Insult comedy is not our cup of tea. People who must have followed the recent AIB roast and it's after effects must be knowing this already. The event and people's reaction to it seem to have blown out of proportions, but if analysed at root cause level, the problem is not that complicated after all.
Roast and insult comedy have been prevalent in USA for quite long now, but so are number of other things as well such as nudity in films, smoking scenes in films without disclaimer, easy arms access, free political satirical humour to name a few. We never advocate bringing other things to Indian platforms, then why is this sudden emergence of advocacy for acceptance of adult comedy?
This has to be understood first that social acceptance in any society comes directly from people and not from governing bodies, probably thats the reason why India has always struggled to accept any unconventional concept, because of it's vast and diversified population, no matter how many people are in favour, there will always be a few against it, and thats when terms like democracy and majority elected representatives comes in play. We can't simply shove anything down the throats of people and expect them to digest, it is rather a complex and time extensive process that sometimes might take even decades to prevail.
Western countries like USA are more open not because their government forces people to be open minded, it's more because the people them selves have grown more mature, tolerant and open minded, that is why they can abuse their governments, they can show their flags burnt, they can mock Jesus and they can laugh out loud at insults, all this because they have learned to react to these kind of unconventional scenarios and they have also grown enough to understand the difference between fiction and reality.
Indian audience on the other hand is quite diversified and divided in terms of what they can and what they can not digest, and despite there being bodies like censor board to take care of such issues, creators of content often already take appropriate measures to avoid unnecessary ripples.
AIB did exactly that, they held the event in closed doors to a consenting audience who had great fun, when uploaded on youtube, they still made sure to start with proper warnings and disclaimers but despite all this people who got hurt went ahead and watched the show and reacted, a few reacted without actually watching it in the first place, who should be blamed here? Creators took each effort to avoid getting unnecessary attention, but we have kind of inherited this curiosity to go for the forbidden apple, specially when it looks enticing and might give us a reason to exhibit our intellect.
We might be on the verge of a change, can't say though if the change is for good or not, and can't even say if the change is inevitable or not, but one thing is for sure and that is it won't happen over night.
With so much already there for people to deal with, people are as it is less tolerant and pre occupied, and with this recent extensive availability of social platforms, people are ready to react more than ever and on almost any and everything. Be it films, politics, sports, religion or any other topic, people will express their opinions on everything executing their freedom of speech and freedom of expression. The question is where is the fine line of demarcation? Probably no one knows that, there are groups like AIB ready to take a plunge and experiment, and there are film makers like Raju Hirani ready to contribute in tolerance evolution by coming up with films like PK, but no new idea comes without the baggage of it's own. This is the world where people have been disgraced for unleashing the most evident of truths like earth revolves round the sun, what and why should we expect from people?
On final note, I believe that people need to evolve, not only biologically, but also socially, mentally, logically, rationally and like every evolution, this evolution will also take it's own time. It might have taken years for our ancestors to get rid of the tails, cutting down the tails instantly would have only created panic and disruption in societies of those times, so it is best to just wait and ........ Keep experimenting.
