Starting with an overview of the web series: Churails is a show uploaded on Zee5, written and directed by Asim Abbasi and starred Sarwat Gilani, Nimra bucha, Mehar Bano and Yasra Rizvi. The lives of these 4 women get intertwined when the character of Sarwat Gilani finds out her husband is cheating on her. After this the 4 women decide to run an agency to catch cheating husbands in action. They run this agency under the disguise of a burkha store called "Halal Designs", and call themselves churails. Initially, their plan worked perfect but when one of them goes missing, their investigation leads them to one of the bigggest Pakistani sex rackets.
It comes as no surprise that Churails was banned by PEMRA and PTA in Pakistan due to its supposedly lewd content. Pakistani conservatives were enraged at what sort of content was this show putting in front of our youth. There was a scene where a women has agreed that in order to become the CEO of a business she seduced the previous CEO and married him. Another scene was at the beach party where men had masks on of various predatory animals and were bidding on women. Now if we look at these issues in no way is this behaviour acceptable but when we talk about it we entirely forget that this is the sad reality of our society. No matter how much we deny somewhere in our country this is happening and to prevent this from happening in future we need our youth to be aware of such sensitive issues and Churails provided that platform of awareness for people but this was not acceptable.
Patriarchy is prevalent in our society, men make all of the decisions and run the households along with the country. Churails shows women in burkhas with hockey sticks in their hand, fighting men. Never has any Pakistani media portrayed women to be this bold and a contender for power in the society. Hence, this idea was not digested by the misogynist male mindset. Furthermore, this show presents themes like feminism, patriarchy, capitalism and child abuse; such topics can never be accepted easily in our culture.
These are my opinions on the previous banning of the show and the GIF below is my reaction on the ban. Do share your reactions and views in the comment section :)
Author: Kanza Nadeem.
Thank you for sharing this. I love how this show brings together different characters to address the question of gender inequality in Pakistan. This show embodies a monumental moment for representation in Pakistani media. However, I believe that the way it has addressed the issue of oppression has made it a good watch for catharsis and not for politics. With less content available on feminism in Pakistani media, shows like this become storehouses of information. While I enjoyed the show, what I found problematic was the lack of character development and some unanswered questions that the show failed to address. Firstly, what does it mean to be a churail? are churails wronged and vengeful or are they scorned and bad…
I didn't think of the banning as a publicity stunt as was mentioned in a previous comment, but perhaps that was the case. But either way, whether it was or not, I don't think that takes away from the boldness of the social commentary that we really need to see more of in Pakistani media. (I'm going to try not to give away spoilers for the show - if you haven't watched it I recommend you do!! (hit me up if you want a link to all the episodes in 1080p quality (also downloadable))) For sure you see this idea of 'bhaichara' in the show which I think, while it has some positive connotations of brotherhood and family and loyalty, it's…
I’m halfway through watching churails as well and I was honestly surprised at the honesty and boldness of social commentary it featured. From the slogan of “mard ko dard hoga” to its portrayal of never touched upon themes in Pakistani dramas, such as the exploration of the plight of the LGBTQ community in Pakistan, I was not at all shocked to learn that it got banned since the content was definitely something that was not easily digestible for most Pakistanis. Women were shown starting their own business to get revenge on their wrong-doers, putting work ahead of family when needed, freely making their own decisions and just living their life outside the ‘saas-bahu’ narrative put forward by all mainstream Pakistani…
Okay yes i agree with the toxic banning culture in Pakistan but as far as the 'banning' of churails is concerned yes i was also devastated when it happened but now there is a debate on it as many people (including myself) believe that it was just a publicity stunt for the following reasons: 1: PEMRA can only regulate the pakistani media and the series was aired on ZEE5 (an indian platform). While PTA can ban any application in Pakistan they could have banned the whole ZEE5 app but not just one series on it. When a PTA representative was asked that did they ask ZEE5 to ban the series in Pakistan, they replied that we could have but we DID…