'No good scripts out there': Saheefa Jabbar Khattak is sick of stories oppressing women

Model turned actor Saheefa Jabbar Khattak believes there are no good scripts. She took to her Instagram Stories to share her thoughts on the type of scripts she is being offered and asked people with good scripts to contact her.

"There are no good scripts out there. The scripts which are being offered to me at the moment are not up to the standards of storytelling I feel comfortable endorsing," she said. "I am writing this today because a few rumours have made their way back to me and it does not feel nice to hear untrue things about yourself."

She clarified that she has not quit acting and is still being offered roles of leading characters in serials. "No, I do not perceive acting as a bad profession. I consider it to be art, and it is an important part of my life. I only hold a positive opinion on the field of drama and it remains to be my core professions," she said.

"As I am writing this, I am trying to be excessively sensitive to my fellow professionals in the industry. Artists, producers, writers, technicians and their collective labour is admirable. Their strife is real, and their struggle has helped us integrate dramatics into our culture and have the field recognised and respected," Khattak wrote. "I do not intend to ignore the work of my fellow hard working professionals but sadly I am not being offered good scripts."

There is always a home, a girl trapped inside of it, and marriage her only possibility of escape, she said.

"I am not comfortable endorsing escapism. I am not comfortable endorsing masculinised ideas of female empowerment. I am not comfortable with the lives of the characters I play, with the choices they are offered, and the root causes of conflict in their lives. I do not like the homes, the worlds, and the inherent associated oppression of such places in the one-liners I read daily. DAILY!"

Why do our women in drama remain oppressed, she asked. "Why did Alia marry her dead sister’s husband? Why is Zubaida’s father hell-bent on ruining her life? Is it love?" the model wrote.

"Nah, man! It’s just nonsense. It’s irrational and without reason. I am not saying that women don’t struggle with such problems. I know them to be true. All I am saying is that there are better ways out of difficult instants for women. I know them to be true too."

She then asked for people to send her scripts with "well-thought-out characters, a coherent plot and intelligent dialogue".

There has been quite a bit of criticism of the stories and representation of women in Pakistani dramas recently, with even actors calling out the way TV dramas promote regressive attitudes. We're glad to see that Khattak is an actor who thinks about the impact a drama may have before accepting a role. We firmly believe that our dramas would be much better if more actors seriously considered the kind of roles they're accepting and the portrayal of women in those dramas.