Why Slackistan and Harry Potter are not in the cinemas

2 months ago

The stars of Slackistan are unlikely to grace Pakistan's big screens anytime soon.

I remember watching Dostanain the DHA cinema. I was probably the only person in the audience  grimacing more often than laughing. There were couples, groups of friends, entire families and aunties with kids in tow. A few seats away there was even a three-year-old.

I don’t hate all Bollywood movies. I usually enjoy whatever Amir Khan is in (except Ghajini). I liked Namastay London, Jab We Met, Umrao Jan (the one with Rekha) and Devdas.

Yet, I hated Dostana. Aside from the song “Desi Girl”, it did not have one redeeming quality. It represents the reason I shy away from watching Bollywood movies; the campy cheesy humour, the tacky and tawdry jokes, just the general lameness of it all. It was a three hour long gay joke which was cheap and derivative, trying to emulate the humour from TV shows like Will and Grace, Friends and Sex and the City yet failing miserably.

No good movies allowed

Here’s the part I don’t understand (aside from the fact that most of the audience was laughing) no one objected their children witnessing this reel atrocity. Pemra apparently found no problem with it either. The people who buy the distributing rights to such films find no problem with them and yet the films they do find problems with are the ones I might actually enjoy!

This is not a call for banning Indian movies or any other movie just for being lame. I understand the concept of supply and demand. But how does that explain why Harry Potter isn’t being released in Pakistan on November 15, alongside the rest of the world?

A statement on the cinema’s website citing reasons for not showing the previous film in the series, The Half Blood Prince, reads: “Please be advised that DHA Cinema does not import films. We can only exhibit what has been imported by any Distributor/Importer.”

What are distributors thinking?

It’s one of the most highly grossing movie franchises in history, but the release of the latest installment is still unconfirmed according to DHA cinema’s website just a few days before it’s set to open in cinemas worldwide. What makes this so devastating is the fact that Harry Potter is coming to an end. Fans will feel the euphoria of seeing it in cinemas at the same time as everyone else across the world. For this generation, it’s been said to be a historical event akin to Star Wars. For everyone else, it’s simply good entertainment. Pure cinematic joy.

Another reason fans are missing out is because Harry Potter has special effects which are perfect for the big screen. The experience of watching a movie like Transformers, The Lord of The Rings, Avatar, and Harry Potter is something that can’t be recreated at home. It’s just not the same.

Slackistan seems to be suffering from the same ill fate. Speaking to The Express Tribune director Hammad Khan said:

“I am trying to secure distribution partners in Pakistan…It’s ironic that the film is invited to screen around the world and nobody has made an offer in Pakistan. What makes it worse is that fans of the movie, the people who should be seeing it think that we’re choosing not to release it in Pakistan and prefer to screen it in other countries. I tell them, they chose us, we didn’t choose them.”

Discriminating against ourselves

Every run of the mill Indian movie is being screened in Pakistan, but Slackistan, one of the few original homegrown films to be produced is being cast aside. Whether it will live up to it’s hype is another story, but it should at least be given a chance. If Pemra chooses to ban the film for depicting scenes of young adults partying in Islamabad, it would be a ridiculous and hypocritical move considering they didn’t censor any of the raunchy scenes in the last Fast and the Furious flick.

It would be a travesty if cinemas fail to show Harry Potter after showing Twilight (more aptly pronounced “toilet” by others. Just depends on one’s point of view and/or accent). They can show us Twilight, but not Harry Potter? Dostana, but not Slackistan? The question is, who are these distributors and why do they have such bad taste?

The wicked women of Bigg Boss IV

It started for me three weeks ago – while channel hopping looking for something entertaining to watch on television at home, I came across an Indian channel showing an intensely heated argument between some celebrities hailing from popular Star Plus soaps. Hoping for something interesting, I got comfortable on my couch and was drawn into the fourth season of Big Boss.

Whilst undoubtedly slapstick lowbrow entertainment, this show still tends to keep people glued to the screen as it unravels the domestic affairs, romantic flings, feuds and rivalries of the various housemates. It is a real-life soap opera, currently filled with a cast who have much experience of these.

Hollywood celeb and former Baywatch babe, Pamela Anderson, is also playing a guest role on the reality show, she has had to deal with all the other ‘inmates’! Her sultry Shakira-type ‘dhak dhak kare jiya’ dance only adds to the frustration of the ogling men- who have been constantly staring at her – in the house.

Sara Khan aka Sadhna from the Indian soap ‘Sapna Baabul Ka Bidaai’, Shweta Tiwari aka Prerna from ‘Kasauti Zindagi Ki’ and our very own Pakistani Veena Malik are the damsels in distress these days.

Due credit must be given to the ‘item’ giving distress signals – or should I say screaming signals! Enter the big bad wolf – a hefty and huffed up Dolly Bindra, who was keen to huff and puff these three little smug piggies all the way back home.

On several occasions in the reality show, Dolly Bindra – or ‘Dolly Bomb’ as she has been dubbed by her housemates – had behaved in a manner best described as un-ladylike, threatening her housemates by yelling out crude and vicious remarks. She accused Sara Khan of feeding her stale roti and serving substandard food even though Dolly herself was not serving eggs to her co-star Manoj for breakfast! Her presence and behavior became very much the focus. Even Big Boss host Salman Khan cracked a joke that he’d received a text from a man saying he was scared to enter his kitchen in case Dolly was there patrolling over the food!

It is human nature that if a person is rude to another, then that other would obviously become cautious around them. In this same way most of the housemates felt threatened with Dolly’s behaviour. She has also been referred to as the desi Jade Goody due to her sharp tongue! Dolly’s aggression only portrayed her inferiority complex to the co-stars as she has often become the third wheel.

However, perhaps we can learn something here too. Dolly was removed from the house, after she clashed with Samir Soni and they both indulged in some rule-breaking. She denied she had done anything wrong until presented with a series of clips, leaving her apparently stunned at her own words and actions – yet a few days later she was allowed to return to the house. This time, willing to offer apologies and a degree of humility. She has even been made captain of the house in a popular vote by the other housemates.

People who act as Dolly did initially are a spectacle.  They promote a rude and indecent society, destroy channels of communication with their behaviour and cause misunderstandings. While this sort of behaviour undoubtedly makes good – if cheap and undemanding – television it does not make good people. Hopefully, the newly repentant Dolly can demonstrate how showing others a degree of respect and courtesy can go a lot further.

Say no to Mathira: Ban vulgarity not art

2 months ago

Television host Mathira has been accused of being too vulgar for family viewing.

A few days ago, someone forwarded me a video of the very famous VJ, Mathira. The clip showed her being abused and harassed by live callers.

At first, I was quite annoyed with the live callers, but when I watched closely, the live callers weren’t the only ones to be blamed, were they?

After all the lady does dress very cheaply and at times, uses indecent facial gestures during her live call sessions.

The only thing I can praise her for is the way she bashes rude live callers very confidently.

Some media people tend to drop offensive live calls the moment they find that a caller is exceeding his or her limits. How come these calls to Mathira didn’t get dropped-was it deliberate?

Self-censorship, anyone?

First of all, why couldn’t the producer or any other member of the show’s team prevent her from using the kind of language and gestures she does? Doesn’t anybody regulate her dress code, behaviour and live calls? What regulations and code of ethics are being followed by the channel and host? Does her team encourage her to receive such calls? Are they trying to compete with MTV Loveline? What is the objective?

What we do choose to ban

An old video by a band Rushk was banned after several months of being aired. Another report, in 2006, said that Pakistani channels were banning music videos without any logical reason or valid justification. The videos for Behti naar, Pal do pal, Jalan and Main nahi hoon were criticised. If these music videos offended people enough to be banned, why do the same channels air offensive talk shows? All the supposedly vulgar things that have been banned in the past did not necessarily deserve to be treated that way.

Cheap does not equal cool

Coming back to the show, you have to wonder if Mathira is used as  a publicity stunt, or whether she is being exploited for entertainment purposes. Since PEMRA arbitrarily decided to block other channels-what about this one?

Remember the good old days in the 1990s, when most of us would wait for Music Channel Charts to air? The VJs on that show were dressed to perfection. There was no element of obscenity to gain viewership; nothing about the show was vulgar.

Being open-minded is commendable, but promoting vulgarity shouldn’t be lauded as a symbol of liberalism.  Such shows present anything but progressiveness.

Countering harassment: My eyes are up here

Innocuous gestures can sometimes be misinterpreted

Not long ago, at an informal get-together of friends in Karachi our conversation turned to harassment in the workplace. One of my friends mentioned a recurring problem she was having with a male colleague, who seemed to always keep his eyes at a particular location on her body instead of looking her in the eye when talking to her. She could not avoid it as their respective job roles required a lot of communication between the two.

This was particularly uncomfortable yet she was unable to raise this either directly with the person in question or with anyone else at work. She felt this would be laughed at, causing further embarrassment. Her self-esteem was suffering and despite being happy with everything else at her workplace, she was looking for another job.

In another incident, a new recruit in my company came up to me within a week of being hired to have an informal, confidential discussion about harassment. When asked to elaborate, she said a male colleague had a habit of singing Indian songs, which she felt were targeted towards her. A confidential investigation showed the person in question, a generally well-respected guy, had always hummed songs while being engrossed at work, entirely oblivious to anyone else around. Most co-workers in his team were quite used to this habit.

What exactly is harassment?

While the term harassment itself is a wide one, sexual harassment in particular, as defined in the Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Bill 2009 is

“any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other verbal and written communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature or sexually demeaning attitudes, causing interference with the work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment, or the attempt to punish the complainant for refusal to comply to such a request or is made condition for employment.” (Though the title states Women, the Bill covers sexual harassment for both men and women at the workplace.)

It is important to remember that sexual harassment is not what an alleged harasser considers to be appropriate behaviour but whether the alleged harasser could have reasonably expected his/her behaviour to cause offence, humiliation or intimidation.

Harassment comes in all shapes and sizes

In many cases, and especially in Pakistan where there is no formal method of education on such a topic, certain behaviours and attitudes are at times unconscious or considered ‘normal’. For instance, leering, or unwelcome touching when passing a glass or other object, or even staring as in the case of my friend, can sometimes be an unconscious behaviour. This is not to excuse it, but knowing that it could be unconscious may allow us to deal with it better. When a group of guys at work exchange sexual or suggestive material, snickering over it and when asked what they are laughing at, to shrug it off saying nothing, just “normal guy stuff” is considered acceptable workplace behaviour by some.

Many serious sexual harassment incidents often go unreported and unpunished – from ‘supposedly harmless’ suggestive comments or jokes to repeated SMS friendship messaging to actual physical contact or requests for such contact. The Bill may have been passed, but for an effective implementation it is critical that people – employees who work in any kind of organisation in Pakistan – understand harassment and what it encompasses, and are up-to-date on how to go about safeguarding their right to a dignified working environment.

The Bill provides a Code of Conduct to be followed by organisations as well as a guideline for the procedure of lodging and conducting inquiries for complaints. It is mandatory for organisations to implement this Code of Conduct in their HR policies and to adequately educate staff about it.

Has your organisation complied yet?

Tales of people who cheat

Thespianz Theatre’s latest production Innocent Cheater left the audiences in gales of laughter. PHOTO: SALMAN ARIF

KARACHI: Friday evening unveiled Thespianz Theatre’s playInnocent Cheater at Pak-American Cultural Centre.

The comedy revolves around money-obsessed Changezi (Faisal Malik), who is indebted to his friends. He hires people but never pays their salaries on time. Changezi’s employees Akram (Zahid Khan), a man-servant, and Sahil (Alamgir Khan), look after his business but are tired of their boss’s insensitivity.

Changezi also has a daughter Aania (Rida Ashraf) whom he wants to marry off to a wealthy man. For this, he decides to trap his friend Jutt (M Daniyal) when Aania tells him that she loves Sahil. This upsets Changezi but he agrees to give a nod if Sahil comes up to his expectations. He later forces Sahil to leave Aania and threatens to fire him if he refused to back out.  Feeling trapped, Sahil leaves Aania, who is also liked by the exorcist Jolvi (Faizan Ahmad).

Directed by Faisal Malik, the play was written by Faizan Ahmad and was choreographed by Alamgir Khan.

Overall, the actors performed well. Though some of the performers forgot their lines, they still managed to captivate the audience, filling the hall with laughter.

Faisal Malik, Rida Ashraf and Zahid Khan stood out for their performance while Ahmad enacted the most hilarious character of the play.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Malik said, “This was an interesting play. Money, or lack of it, was the underlying subject of the play. In Pakistan, people borrow and lend money extensively and hence it must be projected.

The “best” of 2010

BY FAROOQ NOMANI ON 12 31ST, 2010 

Illustration by Faraz Aamer

2010 will be remembered as the year Pakistan cricket finally got it right in all the wrong ways.

After years, if not decades, of relentlessly striving to reach the pinnacle of ignominy, everything awful finally came together perfectly in 2010 as the Pakistan team and its administration put on a near flawless showcase of chaos. This achievement is no mean feat for a team and administration constantly at the forefront of controversy and regularly setting the bar for public disgrace. Indeed, in the recent past we have promised and delivered years of such dizzying depths that we were at risk of becoming complacent in our own brand of, uh, excellence. After years of ball-tampering charges, embarrassing World Cup exits (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/6457689.stm), abrupt changes in leadership, dressing-room spats,terrorist attacks, Nasim Ashraf, drugs, bans, warts, death and more drugs, one would assume that Pakistan cricket could not possibly outdo itself any further.

How wrong we were.

In 12 months of what can only be considered a veritable tour-de-force of opprobrium, the Pakistan team and its administration put their heads together and assembled a year of such startlingly original lows that a mere fixing or doping scandal can now only be referred to as “the good old days”.

For your benefit I have sifted through the various scandals to afflict our country this past year to present you with the Top Five Scandals of 2010. Sure, there was inevitably some glory this year. We beat Australia and England overseas and mustered a few good ODIs. But why not focus on what we did best, which is to make utter spectacles of ourselves.

5. Shoaib Malik and Kamran Akmal investigated by the PCB

Coming in at last place is the on-going saga of Malik and Kamran. It speaks volumes of the quality of the top four scandals when you consider that Malik and Kamran only make it to no.5 despite their multiple misdemeanors through the course of the year. Various quarters have implicated Malik as the source of intrigue and dissension in the dressing-room, many times in concert with Kamran, and both players are considered harbingers of indiscipline. These guys are in so much trouble off the field that one tends to forget how bad they are on it, which is pretty damn bad. However that doesn’t seem to have stopped them from somehow making tons of money off their positions, a scam that the PCB seems to have belatedly picked up on.

4. Shoaib Malik’s love triangle

Say what you will about Shoaib Akhtar but, as far as we know, at least the poor guy doesn’t treat women the same way as Malik. The former skipper was apparently married to Ayesha Siddiqui, until she alarmingly discovered that he was the prince of Sania Mirza’s dreams. Apparently if you’re Hyderabadi, Malik is quite the catch and amidst much publicity, fanfare and socio-political critique a large chunk of mid-2010 was absorbed by Malik’s courtship of, and eventual nuptials with, Ms. Mirza. Their romance featured the hallmarks of all traditional love affairs – the confiscation of the paramour’s passport; the revelation of a pre-existing marriage certificate; themelodic vitriol of a right-wing nationalist political party. Truly, Romeo and Juliet ain’t got nothing on these star-crossed lovers.

3. The Lord’s No-Ball Debacle

WHAT?! No.3 you say! I must be out of my mind. There is no denying that in terms of impact, prominence and system-wide repercussions, the Lord’s spot-fixing scandal was off the charts. It dominated every local and international headline and will forever change the way we look at our players. But it’s precisely because of that saturation coverage that I’m relegating the scandal to mid-level stature. Frankly, I’m bored with it. In fact, the best part of the entire drama was when Veena Malik injected some life into it by accusing Asif of being a money-grubbing cad while she herself occupied the lofty position of being engaged to a US passport holder.

2. Now you see Zulqarnain, now you don’t

And just like that, poof, he was gone. The entire Zulqarnain episode was almost genius in its absurdity. Believing his life to be in mortal peril, Zulqarnain hotfooted it to England, taking the time out to succinctly explain his motivations through his facebook status: “Leaving Pakistan cricket because get bad msg fr 1 man fr lose the match in last game”. Then, safe inside a London hotel, he expressed concern over the wellbeing of his family. Wow. And here we thought Shoaib Malik was insensitive. However, Zulqarnain would never have made it to second place on this list without the support of the PCB since it’s precisely that lack of support and trust fostered by our governing body that lead to Haider resorting to his own short-sighted methods.

1. Ijaz Butt implodes

2010 was Ijaz Butt’s masterpiece. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, Butt has carefully been plotting his ascension to full-on dementia for some time now. He sowed the seeds as early as last year when he attacked Chris Broadfor criticizing the PCB’s security measures just days after the venerable ICC match referee was the target of sustained gunfire. At the time we dismissed this as nationalistic posturing. Then, earlier this year, he announced a string of bans and penalties which were promptly overturned over the course of the following months. At that point the realization began to dawn on us that all may not be quite right with the old geezer. Yet nothing prepared us for Butt’s piece de resistance when he countered the various match-fixing allegations rightly leveled against our players by suggesting that it was the English team, rather, who were guilty of deliberately underperforming forfinancial gain. Apparently the last time Butt was chilling in bookie circles he overheard someone mention that it was the English players who were up to no good. Clearly this was sufficient basis to launch a public outburst and demand an inquiry. For this remarkable tactical foresight Butt finds himself at the top of this list. And I’m not even taking his battle of egos with Younis Khan into account which, by the way, Younis won.

So there you have it. You cannot help but be in awe of the creativity involved in delivering a year of non-stop, must-see, cry-in-shame depravity. Truly, our boys and management were misfiring on all cylinders this year. Will 2011 have any chance of matching up? Remember, that was what we feared before 2010. You underestimate this team at your own peril. Here’s to another banner yea