Famous Urdu novelist, Nemrah Ahmad has talked about the toxicity of male lead characters in Pakistani dramas. Through an Instagram post, she mentioned a few names of the Pakistani serials and actors who are indulged in such roles that portray male dominance and narcissism as attributes of heroes. According to her, some Pakistani dramas are not appropriate in terms of showing marital relationships as men are shown abusive towards women and yet turn out to be heroes in the end. She seemed to be against the stereotypical plots that depict these types of false realities. The writer took the matter to social media as her Instagram post says all about how male and female actors should not choose obnoxious roles.
Toxic Hero Culture in Pakistani Serials
Pakistani Serials and movies have started to see success after the arrival of OTT platforms, YouTube and satellite channels. Today, many people admire the content they see in Pakistani films and series. There is no lack of critics who are concerned about the promotion of narcissism and male dominance as attributes of the heroes. Nemrah Ahmed who herself faces criticism for her stereotypical stories has also seemed to join the viewers who have no issues with Pakistani drama scripts. For her, the toxic hero culture is quite in and people are simply falling for it. In her critique, she explained, as an example Dewaangi and Ishq hai as dramas that are popular, and are the ones with negative storylines. In these dramas that cast Danish Taimoor in the lead role, the hero plays with a middle-class girl, marries her, abuses her, and then the girl falls in love since he is the hero. They call it “love” that doesn’t seem to impress Nemrah.
Pakistani Drama Stories Contradict Reality
According to the Jannat Ke Pattay novel’s writer, the scenes and plot shown in the Pakistani serials are purely fictional and entirely opposite from what happens in reality. She mentioned in her post that the role of abusive male partners and girls falling in love with them is just bizarre because this doesn’t happen in real life. In fact, in reality, such people who become dominant over their female partners become the animals and inflict only pain on their so-called other halves. She specifically mentioned Zahir Jaffer who killed Noor Mukadam by expressing how men torture the women and don’t let them go. Her reference to the Noor Mukadam murder case reflected that Pakistani actors should not be supporting such scripts and roles.
She even mentioned the names of some Pakistani actors including Feroze Khan and Danish Taimoor, to advise them not to spoil the new generation who watches their movies and series.
Pakistani dramas Should Avoid Teaching Women to Settle for Bad men
The writer expressed fury towards the drama industry. She opined that it was teaching all the wrong things to women of our society. As per her, girls are supposed to leave toxic relationships and save themselves from psychopaths. Also, the Pakistani serials should portray sociopath men as antagonists and not protagonists. She referred to the telefilm “Ruposh” in which the hero pulls the heroine with her hair but in the end, he stays the hero.
The culture of showing the wrong side of men in the Pakistani entertainment industry is unacceptable for many others as well. They think that seeing women being bullied and settling for the bully is even worse.
