HAQUE-MASTERSREPORT-2016.Pdf (622.5Kb)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Copyright by Madiha Haque 2016 The Report Committee for Madiha Haque Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Silence and Madness: Resistance in Pakistani Drama Serials APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Syed Akbar Hyder Shanti Kumar Silence and Madness: Resistance in Pakistani Drama Serials by Madiha Haque, BA Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2016 Acknowledgements Thank you to both of the members on my committee –Drs. Syed Akbar Hyder and Shanti Kumar —for their immense patience and guidance both on this project and throughout my graduate school experience. Thank you to my friends and family. There's an old saying about how it takes a village to raise a child-- similarly, it took a village to support my graduate school endeavors. Their support and patience throughout my time in graduate school has been invaluable. iv Abstract Silence and Madness: Resistance in Pakistani Drama Serials Madiha Haque, MA The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Syed Akbar Hyder This MA Report examines the drama serials Dastaan (2010) and Humsafar (2011-12). Although Humsafar is set within contemporary Pakistan, Dastaan is a period piece about the 1947 Partition. Audiences have drawn comparisons between both serials due to the actor Fawad Khan's involvement. However, my site of analysis will be the main female characters within these serials. As women primarily make up the audiences for serials, drama serials tend to be about their everyday lives in domestic spaces. Dastaan deviates from this, however, as it is more a serial about the main character Bano and her relationship with the nation-state of Pakistan. Dastaan subverts the colonial and Partition era notion that women's bodies are representations of the nations and communities they come from; instead, each of the main male figures in her life become representations of Pakistan's contradictory dimensions. This liminal space of conflict and contradictions within the newly independent Pakistan robs Bano of her "sanity." Alternatively, Humsafar is about the trials the main character Khirad faces when a misunderstanding disrupts her marriage. Khirad’s strategic utilization of silence drives the serial's plot forward. I argue that both serials demonstrate ways that women enact resistance against normative notions of nationalism by breaking away from the hegemonic languages of sanity, patriarchy, and nation. v Table of Contents INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Resistance in the Space of the Zenana .................................................20 Chapter 2: Bano's Madness ....................................................................................26 Chapter 3: Khirad's Silence ....................................................................................33 CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................38 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................40 vi INTRODUCTION Recently there have been many transnational movements organized by young South Asian feminists that involve women in South Asia attempting to reclaim public, urban spaces such as by eating at dhabas, loitering, playing sports in public, napping in parks, etc (Chatterjee 2015). The aim of these projects is to highlight how there is a double-standard for women's presence in public in spaces that have been demarcated as male; these movements also seek to highlight the discomfort women feel when they do try to inhabit these public spaces because they are subjected to micoaggressions, harassment, etc. These debates about women's presence and subjectivities in the inner vs. public are certainly not new ones and have been present in varying degrees since colonial times, but they continue to spark incensed reactions (Tahir 2016). While I consider the aims of these movements to reclaim and create safe public spaces for women as incredibly valid and important, the recent debates surrounding these issues piqued my interest to look at how women also enact particular modes of resistances within private, domestic spaces. The women who have been organizing these social media campaigns around public spaces have not been demonstrating or protesting with picket signs or speeches at a pulpit, but are seeking disrupt the status quo through their presence in certain spaces. On this vein, I began to wonder about how women in domestic spaces find ways through everyday inactions or actions to assert their autonomy and rights in a way that disrupts nationalism and patriarchy. 1 An appropriate way to begin an intervention like this is through examining popular drama serials; serials make up a huge part of women's lives, shape their most intimate domestic experiences, and contribute to the development of their public and private lives. Despite a recent growth in transnational viewership, women in Pakistan have long made up the traditional consumers of drama serials, and the content of drama serials still reflects this. Because of their dominant viewership, the plots of drama serials tend to be about the domestic lives of middle-class women. Most dramas are also adaptations of fictional Urdu texts by female writers. These writers wrote in a colloquial and accessible style, and most of them had no affiliation with the male dominated literary circles that Urdu literature is known for within traditional academic discourses. I do wish to stress that both the serials and the literature that they have been inspired from are accessible to a particular type of women, such as those who are literate and/or can access a television. However, given the importance these serials have on many women's everyday lived experiences, examining serials has an important social and academic function; it helps give insight into the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of Pakistani women from this particular segment of society. To refute one scholar’s observation on how these serials do not advocate a particular solution or resistance against patriarchy within Pakistan, I will demonstrate that though the serials do not provide any solutions, they do show that resistance is present within the frames of patriarchy that their lives exist in. To demonstrate this, this report will examine the drama serials Humsafar (2011- 12) and Dastaan (2010). Due to the actor Fawad Khan’s involvement with both, there 2 have been comparisons made about both serials despite their different storylines and subject matters (Anwer 2015). Rather than focusing on comparing the content of both dramas or discussing Fawad Khan's involvement with both projects, I will be examining the main female characters of both of these serials, Khirad and Bano. Much of the existing analyses on drama serials has focused on the representation of women through dichotomous categories and has also sought to explore whether or not these representations are problematic (Hussain 2016). Non-academic discourses surrounding serials tend to reflect this as well, especially in regards to Khirad because of Humsafar's massive popularity. One commentator's view of Humsafar is that: "Humsafar's popularity is sad evidence of the systemic erosion of Pakistan’s social consciousness since the enforced piety of Zia’s days." This same writer referred to Humsafar as "an indicator of our endemic regressiveness," (Zakariya 2012). According to my oppositional decoding of Humsafar and Dastaan, the women within drama serials are not powerless nor are their lives solely about romantic relationships or marriage. The drama serials are more about the women, their lives, and the choices they make. A nuanced reading into the roles they play shows that these women are not simply passive or compliant with the situations that befall them. While Humsafar is a story about the misunderstanding between Khirad and Ashar, Khirad drives the plot of the drama serial with the decisions she makes (or does not make) on how to deal with Ashar. Dastaan alternatively primarily focuses on Bano and her struggles with entire episodes going by without her romantic interest, Hassan, making any appearances. 3 Khirad from Humsafar and Bano from Dastaan demonstrate their resistances against normative notions of nationalism and the family; they enact these resistances by breaking away from the hegemonic languages of sanity, nation, and patriarchy. In addition to theorizing their modes of resistance, I am also opting to discuss Khirad and Bano through the framework of space and spatial theories given the emphasis that has been placed on women and space in Pakistan. By examining recently popular serials, I will demonstrate the ways that these serials depict women engaging in modes of resistance to patriarchy and nationalism. The lasting impact of this study will be that it will add on to existing work on media in South Asia, but will extend the site of analysis towards Pakistani media which has thus far had limited scholarship done on it. Although due to Pakistani serials' increasing transnational popularity, drama serials are becoming the subject of intellectual discourses in a manner that other media industries in the subcontinent already have been. 1 This study will show how the popular, the everyday, and the mundane can help