Global Fandom: Rafay Mahmood (Pakistan)

Pakistani fandom, piety and Turkish period dramas 

 Rafay Mahmood

On May 3, 2020, cricketer-turned-politician and now Pakistan’s Prime minister, Imran Khan addressed a public gathering where he spoke about the importance of watching Turkish shows instead of ‘typical Bollywood’. This speech came a year after Pakistan had banned the import or broadcast of Indian content following skirmishes on the border with India. The PM emphasized how the Turkish shows, Dirlis Ertugrul in particular can bring Pakistanis close to their ‘Muslim roots’ and allow us as a nation to get inspired from our lost glory. 

While historians and critics remain divided over the show’s claim to it being an historically ‘accurate’ account, the govt of Pakistan didn’t blink an eye before getting the dialogues translated in Urdu and airing it on the state-run Pakistan Television and its digital assets. With an anti-India sentiment already a part of the public discourse coupled by the absence of Bollywood films in cinemas, the country, that was primarily reliant on Bollywood for a healthy box office was bracing itself for the death of the cinema industry and rise of the new stars and fans, all at the same time.

While Bollywood stars, even with Muslim names such as Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan represented an upper-caste, predominantly Brahmin, North Indian culture, it was the shared language, a similar set of common values, idiom and same physical complexion that made them accessible for the average Pakistani fan. That is obviously apart from the cathartic experience that the Bollywood song & dance formula guarantees. 

 Dirlis Ertugrul on the other hand brought forward an overtly Muslim hero, fighting for the great Islamic cause against anybody and everybody who hinders the message of Allah, displaying the chivalry of a valiant soldier and generosity of a forgiving king; directly inspired from the lives and events of the various venerated figures mentioned in the Islamic holy book of Quran. While the Islamicate tropes being used in an epic period drama were a direct departure from the dominantly ‘Hindu’ popularly registered as ‘Indian’ mise sen scene of Bollywood, the narrative elements remained consistent with that of Bollywood, or any other soap opera in the world. This allowed the fans of the Islamic Republic to enjoy a TV show not only as a binge watch but also as a family entertainer which complied by the Islamic values and Islamicate culture with all the women covering their heads in front of everyone apart from their husbands along with Arabic phrases and idioms commonly used in Muslim countries around the world. 

The treatment of the show successfully enabled the Prime Minister’s propaganda mission to pursue something more than just ‘Indian content’ with the newly launched YouTube channel ‘TRT Ertugrul by PTV’ crossing 8 million subscribers within one month of its launch and amassing 15.9 million in one year. But the state patronage of a TV show, as something a lot more sacred than entertainment, coupled with easy access to the internet and social media created a fan following that wasn’t afraid to express why the stars should be sacred, chaste and pious in their personal lives as well.

In an Instagram post on March 25, 2020, the leading lady of the show Esra Belgic, who plays the role of cool, devoted and loyal wife of the protagonist posted a picture of herself posing on a boat with a revealing upper torso on her verified Instagram account. It started with a few heart emojis to admire her beauty but the comments section soon turned into a slut-shaming space with militant moral policing, mostly by Muslim Pakistani men.



The screenshot of the Turkissh actor being shamed

A user by the name of Hassan Mehmood wrote: well done taaliyan honi chahiye hamaray liye aaj hum ek sacha musalmaan kehlanay ke laik hain ab ek dafa apne dil par hath rkh kr bata do kya tum ne kabhi marna nahi aaj mati ke oopar insaan kal matti ke neechay hoga are saamp khayen ge bichoo khayen ga

“A huge round of applause for we aren’t even close to what a devoted Muslim should be. Take a vow on your heart and tell me that you don’t worry about death, about afterlife, when you will be buried under the sand surrounded by snakes and Scorpios as punishment”

Another user just posted Bilgic’s screen name in Arabic/Urdu along with a question mark. As if bewildered at her shamelessness and disappointed at her not covering her body as she did in the show.

Others followed by a plain and simple ‘Shame on you’ while some questioned if this what Esra learnt from the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). 

Perhaps Bilgic hadn’t anticipated that her newly found fandom in Pakistan will not only love her but also hold her accountable for her ‘hypocrisy’ on screen by not espousing to the set of values of her character. For a month or so Bilgic didn’t respond to any of the policing on Instagram and continued tweeting and posting thank you notes to Pakistani fans until a couple of months later when she turned off comments under one of her pictures and eventually gave a befitting reply to a Pakistani fan.

“Elder sister Halime, please don’t wear such dresses,” wrote astounding_ali to which Halime responded by saying, “Let me give you a little advice: Don’t follow me. Thank you.” Her response was lauded as a ‘clap back like a queen’ and ‘Sultan of Sass’ in Pakistan’s more liberal English language press.

However, as the show progressed so did the fan conversation about Bilgic and her policing, so much so that Muslim social media users from around the world and in Pakistan started to eventually argue in favour of her choice.

Kim, a Muslim Hijab-wearing woman from Morocco chimed in by saying that she wears a hijab by choice and since Esra is an actress she should be allowed to wear whatever the task demands of her. She even questioned the disbelief of Pakistani fans by asking, do you also think she is married to Erugrul (Her husband in the show) too?

Royal_g_98, that appeared to be the Instagram handle of a Pakistani user appealed to PM Khan to take Instagram away from Pakistanis: “PM of Pakistan please stop Instagram in Pakistan. They live in 8th or 9thcentury,” the account wrote.

The slow and gradual acceptance of Bilgic as their own, even though with reservations, shows how eager is the Pakistani fandom to express itself pertaining to matters of piety and shame and how religion continues to be a launching point of ideas despite the slow death of the conventional missionary and his mission. This persistent confusion around accepting stars, especially when compared to Pakistan’s loyal and more than half a century-long, love-hate relationship with Bollywood also speaks volumes about the politics of heritage and ‘roots’ in the post-nation-state world. 

“The dichotomy however collapsed with Bilgiç who, at once possessed appearance close in proximity to European femininity, but the heritage and ideology of the brown, Muslim woman. She was almost white and Muslim enough. She was not to be feared, yet possessed all the desirability. And thus began the crisis that led to the barrage of comments on her Instagram posts,” reported the daily paper Dawn. 

The dilemma for Pakistani fans of the Turkish show started with them being challenged to suspend their disbelief and accept the characters and actors as different entities. Which further led them to evolve and inquire which stars to own and how to own them and what part of our heritage to own and how to own it since the Turkish or Central Asian aspect was imported and broadcast as a direct replacement, and in some ways, answer to Bollywood. 

Pakistani government’s plan to acquire rights to Turkish epics not only triggered a fandom that was symptomatic of our existing religious partisanship but also reflective of how religion, piety and shame continue to dictate translational flows of identity and shared heritage, almost in a tribal manner, while partaking in a supposedly ‘worldly’ and cosmopolitan ecology of social media. 

However, more than a space of policing, I see the virtual villages of participatory culture as spaces of possibility where fans may engage in fierce and ruthless attacks on their stars but there are chances, if not equal, of them being maimed and humbled by the comebacks of those who adhere to more progressive values and use the same internet features and lexicon such as slangs and hashtags as proficiently as the ones policing the stars. Despite choosing a gendered experience for the paper, one can loosely take the Pakistani fandom of the Turkish star as a place of major ideological contest about both what it means to be a Muslim and Pakistani and what one wants a Muslim and Pakistani to be like on social media, without turning a blind eye to our ‘Hindu’ neighbour with centuries of shared experience. 

As Arvind Rajagopal shares the framework of understanding the fandom of Dur Darshan’s 1987 production of Mahabharata, “Merely focusing on media itself does little more than confirm our fascination with power. The media neither cause, nor reflect events, they participate in them.” To be able to understand whether the Pakistani fandom of Turkish shows actually snowballs into something truly spectacular that the ruling party can later use as an archetype for voters also requires a closer inspection of how politically and financially is it invested in this mission of cultural production

Rafay Mahmood is a researcher and journalist from Pakistan who is associated with Habib University and The Express Tribune. He also makes Video logs on cultural commentary in Urdu.