Not just Mehwish Hayat but my des ka favourite sport is banning anything to do with women!
A Pakistani woman-centric show releases on a foreign platform. What do we do? We pull some strings and get it banned from the country of origin. Why? Because it shows women cursing and admitting that they are asked for sexual favours by men in power in return for promotions at workplace. How can we show such a thing? Pakistani men are saints. They don’t even know what sex is, so how can they ask for sexual favours? And Pakistani women, tauba! They’re supposed to be saints and saints don’t even acknowledge the S-word.
Unless it is forced upon them by men.
Which is what was hinted – only hinted – in Pyaar Ke Sadqay. A father in law was hell bent on sexually harassing his daughter in law. Any guesses what we did with it? We banned it! Of course, because showing men in a bad light is synonymous to showing society in a bad light. Men is society and society is men.
Women are merely ban-worthy instruments!
Which brings us to the most recent offender: Meray Des ka biscuit Gala!
Poor brand team of Gala had absolutely no idea, that they were marketing biscuits in “such a bizarre manner where the visuals do not commensurate with the use of the product.”
This claim by PEMRA holds true. But it holds true for innumerable other TVCs and DVCs. What was it that convinced PEMRA to issue a full one-pager on this particular biscuit advertisement?
Apparently, Mehwish Hayat and her anatomy didn’t sit well with the viewers this time!
They badgered PEMRA to the point that they had to warn advertisers to stop producing advertisements that are “not in the best interest of viewers, culture, and to save the customer from the mayhem of consumerism.”
Your entire industry runs on funds generated by consumerism and suddenly you wish to put a stop to it? That’s pretty noble of you, but boys let’s not disguise our toxic masculinity under words like consumerism.
Women and men have sung and danced in the past to sell tea whiteners, mobile data, cooking oil, cake rusks, beverages, and the list goes on. But this time around we had men like him, suddenly free enough (God only knows why), to take it upon themselves to save the izzat of the society.
And naturally, the entire izzat of our nation currently resides on Mehwish Hayat’s embellished shoulders!
So they had to request the regulatory authority to ban her in her biscuit-promoting entirety.
The PEMRA notice states,
“It has been observed with concerns that themes/content of advertisements of ordinary consumer products like biscuits, surf, etc, being aired on satellite TV channels are not corresponding with the disposition of these products.”
Who wrote this notice? Jane Austen from the 18th century? The continuous attacks on the XX chromosome by the XY chromosome is not “corresponding with my disposition”, but am I chanting “Behaya! Behaya!” on Twitter and asking for the entire lot of misogynists to be banned?
And Now On To The Dance Moves?
If women do it, it automatically becomes mujra.
Also, if you’re such an amazing muslim, why were you watching a na-mehram woman in the first place? Lower thy gaze!
And if you absolutely cannot refrain, then before attacking a woman for dancing please attack the religious clerics who harass children in madrassahs. That sin is more severe I assume?
Is it just Mehwish Hayat & Gala Biscuit promoting Behayai?
You say projects like Zindagi Tamasha and Churails are ruining our image and culture. I say, stop doing the said acts; acts that show you in bad light. Don’t harass. Don’t ask for sexual favours. Also…Don’t kill women in the name of honour. The day you stop doing it, the likes of Asim Abbasi and Sarmad Khoosat will stop churning out stories based on disturbing realities.
Coming back to our point of discussion, a dance performance by “a woman” is what made mujra vile. The Gala advertisement a trending topic, while rapists, harassers, and rape culture flourishes in our society. Why isn’t your “culture” threatened by this? Stop focusing on banning biscuits and breasts and turn your attention toward deviance and how to handle it.
I only have one question to ask from the self-proclaimed rescuers of Islamic republic of Pakistan. Why do you hate your women so much?
Prem Gali Gives Us A Lesson On Jahez While We Eat Kino Dipped In Namak!
After doing her Masters in Advertising and Media Management, Rozina Bhutto found herself on the web desk of The Express Tribune. SO NOT what she had planned. According to the seniors, she was lucky to be part of the “exciting times” of the 2013 general elections, but she soon found out, that reporting about Imran Khan’s probable death wasn’t her idea of “exciting”. To make her life less exciting, but equally interesting, she joined an entertainment website as a Subeditor and left it as the Features Editor.
Her next stop was Women’s Own, where she served as the Managing Editor, before finally landing at Limu Studio. It was here that she found her true calling as she dabbled in various arenas of digital content creation. But the writer in her felt ignored, so here she is! Oh, and she also has a diploma in Interior Design and loves anything and everything to do with fashion.
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