Dawn Images

For a show that boasts a big-name cast, a prime-time slot, and the branding of a national television network, Main Manto Nahi Hoon has done little to raise the bar for how women are spoken about on screen. In fact, this week’s episode took things several steps back — quite literally fat-shaming a character who doesn’t even exist.

The scene in question unfolds in a university classroom, where Humayun Saeed’s character, a professor named Manto, is teaching a class on the theory of motivation. Sajal Aly’s character Mehmal, playing a flirtatious and boundary-pushing student, interrupts to ask whether he’s married — a wildly inappropriate question in a professional academic setting.

When Manto deflects, Mehmal jokes she assumed he must be married “with a bunch of kids and a fat wife.” Visibly uncomfortable, he asks her how she assumes he would have a fat wife. Doubling down, she replies, “The lack of motivation on your face means your wife must be fat.” The class bursts into laughter. The script calls it humour, but audiences are calling it a disgrace.

In a country already steeped in unrealistic beauty standards, reinforced over decades through television, cinema and advertising, scenes like this only serve to perpetuate damaging stereotypes.

Pakistani dramas have long peddled body-shaming jokes as lazy humour. But in 2025, when there is growing awareness about body diversity and mental health, viewers expect more, especially from A-list actors like Aly and Saeed.

Online, the backlash has been swift and scathing. Many viewers are asking how such dialogues even made it past a writer’s desk, let alone into Aly’s mouth — an actor often celebrated for being “selective” about her roles. But others point out that this is par for the course when Khalilur Rehman Qamar is the one writing the script.

Many are also pointing out the deeper problem with romanticising a student-teacher dynamic, especially in light of increasing reports of harassment in academic spaces.

The show’s tone-deaf approach has also sparked criticism beyond the classroom scene. Fans called out Aly for “face shaming” after she allegedly reposted a reel from a fan account that labelled an average-looking male character from the same drama “ugly.”

While many fans have previously defended Aly as someone who gravitates toward “strong female roles,” this project has left even her fans disappointed. “I’m sorry,” wrote one, “but seeing THE Sajal Aly utter such under-standard dialogues is enough proof this industry is in shambles in terms of writing.”

The criticism hasn’t just been directed at Aly. Saeed, too, has come under fire for repeatedly lending his credibility to problematic scripts. But in this case, it’s Qamar — a writer with a long and controversial track record of misogyny both in what he says and writes — who is facing the harshest scrutiny.

That he continues to be handed big-budget dramas and given airtime on national TV, despite years of misogynistic storytelling and public outbursts, says more about the industry than it does about him.

At a time when more women are demanding respectful, nuanced representation on screen, and when younger audiences are challenging harmful tropes, Main Manto Nahi Hoon feels like a giant step backwards.

And while the backlash may not immediately change the course of the show, it has started an important conversation about what viewers will, and should, no longer accept in the name of “entertainment.”