KARACHI:
An overwhelming majority of the TV drama serials being produced these days have a single track storyline — of love, heartbreak, marriage and divorce. Nearly all of them are love triangles with either two men fighting over a lady or vice versa. Another theme is obsession with marriage and the rush to call it quits due to suspicion on wife’s character. The women are portrayed as bimbettes with nothing on their mind except love and marriage.
The regressive portrayal of female characters in these dramas makes one cringe. There is a ‘good girl’ who is a homemaker, wears eastern clothes, will sacrifice everything for family, seen cooking food or cleaning the house, and forgives her husband for domestic violence or infidelity. They are brutalised by men, slapped, humiliated and abused. Conversely, men are depicted as exclusive decision-makers who simply order the women in their lives what to do and what not. And then there is the ‘other woman’ or ‘vamp’ — a negative character that is ambitious. Divorced women are shown as wives who put themselves first or as negligent mothers whose children deem it right to be then disrespectful to them as payback.
Any impressionable female watching such content will get the message of not to be career-oriented, not to look people in the eye and to keep her gaze down, not to pursue her interests, and lack self-confidence so that she fits the cookie cutter mould of a ‘good girl’. This is extremely worrying as depicting male dominance and chauvinism invoke similar negative behaviour especially among males in the general public. The ordinary man or woman becomes subject to this reinforcement of stereotypical image of women, adapting and accepting these stereotypes as normal.
There is thus the need to engage progressive, liberal and gender-sensitive writers who do not demonise women or stereotype them. Otherwise, these dramas will keep feeding our already patriarchal and misogynist society. Is this asking too much from our entertainment industry?
Salma Tahir
Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, January 19th, 2021.
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