Some spoilers ahead!
We live in two worlds in the Gen Z era: one is the pragmatic world, and the other is the virtual world or the world driven by technology, where we often appear to be someone (especially on our social media pages) whom we aspire to be but can’t be in the real world.
“Shameless” (a short film available for viewing on the Amazon shopping app) dissects the facade worn by some people in their everyday life to maintain their fake reputation, which actually has no existence in reality.
This is done through the character of Praveen Chaddha, who pretends to be an established software engineer in his Facebook profile, but in reality, he is an unemployed, indolent person who places repeated orders in an online food delivery app to satiate his gluttony.
Bharti, an employee of that online food delivery app, confronts Praveen who exploited her by placing multiple orders a day (within a very short period of time that made her miss the train she was about to board to furnish money for the treatment of her ailing mother).
This brings out the stark contrast between the two classes prevalent in the society, and the privilege “upper” classes enjoy and as a result exercise their authority over the “lower” classes, that ultimately leads to inhumanity.
The Contrast Between Haves And Have-nots
Shameless depicts the cons of technology that turns a human devoid of emotions. Praveen, basking in his virtual world, is shown unaware of the struggles migrant workers like Bharti endure.
They travel from small villages to big cities in search of work in order to provide basic amenities for their families, and thereby improve their deplorable, financial condition.
The circumstances under which Praveen and Bharti exchanged conversations might not be healthy, yet it acts like an eye opener to Praveen, who previously considered his own problem of unemployment to be the end of his world.
Bharti is like a lesson to Praveen that people trapped in worse situations than him are fighting, and not giving up! It’s only through crossing paths with Bharti that Praveen becomes a better version of himself, attaining self-sufficiency as a human being.
Shameless thus exposes the shamelessness of financially solvent human beings like Praveen, who misuse technology without even caring about the trouble it might cause to the people around him.
It also conveys a strong message to people to be benevolent and compassionate towards workers of online delivery apps, and other workers, teaching us to treat them with the respect every human being deserves.