Trigger warning: victim blaming, discussions of marital rape, assault
Pakistani drama ‘Tere Bin’ has been in the eye of a social media storm since yesterday a controversial scene from the drama serial went viral on Twitter. In the scene, the female lead Meerab (played by Yumna Zaidi) is raped by her husband Murtasim (played by Wahaj Ali) after she accuses him of attempting to start an affair with Haya.
Social media users, who had already labelled the drama as problematic for past controversies like slaps, attempted suicide, stalking and poor story pacing, declared that they were dropping their support for the once-popular drama. But it turns out, the writer behind the drama Nooran Makhdoom, is not moved by the backlash, defending it as a ‘a demand of the serial’, in an interview with Arab News Pk.
“It’s a situation which was the demand of the serial that will lead to the climax,” explained Makhdoom.
She also went on to defend the story by saying she won’t be changing the script because of fans:
“If the audience isn’t getting it, I can’t change it,” she said. “It’s just a drama. They should wait for the entire story to unfold instead of taking issue with every episode.”
Makhdoom also pointed out that such a horrfiying trope is not being used for the first time, and that the entire production team or director had not objected to the scene:
“It’s not like this has happened onscreen for the first time. It’s just that this project has received such wide recognition that people reacted strongly to the recent twist.”
Makhdoom also shared with Arab News that she had not initially added the slap and the spit scene, which was added in before filming, but she took complete responsibility for writing the script:
“If you speak of my social responsibility, I created a story and I stand by it,” she said. “And this is not an unusual occurrence; it has happened before.”
This revelation has led to more backlash on social media, with hasthags like ‘Shame on Tere Bin makers’ and ‘Nooran’ trending on Twitter, and users calling for a boycott of the drama.
