How characters are built in a script, how words of one’s own desires are put on the mouth of the character, how rebellion against family, culture and norms are showcased in a “dramatic situation”, how a negative character is shown at steps of glory and being made a hero, I personally know how these techniques work.
I have spent many years writing drama script for Pakistani television networks. I have written five serials and many dramas during this span of time. I have also deep sense of the type of conversation that happens between producers and writers for the script. If a producer is so called open minded, then he will try that heroin will fight with his father in such a way that father will eventually be proven wrong. Or if father is fighting about some issue then his dialect should be weak in argument.
He should be shown as getting red in anger so that people will sympathize with the daughter, a daughter who wants to marry by his own will. Or she wants to be a great sports women or she wants to excel in her career so much that everyone would see her glowing with fame and respect. And the viewer will ultimately hate a figure called father who is coming in way of her success.
All this is done not because the director or producer is so called open minded and they want to convince the people that they are showing the real face of society. They are clearly aware of the fact that they upbringing the rebellion against family system. Women is being glamourized in these dramas. She will go against the will of her parents to pursue her career, excel in sports, or even go against their will to hang out with friend having bad character.
These directors and producers have become so disrespectful of the character of parents that they will show them as getting old and their children who were brought up according to their will have left them when they needed them most. And the child which was rebellious or even their bad character friends have come to the parent’s rescue.
This is what happened in the old days. Now days, if u look into the dramas they are full of garbage. Judging by these dramas, one can say that every other married man and women have extra marital affairs. If this happens in the society, it happens rarely. Moreover, these type of people are never that successful that they should be characterized positively in national television.
It is the same type of fictional characters that were shown in movies of the old day that had no existence in reality. Characters like a heroin who fall in love with the son gatekeeper or a son of a landlord gets tangled in love affair with the daughter of gardener.
I have many writers, directors and producers this question that if their own daughter who they cared so much, falls in love with the son of their driver, what will they do. Forget about daughter, there is a leader of women’s right and prominent figure in civil society. When her son married a girl he loved without the consent of his mother. She would brag in social gathering that she would lead her daughter to a divorce which she ultimately did. However, if u look into the article she wrote, you will get in tears by hearing the ordeals of other women who are down trodden by the society.
To be continued in Part 2 . . . .
