- The stereotypical depiction of women in Pakistani television
By: Amna Khan
You remember in Asim Abbasi’s ‘Cake’ when Sanam Saeed perched on a balcony front, fires a joint and say’s “aaj toh banta hai” – I felt that. I felt it a lot & I think the entirety of the cinema felt it too. The aunties felt scandalized whereas the uncles felt an itch to reach into their Marlboro packs. The children felt self-actualized and we millennials felt that too. Throughout the movie in moments of high tension and lack of resolve Amina Sheikh took cigarette breaks. I felt they were all a build-up leading to the grand finale which was that joint.
For me smoke became a metaphor for censoring feelings, censoring lives, censoring unfulfilled desires and in that finale it became a means to censor grief. In a society pretending to be sanitized of all flaws, we prefer to dance around issues, never fully accepting how Muslims moralizing a complicated world is what got us here in the first place. It should look like the ‘Islamic’ republic, who cares if it actually is? Islamic for a few and a republic for even fewer. Islamic it is, in fact for the few who are too poor to afford its unislamic lifestyle.
In Susan Murray’s ‘Bright Signals – A history of color television’ she distills the fact that the novelty of colour brought a fresh perspective to entertainment. It made regular life seem boring. It made TV more addictive.
We censor ourselves to maintain a facade, for whom and for what? Surviving in a society of censorship has never been more difficult in this globalized world. Even the Pakistani directors who perpetuate this censorship know it. Frustrated by their lack of importance they suppress the miserable victim next in line – women. In the pyramid of privilege powerful men dangle the carrot influence to taunt those less powerful. Frustration consumes, helplessness breeds hate and women become an easy prey – that’s how the legend of the gold digger was born. It’s easier to make dramas about ‘do takey ki aurat’ than it is about corrupt men who commit tax fraud. The story line is simpler when ‘her’ beauty can be blamed for his indiscretions, it’s far harder to admit that in the minds of men the color of money is the most beautiful of all. All women should be persecuted for wanting the taste of a better life – How dare they! Only men can want that, they have won the gender lottery after all. Not censoring powerful men paying 50 crore for their choice of woman exposes what the director lacks in his masculinity too.
You would be surprised to hear Netflix censors too, not ideas or basic human decency. It censors to survive so that quality can slip through the cracks. It censors scenes with cigarette smoking in its Turkish version, it censors The Patriot Act in Saudia Arabia another beacon of Islamic democracy. It censors to conquer foreign lands and tweaks itself to comply with countries’ resistant to change. It sanitizes itself to compete and survive in what is about to become a volatile market, a market which interestingly enough, faced its first great upheaval due to the advent of colored television.
Thinking back it seems like it would’ve been a welcome change but surprisingly enough the industry needed to adjust and update itself technologically and psychologically. We took colour for granted just like we took HD for granted not so long ago. The time capsule suggests that seeing through colour inspired awe and bewilderment at what new possibilities the world could accomplish. In Susan Murray’s ‘Bright Signals – A history of color television’ she distills the fact that the novelty of colour brought a fresh perspective to entertainment. It made regular life seem boring. It made TV more addictive. Colour allowed television to exceed human experience in real time. It took us on a trip, yes precisely that ‘trip’. Fermenting a new generation full of grand ideas of uncensored, unsanitized & endless vision, visions of popular programming now available to stream.
This industry still functions on the conservative beliefs showcased on a black and white TV screen. The cultural outlook, the sexist mindset is colourless and predictable. Everyone watches a woman betray her saintly, pious husband for money knowing she will in the end suffer. The same storyline, another script about a woman suffering for her wanting a life free from poverty & powerlessness. You know the drill and yet you watch will gleeful envy a woman finding a means to escape. Men can’t escape. Their only means of escape is censorship of others. So women who dare to dream in colour are vilified for trying. It doesn’t seem so ironic to me anymore that dogs dream in black and white. Although the local television tries it’s best to censor, the internet doesn’t and that lets a new generation imagine and dream of an unsanitized, unsavory and unlimited world. You remember when Mehwish (from a drama serial that shall remain nameless) saw an expensive necklace on a storefront and goes to her husband ‘I want it and I know it’s expensive but I’ve saved up for it’. I felt that but I felt her husband’s pessimistic response even more, ‘It’ll be sold by the time you collect the rest’ Even then I felt her confidence by how she knew her worth, not asking her husband for help but finding her own way to getting what she wants. Proving you can try as you may but you can’t censor us forever because survival in a world owned by powerful men is what women know how to do best.
