Performing Pain and Gendered Suffering in Indian True-Crime Web Shows: Cultural Narratives and the Question of Ethical Sustainability

Abstract

This paper examines the representation of suffering in contemporary Indian true-crime web series through the lens of pain studies. While pain is often understood as an individual biological experience, scholars in medical humanities and cultural studies emphasise that suffering is socially mediated, culturally framed and institutionally organised. Using qualitative textual and narrative analysis, the study analyses four influential Indian web series— Delhi Crime, Jamtara: Sabka Number Ayega, Rangbaaz, and Mumbai Diaries 26/11—to understand how pain is narrated, distributed and ethically framed within true-crime storytelling. The study explores how institutions such as policing, politics, healthcare and digital economies mediate suffering, and how gender shapes the visibility and interpretation of pain. Drawing on theorists such as Elaine Scarry, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Roger Silverstone, the research investigates whether these narratives responsibly represent real suffering or transform it into spectacle for audience engagement. The findings show that while these series bring attention to social violence and injustice, they frequently prioritise institutional responses, heroic narratives and dramatic storytelling over the lived experiences of victims. Gendered patterns also emerge, where women’s pain is often symbolic and collective, while male suffering is framed as explanatory or productive. The study ultimately argues that Indian true-crime web narratives operate within a complex ethical terrain where suffering becomes both a site of social reflection and a narrative resource for entertainment.