SUNDAY March 21, 2021
EDUCATION
ART & LITERATURE
Page 3
500
Page 4
Page 7
All we can recall from our childhood is fights between gangs — Muhammad Faheem
or more individuals have been executed by Pakistan since 2014
How can someone with 16 years of education be equal to one with 18 years? — A PhD student
Cultural and related industries were never taken seriously on a strategic level — Talat Masood
CULTURE & SOCIETY
Story by: Rafay Mahmood
The media phenomenon that is Dirilis: Ertugrul has kicked up a fascination with the Ottomans and ancient tribal life in Pakistan. Its transnational appeal owes as much to the history of its genre as it does to an attempt to ‘refashion’ history
W
hat makes something a media phenomenon? Pop cultural manias come and go, and for now, a certain Turkish serial has a significant number of Pakistanis enthralled. So much so that it has some of our own media producers up in arms about ‘neo-Ottoman cultural imperialism’. What explains the fascination ‘Dirilis: Ertugrul’ has garnered among Pakistani television viewers? Can it be replicated? To be honest with you, I myself started watching the show in hopes to find material to pick on friends and relatives who all of a sudden seem to have found ‘Turkish roots’. As I followed the show, and witnessed the missionary in my kin grow like creepers on an empty wall, the link between Qarol Bagh in old Delhi and pre-Ottoman Turkish tribes became less of a mystery than what makes perfectly rational people draw that implausible connection. The last time my family had so wholeheartedly agreed on something was on Imran Khan as their supreme leader and that Ayeza Khan deserved that slap from Savera Nadeem in Mere Paas Tum Ho.
Early Egyptian cinema favoured a romanticised version of Bedouin life and culture as a backdrop for tales of love and adventure More than meets the eye It may sound unfair when I say it, but if you take a closer look at any Pakistani drama serial, you will realise it actually does have a lot in common with Ertugrul than not. Like the Turkish export, our own home-grown TV fiction formula revolves around the protagonist of an ‘ideal man’ with a moral compass. Like the onscreen avatars of Turkey’s historical ‘heroes’, he too is vexed by the women he interacts with. Speaking of the women, they usually find themselves pitted against each other for one reason or another as well, and all this hullabaloo does is distract the ideal male hero from leveraging his ‘morality’ into doing what is best in everyone’s interests. Throw in bits of infidelity, now also on the behest of conniving men such as Adnan Siddiqui’s character in
up their imagined target Mere Paas Tum Ho and you audience. will have the formula for a In some ways, the surefire ratings flex. women of Ertugrul are Every other drama on the no different than their Pakistani telly uses and often onscreen counterparts abuses similar narrative in Pakistan. They too are tropes to mine the ‘house assigned similar feminine wife’ who watches the tropes of tenderness and chronic 8 pm serial for TRPs. gossip but they display Subtract the swords and the Anthropologist Laila Prager those characteristics while horses, and you get an idea sporting a dagger by their of how the Turkish show’s acceptance across Pakistan’s intersection has very little to do side or overseeing a handicraft business in addition to with Prime Minister Imran’s endorsement and a lot more with the cooking responsibilities. As veteran actor Sania Saeed the sheer brilliance of the cathartic experience it guarantees, puts it, “The women in Ertugrul are industrious, working season after season. I myself am convinced it is actually a good women. They move freely in their tribes, lead them and run the economy. They are physically strong, which means watch. their bodies were not limited and are free. They feel safe in A question of feminine agency their environment.” Take for example the hot-favourtite and often policed You may wonder if Pakistani soaps and Ertugrul are so similar, then why is the foreign product creating such a Esra Belgic’s character of Halime Hatun who chooses the sensation in our country’s mediascape. Alternately, you may beloved over her throne only to become an integral part jump to the conclusion that the Turkish series is successful of the Kayi decision-making process while staying true to here for the same reason some of our own serials, like Mere her ‘soft’ and delicate, feminine composure. While the naysayers might take this to be a smart way of covering Paas Tum Ho and Humsafar were a hit at home. But there is a difference between what is popular on deep-rooted regression with superficial agency, you then television and what is ‘great television’, and some of those see the roles switch drastically when Aslihan Hatun agrees differences could be where we can trace the appeal for to marry on the condition of that will not abandon the Ertugrul. Our soap operas and movies, save for a scant few leadership of her tribe. exceptions, can be divided into two categories: there are those prey on and reinforce widely held stereotypes, and From tribal life to TV sets there are those that subvert for the sake of subversion to We can go and on about the women who play an important role appear ‘creative’. An example of the latter would be a show in our Turkish ideal but it will be a disservice to the masterpiece where the woman, not the man, is accused of cheating. and TV studies at large to reduce the brilliance of the show to Another would be a show that attempts to show the ‘other just the portrayal of women. The show, quite incredibly merges side’ of the picture because the #MeToo movement has religious history and mythology with formulaic storytelling to started to gain some traction. create a thoroughly engaging soap opera; something that the A few years back, Vasay Chaudhry spoke about this ‘chaotic local audiences and to an extent producers welcomed like a creativity’ with The Express Tribune. “The peak of creativity breakthrough in televisual storytelling, but the Arab TV world in Pakistani drama is to show the woman as a tawaif always knew as ‘musalsal badawi’ or Bedouin soap opera. (courtesan),” he commented at the time. While it would be In the simplest of words, Bedouin soap opera can be wrong the buy into the industry stereotype that the ‘women explained as native tribal wisdom meets ‘kahani ghar ghar of the household’ control television sets and that they are‘only ki’. This does not just refer specifically to the long-running interested in formulaic drama serials’, women do make for a Indian soap, but to the literal sense of the term – the story of huge chunk of Pakistani viewership. Our creative industry every household. professionals, as such, craft female characters in manner The genre is often traced back to early Egyptian cinema, they conceive of as ‘palatable’ to the stereotype that makes which was developed by a cohort of locals who returned
Bedouin soap operas were more concerned with the articulation of differential tribal identities
to the country after receiving an education abroad. This group of expatriate Egyptians would make movies that were inspired by Western conventions but still revolved around local culture. By the 1970s, the genre would be picked up by television producers in Jordan and undergo a metamorphosis of sorts. Early Egyptian cinema favoured presenting a romanticised and fictionalised version of Bedouin life and culture as a backdrop for tales of love and adventure. Interestingly, they aided the proliferation of certain stereotypes about Arabs and the Middle East, such as belly dancers. In Jordan, as anthropologist Laila Prager writes,“The musalsalãt (Bedouin soap operas) in the long run were more concerned with the articulation of differential tribal identities, genealogies, and histories, though the initial Jordanian variants were not yet accentuating tribal segmentations but promoting the image that the Bedouins constituted the true autochthones of the Jordanian nation-state.” Prager’s framework looks at important issues such as authenticity, memory, tribal memory and an overall romance with one’s glorious past in the context of the Arab media ecology.
Deconstruction of Ertugrul as a Bedouin soap helps us understand our audience as part of a larger set that shares affinity for Islamic ideals Her brilliant work gives us enough foundation to base Ertugrul Ghazi as a contemporary example of the genre and how effectively the show has not only been able to penetrate global media industries but also managed a transnational flow of ideas such as the Muslim Brotherhood, Jihad and other neo-Ottoman ideals, to Muslim countries such as Pakistan. The deconstruction of Ertugrul as a Bedouin soap also helps us understand the Pakistani household not just as a case study for the Pakistani society but a part of a larger subset of audiences that share a common affinity for not just Islamic ideals, but also a shared yearning for the ‘glorious golden age’ of Islam. CONTINUED ON PAGE 2