Daily Times

Actor-model Mahnoor Baloch breaks the silence on her early retirement from showbiz, complaining about the lack of diversity in the industry.

Appearing at an Eid special transmission of a private news channel, Baloch rued the gender bias in terms of age factor that prevails in the local entertainment industry. She stressed upon the lack of roles and projects for female stars after a certain age, while their male counterparts continue to get work.

“It’s a pity that our industry is still developing in which a certain type of role is designed for women, the same roles are shown while the age limits for them are also set,” she said during the outing.

“Unlike the international media industry, which produces stories on different subjects and actors of various age groups continue to do different roles throughout their life span, the Pakistani media industry only focuses on love stories, portraying actors who are much older than their characters,” Baloch added. “Even though the male actor is 55 years old, he would still play a hero. But a woman his age would get the role of his mother or so,” the actor lamented.

“The mindsets are changing, and audiences don’t accept it anymore.”

It is pertinent to mention that Mahnoor Baloch is not the only actor who has complained about the type of content being aired on TV channels in recent times. Her co-guest on the Eid show, acclaimed actor Noman Masood also showed his agreement with the former’s stance, however, believed that conventional love triangles and domestic genre are a safe zone for makers these days, as they fetch TRPs, eventually making the project a hit.

Earlier, veteran actors Bushra Ansari and Behroze Sabzwari also questioned the problematic storylines and meaningless scripts of the recent dramas.