Homeland: Negative portrayal in popular US TV series angers Pakistan
The latest season of US TV spy drama ‘Homeland’ is ruffling feathers among Pakistani officials who are unhappy at the negative portrayal of the country’s spy agencies.
A Pakistani official said “the show ‘insulted’ the country’s security personnel by suggesting the ISI protected militants at the expense of its citizens”.
Pakistani cable networks have refused to screen “Homeland” from its first season onwards, saying it is against the country’s “national interest”. The delineation of Pakistan in foreign media has been a topic of currency due to its recurring stereotypical projection on film and television.
Recently, Homeland, in its fourth season ignited a debate underlining the lack of research conducted and the absence of awareness among producers with regards to Pakistan. The Emmy Award-winning show has been called out in the news due to its misrepresentation of the country as being an undemocratic one; that too, allied with terrorists, and in general just a “hellhole,” reported the New York Post.
Pakistani Embassy spokesperson in Washington Nadeem Hotiana did not mince any words in letting it be known that these “repeated insinuations that an intelligence agency of Pakistan” is harbouring terrorists at the expense of Pakistani citizens are “absurd”.
He also termed the wrongful depiction of the country an “insult” to the countless lives of Pakistani security officers that were lost in the war against terrorism.
Pakistanis, however, are not alien to this sort of treatment being meted out to them. Of late there has been a wide-ranging sentiment that Pakistan seems to have joined the ranks of Germany, Russia and Afghanistan as Hollywood’s favourite villains.
The debate concerning accuracy of representation in opposition to clichés remains an enduring matter all around the world, which eventually boils down to the fact very few producers choose to conduct first-hand research about their location of interest. Rarely a team of local anthropologists and sociologists is consulted or researchers sent out to get firsthand information for the accurate portrayal of accents, attire and culture at large.
This results in production crews tending to get the basics wrong, such as the fact that people living in the larger cities of Pakistan have adhered to a more cosmopolitan culture unlike a more conservative lifestyle that is usually presented onscreen.
Sadly, this is not the first and quite possibly not the last instance that Pakistan has been maligned in foreign films and television.
Post 9/11, Pakistan has received less favourable coverage compared to previous references of Pakistan being a war-torn country. Over the past few years, there have been several commercial films that have portrayed the country in a negative light; most notably blockbusters like Iron Man 3, GI Joe: Retaliation and Zero Dark Thirty.
Hotiana, according to the New York Post, stated, “Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the US is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US but also to the people of the US.”
Another dilemma plaguing these films from a Pakistani standpoint is that of the setting. The latest installment of Homeland has depicted Islamabad as being a “grimy hellhole and war zone where shootouts and bombs go off with dead bodies scattered around” in comparison to the picturesque and peaceful city that it really is.
He wished the producers would have invested a little “more time” in getting their facts right as “a little research would have gone a long way.”
A source also said that “Homeland makes it seem [as though] Pakistan has contempt for Americans and its values and principles. That is not true.”
According to a source, the diplomats also spoke out against the misrepresentation of the Urdu language in the show, saying “the [Urdu] accent is far from the local accent.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 30th, 2014.
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I think the readers are going to be confused and this article only has merit if you have seen series 4 of Homeland. Let me be reticent in advising readers of the series which unlike previous series 1-3 this is primarily focused on Pakistan. Having watched it is true the series portrays Pakistan under control of hidden agendas of IS, who seem to work under no control of democratically elected leaders or parties. The series starts with a bodged drone attack on a wedding believed to be attended by a wanted taleban fugitive called Haqqani which leaves only a sole survivor, a boy with morales and ethics broken down by a CIA operative. He is eventually killed by his chacha Haqqani who only seems to love his own immediete family. Haqqani with the aid of IS plots and successfully launch an attack on Islamabad USA embassy. The shows show the internal conflict in Pakistan with IS contradicting the Pakistani army role. On how much that is based on truth or fiction no one knows but as a Pakistani knowing it was fiction it is still inflammatory.
I dont know what the fuss is about, but if you pick up the news media, from 7pm until 11pm, it would seem that the end of times is near. The amount of negative publicity which our own channels broadcast every day is far more negative and destructive than what is shown in homeland. Reporters have become analysts and analysts have become strategists, without reading history, philosophy, geography economics, diplomacy, art, etc. So lets clean our own house first