The famed morning show host Nida Yasir recently introduced a segment on her show, where she invites real-life saas-bahu duos on her show to discuss their household problems and relationship issues with each other on air.
In what appears to be a plain old invitation to probe into affairs that aren’t your own, the show also features an exclusive panel of celebrity women to further the ‘discussion’ with their own problematic opinions and suggestions about the problems of the saas-bahu duo.
The most recent episode of the show featured, Tamanna and Faiza, a real-life daughter and mother-in-law. Spilling personal affairs on screen, the mother-in-law reveals that she got her son married through a marriage bureau, which she had informed beforehand about her desire for a ‘well-educated’ daughter-in-law, who does not work outside the house- as she will be required to manage the household. She complained that contrary to her expectations, the bahu was not trained in any of the expected household chores.
Nida Yasir just topped her own problematic af standards on this show where she invited saas bahus to complain about each other.
Like here, a saas claims she hired a marriage bureau to find her a “perfect” bahu who is educated BUT MUST stay home – only to discover she’s “phuar”.🙃 pic.twitter.com/sK24FDOyiC— Kanwal Ahmed (@kanwalful) November 17, 2021
The mother-in-law blatantly described that the reason why they demanded her to be well-educated was because she herself is a Principal and works, and so the family needed to have somebody who could raise the children well, see to the household and is ‘presentable’ enough to manage relatives.
The daughter in-law had her own misgivings and problems in the relationship, and seemed to attribute her mother-in-law’s controlling and demanding behavior, mostly to her professional role as a ‘Principal’- suggesting that women who are in managerial roles necessarily fall prey to a kind of maniacal urge for perfection- which will always leave them chasing and craving for unachievable standards that simply can never be met!
Yet again, presenting a situation where women are pitted against each other and presented as petty and shallow individuals with little more in their lives than complaining and cribbing, the show seems to feed into our already low standards of entertainment.
What are your thoughts on the ever-increasing demand for content featuring saas-bahu drama on screen, and platforms that promote it? Are we running short of more wholesome ways of entertaining ourselves or is it just a meaningless trend that will dissipate with time? Let us know in the comments below!
