Using a burner account for this. This is a long one, so only read if you have the time. Feel free to criticize it, just giving my two cents.
As a mid twenties guy, I don’t take much interest in the TV drama obsession many in Pakistan seem to have and I pass on many of them. One critique I would have of the industry is that many TV serials on PK channels are simply too out of touch mainly on the basis of cliches/stereotypes that are simply outdated. The number of dramas that feature the far too typical misbehaving guy and heartbroken girl is through the roof. On top of that, the age of the characters often misses the youth audience completely and thus does a pretty bad job of even attempting to be relatable to today’s youth. Others focus completely on the woman’s emotions, but miss that not all guys are evil creatures and that often there are good guys who have their own struggles which are rarely shown, which probably explains why there is such a large audience among women and less with men; the latter type of character is often wildly unrelatable to the vast majority of well-intentioned guys who have never cheated on their partner as most believe. More often than not, most TV dramas in Pakistan are so fictional in nature that they simply cannot serve any purpose other than entertainment. That is fine, but I think there is an art of creating one that besides being a drama can be honest with its audience and teach true lessons about the nature of life. Such an example of a drama that while entertaining also reveals the hard truth of reality is extremely rare and in my roughly two decades, I had never seen such an example. There were far too many dramas that simply were too fake or two fictional to come close to reality.
I think a lot of people criticize dramas for being too dramatic. I used to think the same thing, and frequently mocked my sister and mother for being addicted to them. I still believe that the overwhelming majority of dramas that exist are a waste of time and would not watch them simply because they are not applicable or relatable to the real struggles that modern youth in relationships in Pakistan and the subcontinent face today. I think many of our parent’s generation grew up in a time when things truly were different. Every generation claims that things are different than that of their parents, but for the generation of young adults today, things really are different. Most people immediately think of the internet as the biggest shift, but the cultural shift that has occurred during the same period is even bigger. My parents grew up roughly in the late 60’s to mid 70’s, and obviously my grandparents decades before that. I think that compared to the cultural shift from the grandparents to parents generation vs the parents to current youth cultural shift, the change is real. The parents of today had some differences with their own parents, but more or less got the message and went with the way things were. Things really changed the generation after, however. The internet aside, the cultural shift was titanic. This cultural shift changes many things, and one of the bigger shifts was in the way people have relationships. Now in the western world, this was a big change, but it wasn’t a struggle for western youth the way it was and continues to be for modern youth in the eastern hempishere. The idea of loving somebody for who they are vs having an arranged marriage really went against the traditional cultural norms in Pakistan and the region and continues to be an issue even today. Many, particularly in the western world who would view Pakistani dramas would probably say that they are inaccurate in today’s context. And they would be right, but not why you would think. Most PK dramas depict the main fight in a drama to be the main character’s desire for a love marriage vs the parent’s arranged marriage.
This is where I think the problem is. The reality is today’s youth are not like that. There are very few dramas, if any that realize the problem with this concept. As a member of the modern youth, I can say with confidence this is incorrect, and my friends agree universally on this. The single most important thing in a marriage which was true for our grandparents, our parents, and us is that it is stable. There are many other factors, but stability is the main one. However, I mentioned the cultural shift between generations. This shift is real and one of the most important aspects of this is the growing desire for independence and being self sufficient before marriage. Whether this is guys forgoing an office job in favor of running a startup or women making their own income, these ideas go against everything our parents were raised to think. When these ideas collide with tradition, there are fights and there is drama. I do not believe drama is a fictional concept. It is real, and there is a place for TV dramas based on real problems. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority are wickedly inaccurate, but on very rare occasion, you find one that tells the truth.
Fundamentally there are two points here:
- Dramas are not fake; however, many of them are inaccurate because they depict fights over the type of marriage which is not the problem our generation has. Contrary to what many believe, most parents of modern youth in Pakistan are actually ok with them finding their own partner. The issue today is that cultural clashes have increased pressure to get married at an age which is too early for modern youth. Whether it is the guy trying to stabilize his startup or a woman trying to get a stable income of our own, both take longer to get to a point where it would be suitable to get married than would be the case for their parents. This often makes parents uncomfortable as it goes against their norms and drama that results from this problem is definitely real, but rarely depicted on TV. Drama as a concept is real but is not depicted the right way, and that can be attributed to them fighting over the wrong problem. There is a place for dramas, and ones that show real struggles of the modern youth and lessons from it are increasingly rare and valuable works in our time.
- The modern youth of today are not as immature as most people would believe. The other problem with most dramas and stereotypes in general today is that depict modern youth as all universally stupid and blind in love. As a member of the modern youth, I would say to not take my word for it, but to look around you. Every generation of youth has their accomplishments, but the youth of today are really breaking new ground, innovating more, solving new problems, and planning farther into the future than the youth of previous generations. This concern for a stable and safe future drives much of the change in mentality about getting married later after establishing a career first. While there is a small but loud minority of youth who love posting snapchat selfies, the vast majority of us are more mature than that and are more concerned about a better future for all of us as well as a stable marriage and family. This is what youth activism and youth research is all about; concepts that simply didn’t exist a decade or two ago. The youth of today is the most educated generation of youth ever, be it because of the internet or be it because of awareness of our future. The idea that most of the modern youth is into “internet relationships” is flawed. The loud minority makes many perceive this, but the vast majority of us are studying hard for a better future and a better career, and that hard work does not come from immaturity; it comes from a generation of youth that prioritize stability before marriage, which may be a new and controversial concept to older generations; this does not make it wrong, it means we want to invest in a stronger future.
So why I did I write all of this? I mentioned above that dramas that depict the actual problem of getting married later and pressure from parents to do so earlier is basically a completely foreign concept on TV and is basically nonexistent in any Pakistani dramas. Almost all of them focus on a relationship outside of that what the parents have arranged, which has little basis in reality considering that most parents of modern Pakistani youth do not have an issue with this anymore. Examples that are accurate are extremely rare, and I had never seen one until a few days ago. The sole accurate example I saw that prompted me to write all of this is called “Unmarried” and I watched it on the recommendation of a good friend. It is an Indian produced series but is basically identical to the Pakistani situation for our purposes. Initially I didn’t think much of it as I am not a person into any kind of dramas whatsoever, but I found this to be a rare exception. It really hits the nail on the head with the cultural clash modern youth face in the region. It doesn’t sugarcoat the real struggles that any of today’s youth see in real life, and Sahil and Kay in particular highlight this very well. Sahil has difficulties finding the right balance between the stable job his parents want and the business he started. Kay is his business partner who runs it and is committed to seeing it succeed before she gets married. I have yet to see any other drama seriously focus on stability and emphasis on career as a factor in getting married which is what I like so much about the series. Don’t get me wrong, there are vast elements of garbage in the series like any other drama, but the parts it gets right, it really gets right to an extent that no one else even comes remotely close to. I think what I like the most about it is that it is the first drama I have ever been able to personally relate to, as many of my peers would agree. Unlike the typical Pakistani drama, there are real and painful elements of truth in this series which almost hit a little too close to home and a far cry from the fictional world of ARY or HUM serials. Unmarried does a really fantastic job of highlighting what actual struggles of modern relationships in the subcontinent are like and I praise it for that. The conversation between Sahil and Kay at 18:43-21:24 of Episode 1 in particular really sums up the challenges of modern youth relationships in the subcontinent and really changed my perspective on relationships. Sahil decides to move away as he realizes the importance of his career and Kay constantly worries over the success of the business as a factor in when she can seriously consider marriage, both of which are real and legitimate decisions modern youth face. The series is a breath of fresh air and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to get a better picture of the modern youth. Many parts are ignorable, but the series overall is extremely underrated and painfully accurate. As someone who basically is in the same age bracket as the characters, I really did not expect the series to be as accurate to the life of the actual modern youth as it was and this probably is because it was produced and directed by real youth, and hence the perfect depiction as they have lived it themselves. This is not a serial about the perfect romantic rishta, this is the raw story of all the trials real youth face and I recommend it for that. I expected it to be a waste of my time, but was pleasantly surprised to actually learn some life lessons about hard reality, something which is sorely missing in the industry today.
Submitted July 05, 2018 at 03:42PM by thoughtsfromaburner https://ift.tt/2zjAkJs
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