Pakistani drama serials are being criticized for the same story line for over a while now. When it comes to the story or plot of a drama serial, people expect different ideas and genres. But what our local dramas are offering us right now is not a range full of different genres but the repeated storylines of "saas-bahu" and "bechari oppressed" women. In Pakistani dramas, women are shown either as evil characters trying to bring each other down and fight over the same man, or as poor souls who are being tortured by everyone but will not speak up as they are too naïve even to speak up. These repeated story lines raised the question of whether Pakistani authors are running out of ideas or is it a public demand. Creativity is never geographically restricted, so there must be writers in Pakistan who think outside the books or write amazing stories. Then why are only these two plots present in Pakistani dramas? There are amazing thriller authors in Pakistan like Omar Shahid Hamid and Khalid Muhammad, but we don't see their work in Pakistani cinemas or entertainment channels.
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While it is true that Pakistani drama material hardly has any unique plots other than the overused saas bahu laraiyan with the chalak saas and masoom bahu trapped in the saazishen, I personally believe that these scripts are generally picked because their is a flawed notion of what our society likes. Talent has no boundaries but those scripts by the talented people are often rejected as they do not conform to society's conventions of family fights. The drama industry is mainly concerned with their TRP and views not the messages or storyline thus the rising domestic violence can be witnessed in many dramas in order to enhance viewership. The consequences of showing this aggression to our society are uncared for.
This has been quite a debatable topic for quite some time now. I would not agree with writers running out of ideas as choosing a script is solely a production house decision. The main point they would argue with Is that we tried different topics but that is not getting enough TRP. Seeing content like Dil na umeed to nahe and parizad being appreciated has explained our audience are over saas bahu and mazlum auraat genre. It is a ray of light and we can expect some good content ahead
I totally agree with the point you’ve made but I would also blame the media in a way where even if they do try to go out of the main stream ideas, those drama serials get banned from screening or are met with huge criticism. For Instance, if I talk about Udaari, even though it raised a concept which needed social awareness and to some extent it did try to get the message out to the public, the drama was met with huge criticism and was nearly banned from screening as well. Hence, I agree that the directors produce the same content over and over again but it’s because they know that if they try something new, it would be…
I totally agree with you that Pakistani media especially the dramas have no diversity and whenever you switch between channels such as Geo, Hum, Ary, there is literally just the same type of content being aired. I feel this is because of both reasons, authors running out of ideas and the audience's demand. However, I feel that producers should bear in mind all kinds of audience such as the youth too. There should be content and shows for them too like people of our age are actually done seeing the roti hui larkiyan in dramas and the typical toxic household culture. This is the reason why young people have stopped watching television and shifted to other forms of media particularly…
Yes, this argument is valid that Pakistani media is going in just one direction since years. The common themes like love stories, Saas bahu conflicts are always there. There are some people working to present something different from these common themes too. But that kind of projects are not much appreciated by the audience as they are used to those typical ideas. Dil Na Umeed to Nahi was a TV show based on prostitution, sex trafficking and child abuse. Bol movie was based on the the transgender community issues. Such projects are a ray of hope that Pakistani media is somehow trying some different ideas which will eventually result to make lollywood a diverse platform.