‘It is discouraged to show working women in Pakistani dramas’

The Uks Research Centre held an online discussion on the critically acclaimed Pakistani drama ‘Working Women’ on Thursday. The drama’s writer Bee Gul and director Yasra Rizvi offered a unique opportunity to delve into the nuanced portrayal of gender roles in contemporary media.

Speaking during the online discussion Bee Gul said that most of the dramas in Pakistan do not have working women. “It is rather discouraged. Even in popular dramas, there’s always an ambiguity on what the protagonist women do,” she said, adding that it is impossible to add women’s social and political views in Pakistani dramas.

“To subvert it was not an easy task,” she said, adding that she feared that the drama would be banned. She was told that there could not be scenes of women smoking in the drama, but it was okay for men to smoke on screen.

She also said bloggers and viewers did not want to talk about the drama. “They did not want to endorse the drama,” she said.

She pointed out that people were able to relate to the characters in the drama because we have all seen such characters somewhere in life. “I have not followed a real character in the drama nonetheless.”

There was a forced conversion depiction in the drama, speaking on which she said the issue is not discussed in the entertainment media in Pakistan.

Even if it is done, she pointed out, it is done in a very bad manner. “If people thought the content was realistic, it’s because there are several such stories around us.”

She said Yasra the director was sad about censoring, but she herself was not. “To bring this content on the screen and run it was a huge achievement in itself,” she said, adding that one must know it was a bold content at the end of the day.

She also said they were met with criticism initially and were also threatened after the drama went on air. There are a lot of such women suffering, and their stories need to be narrated in dramas, she added.

Bee Gul said they would never be permitted to run its sequel. When it was going on air, she was asked to change the drama’s title, she pointed out.

“We never heard of working men in our society,” she said, adding that working women were odd because women working at home are not considered as working women at all.

She said they passed the censor board and created a benchmark in the entertainment industry that they should all safeguard. She was told that they were scaring women to step out. However, she stressed that she could not lie. “Perhaps people need to show me a safe space for working women,” she said, adding that she would then show it in her dramas.