Daily Times

During his latest visit on ‘Meer Means Business’, Naumaan Ijaz used choice words to criticize Pakistani television.

The actor thinks that because local media consistently portrays relationships negatively, “relationships are being disgraced”. “You show a mother, sister and mother-in-law as witches and you show a father and brother as villains,” he remarked. He went on to highlight the impact this has had on society, emphasising that change should happen in our dramas.

“That automatically gets transferred to our society,” said Naumaan. “When you watch something, you are impacted by it, whether or not you want to be. It gets embedded in your consciousness. This is something that needs to be understood, but people are not understanding it. Whatever is the most negative, people make that a super hit. There was a serial where the relationship of a nand was highlighted. People skyrocketed the ratings, I was shocked. I laughed and said that negativity prevails in our society. Society has become negative. It needs to be changed.”

Naumaan presented his own example and said, “My drama, or the drama I am a part of, I try that it has a lesson or something positive. If I don’t see that, I won’t do the project. I don’t say unnecessary dialogues. I have a self-censor. A lot of writers write things that seem unsound, which makes the viewing experience with your family slightly uncomfortable.”

“Forgive me, but we have yet to understand what national television is. It comes with boundaries of respect. Our whole system is corrupt…To fix it, how many generations will be wasted?” The star also added that “Pakistan has no culture.” He illustrated, “People are seeing so much negativity around them, that they say that if all is negative, then be negative.”