Seema Sajdeh was one of the many celebrities (almost every episode had one) featured on the show. It’s also important to mention that Malaika Arora was also a part of Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives – and her show has taken the clique ahead.

Though the viewership of Moving in with Malaika is not yet available, 1,350 users of the movie and video database IMDb have given the show an average rating of 6.5/10.

The surreal lives of real housewives

This formula of celeb lives was tried and tested long back with a 2012 show Khan Sisters on bindass on the lives of actors and sisters Gauhar and Nigar Khan. Released long before the era of OTTs and connected TVs, the show failed to strike a chord with the audience, drowning in the vast jungle that is the Indian TV universe.

This time, however, on the right platform, Kardarshian-like shows are taking off with the Indian audience. The Indian shows – Bollywood Wives and Moving in with Malaika are so similar to the American versions that one of the stars mouthed similar dialogues too.

Actor Ananya Panday, daughter of Bhavana Pandey, made a brief appearance in Season 1 of Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives and said a dialogue that seemed to be straight out of Khloe Kardashian’s mouth.

“When I was young, I thought my name was ‘f*ck’ because my mom said it so much,” said Ananya Panday.

“My mom cursed so much when we were little, I thought my name was ‘f*ck,’’ Khloe Kardashian had said, first.

India’s history of reality TV

There have been more such experiments that the OTT audience seems to be lapping up. Netflix’s Masaba Masaba–a dramatized and fictionalized account of designer Masaba Gupta’s life–is a hit with the audience. Season 1 of the show was in the top ten TV shows on Netflix in two countries, and Season 2 was in the top ten in five countries.

Starring the designer herself, along with her mother, actor Neena Gupta, the show has emerged as a ‘comfort watch’ for people, raking in praises, and a fair share of nominations - even if no awards.

Netflix also experimented in this genre (dramatized stories of real celebrities) with the film AK vs AK, starring Anurag Kashyap and Anil Kapoor. While it didn’t garner the popularity of OTT hits like Mirzapur or Delhi Crime, it did leave a mark on critics and cinephiles alike.

These shows are another dimension of reality shows which have always been popular with Indians – on TV and OTT alike. Of course, there are also shows like Lock Upp and Bigg Boss which force different celebrities into close encounters and supposedly uncomfortable situations.

Lock Upp, hosted by actor Kangana Ranaut, garnered 15 million views in 48 hours. Shows which look like reality caught on camera, have created a set of audiences. It remains to be seen how many seasons they sustain the interest of audiences.

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