#like when i say perfect victim i am thinking rahul and anjali from kkkg. for example. since they're quite well known and popular

[roobylavender]

i feel like the problem with so many pakistani dramas is they're like. a totalitarian exercise in relenting to the parent and forgiving them for all of their mistakes regardless of the severity of them. and i imagine it is funny to see me say that considering how often i wax rhetoric about how many of our parents are the products of violent cycles and there are times where we can't wholeheartedly blame them for being anyone other than who they were trained to be. but i also think there's a difference between forgiving your parents for not being able to escape their upbringing, and simply accepting that you will always have a subservient role to them, even in that process of forgiveness. like i don't think children have to go peacefully when they're being violently abused or cast out from their families or derided for entertaining dishonor. and this mindset we have wherein children have to be the perfect victims—broken, demure, never expressing any sort of outcry at the way they're treated—otherwise they're ungrateful and prone to derision by an audience for how much pain they've caused their parents, as if they haven't been caused extensive pain as well, really bothers me. like it's soured sooo many old dramas focused on parent-child conflicts for me bc of the way audiences villainize non-ideal trauma responses from children who are either forced into marriages or outcast from their families for refusing to be forced in the first place

#like when i say perfect victim i am thinking rahul and anjali from kkkg. for example. since they're quite well known and popular #rahul and anjali never fight back against rahul's father. not once #they're heartbroken by his decision and they Do move away but there's always a latent hope that he'll call them someday #and accept them into his arms again #so their severance from the family is palatable #but if rahul and anjali had fought back in any way. if they'd ever stood up or grown to be bitter bc of how they were treated #they absolutely would have been maligned by audiences #and i hate that. it's exactly what happens to ruhi in diyar e dil and it's so vile #not only is her husband cast out from his family and thrown into poverty #when she tries to win his father over that father calls her family lowly and unworthy #and he disowns her husband completely #like who wouldn't severe insecurity and bitterness after that? #everyone blames her for subsequently projecting her bitterness and anger and grief onto her daughter once her husband dies #but is that not the fault of the father in law who so brutally rejected her and instilled those insecurities in the first place? #where is his blame? #ugh. i swear rewatching old dramas is more upsetting than it is enjoyable atp fjldkhgf #to be deleted