Anwar Maqsood shares thoughts on contemporary television content

During an interview with a local publication, famous Pakistani scriptwriter Anwar Maqsood discussed about the role of modern technology in diminishing television’s relevance.

According to the satirist, these days people are not interested in producing quality drama, he said, “Urdu literature doesn’t really have drama. We have a few, but strictly speaking, we can’t call them drama either. There are a few by Agha Hashar, there’s Anarkali by Taj Sahab, Khwaja Sahab’s dramas, but these dramas are such that if you’re watching them, on stage or on television, you enjoy them, but they don’t have a place in the library. We also don’t have much fiction in our literature. We had four to five people who’d write stories, who are all gone.”

Maqsood went on, “New people aren’t coming in because these gadgets have taken away the love of reading and writing. People want everything from one single device. They don’t want to buy books.”

The writer added, “No one is writing comedy anymore. Not one person. This is the case all over the world. You’ll find many serious writers, but not many who deal with comedy.”

The humorist thinks that media freedom is not for Pakistan, he stated, “A lot of prominent journalists were upset with me when I said during a press conference with Pervez Musharraf Sahab, ‘You’ve given media freedom, but you should have done this once the country had a higher level of education. 70-80% of our population is uneducated. For them, media freedom is equivalent to destruction.’ There are so many stories on TV now that uneducated people watch and then want to emulate. They are just plays, treat them as such.”

Expressing his disappointment over the content being created t0day, Maqsood said, “There are so many plays that even I can’t watch. Ratings have ruined media freedom. The more shamelessness, pointless sentences and disrespect, the higher the rating.”