The ‘Fierce To Fragile’ trope and ‘Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum’
While most dramas and movies around the world will start with a female lead who is under confident and insecure but by the end of the show she’s fully-assured and independent, in Pakistan it’s going the other way around. Rather than ending a show with a woman being comfortable in her own skin, we have a submissive good girl who stays happily in the toxic relationship that is completely unlike her past self.
We call this trope ‘Fierce to Fragile’ and its becoming alarmingly obvious what kind of message Pakistani dramas are sending to the women in this country by depicting heroines this way.
We need to discuss Sharjeena’s character in the context of this trope because a beloved character who started off as a confident and smart in the beginning of ‘Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum’ isn’t someone we can root for anymore.
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In the recent episodes, many fans have discussed how Sharjeena seems to have lost the headstrong and ferocity that made her such a beloved character among audiences. The only thing that quickly turned ‘Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum’ into a beloved show was how unlike typical Pakistani dramas, you had the woman being the bossy and loud one whom the man respected and listened to. Sharjeena was different from other drama leads because she did not shy away about her accomplishments, and was the one who moulded her husband according to what she wanted rather than it being the other way. It was a fresh breathe of air from the typical ‘sati savitri’ trope where the good girl is paired along with some snobby elite man who pushes her around because he loves her.
But now, would the Sharjeena from the first episode have been okay with watching her current self being taunted by Mustafa about her father? Especially when this was the same woman who had to bear so much disrespect at the hands of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law to the point that she left the house for a week? Would she have been okay with how Mustafa reacted negatively to the news of their pregnancy and blamed Sharjeena for not planning things accordingly?
On Monday’s episode, Sharjeena left a bad taste in my mouth because of how she sits around and cries while waiting for her husband to give her the emotional comfort she needs. Yes we’re happy that she finally confronted Mustafa about his incessant desire to get more money. But the fact that he blames her careless planning for the pregnancy to happen, and then complains how he is the sole provider who is working hard to make sure they build a stable life. Isn’t Sharjeena also a working woman? She was the one who was working day and night while Mustafa was jobless just to ensure that they could afford the basic necessities.
Why is she suddenly taking all of this blame passively rather than reminding him that she also invested a lot of time and energy into getting Mustafa to where he is now?
Fahad & Hania were so perfect in this scene that you gotta read between the lines! Mustafa going how her pagalpan about child & minimal living isn’t his thing & sharju going all guilt ridden thinking how she no longer knows him! The perfect conflict #KabhiMainKabhiTum showing>> pic.twitter.com/OUh0QTZzra
— San (@Sananruushan) October 22, 2024
Beyond ‘Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum’ several other Pakistani dramas have used this trope
Once you start putting Sharjeena’s entire character arc into consideration, you realise that the ‘Fierce To Fragile’ trope has been quite relevant among female leads of Pakistani dramas. Take for instance the beloved ‘enemies to lovers’ hit ‘Tere Bin’. We start the show with Meerub being an ambitious girl who wants to study law so she can help the under privileged, but instead she’s married off to her cousin Murtasim.
As the episodes progress, Meerub claims to be a strong woman but continues to stay in a marriage where she is slapped twice by her husband, is disrespected by her mother-in-law, is raped (or was it consensual sex I can’t even tell)- but yet the show ends with them living happily ever after.
In the same manner let’s look at ‘Chupke Chupke’ starring Ayeza Khan and Osman Khalid Butt. The audiences loved Meenu in the beginning because she’s funny, loud and quirky. But then after her marriage to Faaz, he treats her in a cold manner over minor misunderstandings that could have been resolved like adults, kicked out in the middle of the night because she was aware of Hadi and Mishi’s relationship. By the end of the show, the two come back together because apparently, you can gloss over toxic masculinity since true love lasts over everything.
Read more:We need to talk about Faazi’s toxic masculinity on Chupke Chupke and why its wrong
What is the message that Pakistani dramas are sending out to women with this trope? That their independence was cute before marriage but the second after they’re betrothed, they need to shred their personality and mould themselves the way their husband wants them to be? Or the only way a woman can maintain her marriage is if she sits around tolerating disrespect, while praying that he would change?
Did the script writers think that sending such a message is okay in a country where domestic violence rates are rising at an alarming rate?
Or is this a new way to click bait audiences into watching dramas and once you reach the climax, the female lead pulls a 360 and reveals she wasn’t quirky or cool all along.
We’re seriously hoping that Pakistani drama writers stop digging into the trenches to see how low they can go in giving us the most toxic relationship to root for. There are several other great Pakistani dramas that had female heroines who started off strong and ended of even more happier, along with a healthy marriage.
I’m begging every single drama writer out there, take out the time in your life and sit down to watch ‘Fairy Tale’ and ‘Ishq Murshid’ to understand what a strong female lead is. She’s not someone who sacrifices her resilience to keep her marriage together, but someone who chases her ambitions and has a supportive partner on the side who keeps encouraging her to do so.
Read more: Rubab is the real reason why ‘Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum’ is such a hit
