Sania Saeed sat down for an interview with Something Haute where she opened up about her latest drama “Raqeeb Se” and also discussed how the entertainment industry today is producing art that is not encouraging audiences to think or reflect on their society. She elaborated on how she felt that television industries are relying on artists and writers to produce content that they feel receives extensive popularity, and which has now become their business formula:
Television shows want dense topics they feel can be understood by audiences quickly and will also be easily made and accepted by the people. I feel that this has become a business formula now to write television series, and we have started pressurizing our artists and writers to adjust to this, when most of the times its not the perspective they agree with or are experienced in writing about. We are focusing more on what can be sold easily now.”
Sania further elaborated that the problem with this mindset was that audiences are not being encouraged to think critically or reflect on the society they live in, and she had also had to fight for good content in the industry which she feels is no longer acceptable now:
“The problem with this is now that we are assuming that our audiences are dumb and cannot think at all. But our industry shouldn’t exploit their weakness but we should encourage them to think critically and help expand their thought process.. I have faced this kind of pressure while working in the industry and there were years when I didn’t work because I had a lot of issues with the kind of scripts that were coming out. I feel that today there aren’t enough choices for actors to seek out well written scripts. I had to fight a lot and along this path I had to make a lot of difficult decisions on the type of roles I would work on. It’s heartbreaking to witness.”
Expanding on her reasons why she felt that art should not be created only for the purpose of entertainment but it has a political role as well, Sania opened up about why she felt relieved to work on a project like “Raqeeb Se” that was encouraging audiences to reflect on the society they live in:
“When Raqeeb Se came along, I was quite relieved and so was the director and the rest of the cast. I think this is one of the few times I had seen a show that had a cast and staff completely invested behind it!..I do believe that art has a role beyond entertainment which is to help expand our mindsets. Because in this show, the characters are extremely interesting and will disturb you because they act in ways you didn’t expect them to do, or react in ways that are unacceptable. It makes you disturbed because our society has taught us to think the opposite way, and this is how we would react towards someone within our society.”
You can watch the complete video below:
