Despite of the cyber revolution we can’t deny the importance of television in today’s society. Still television have more impact than any other medium. Mostly the audience use television for entertainment and most of the television entertainment came from the dramas.
Women are the main audience of television who use to watch dramas for entertainment, so dramas are made to attract them and particularly revolves around the women. The content women watch on dramas leaves a great impact on her attitude and personality. In other words, we can say that the dramas set the standards for women and have a huge impact on how she should behave and act in the society.
In 80 percent of the dramas in our industry we see the women lead in the week character. The most famous dramas that goes on higher ratings had suggest that women are supposed to bear pain, violence and the good girl is the one who is soft shy and not so competitive. Most of the dramas are scripted like this. In most scenes’ women are shown being slapped by man and men are shown dominant and the decision makers. The most common example in this scenario is the famous drama “Hum Safar” which goes on air on “HUM TV” on the prime time and was one of the dramas with highest ratings. The female lead “Khirad” played by the Mahira Khan who was presented as shy, snowflake and bear all the troubles.
Furthermore, the presentation of working women usually goes on the negative side. In most cases the working women is described as having the least interest in the family and described as bad mothers. In Hum Safar the character of Fareeda also propagate the negative picture the society have for the NGO workers. Moreover, almost in every drama serial the girl in the jeans and high aims is described as negative character. Pakistani society is already conservative and by these kinds of content our industry is shrinking the lens more. Our industry should promote the strong character of the women and should emphasize on the point that women are not meant to be silent.
As compared to last 10 years now our drama industry is somewhere doing a job in promoting high standards of women and presetting the topics that needed to be discussed by breaking the stereotypes for example the character of “Kashaf” in “Zindagi Gulzar Hai” was strong, the girl with high aims who achieve her goal despite of the obstacles in her way. Similarly, the character of “Dr. Zobia” in “Yakeen ka Safar” was amazing portrayal of strong women character and brought the courage and the hope in the female class of society. The breaking of stereotypes and talking about the taboos like rape and child abuse is also a good step by the industry. The dramas like “Cheekh”, “Udari” and “Yakeen ka Safar” have successfully highlighted all the issues which were not lighten up since the years.
But still the need of hour is this that our dramas should stop getting influenced by the Indian style opras and stop tagging the good girl image with the softness, shyness and oppression. Likewise, should stop spreading the hate for the working class and outspoken girls by making them the villain.
Fatima Zahra
zahra blog 