Feroze Khan believes artists would be better off without uninformed criticism of their craft
The actor said people's constructive criticism was welcome, but negativity without understanding was not.
Pakistani stars face a lot of criticism, from every direction. Some of it is warranted, some isn’t and actor Syed Mohammed Ahmed fired shots at those dishing out the latter.
In a reel posted to his Instagram account on Saturday, the actor looked straight into camera and said he didn’t have much writing or acting to do nowadays, so he was considering becoming an armchair critic on social media.
“Do you know what the best job nowadays is? The best job is, if you don’t have any work to do, you are a useless person who has failed in life, you can’t do anything, just start criticising people. Disrespect your colleagues, criticise them, spew venom against them even. Say whatever comes to mind about them. That will get you your likes.”
Ahmed admitted the job didn’t pay especially well, but said it comes with an even grander prize: viral fame. “People were ridiculed, you spoke nonsense about them, but you got your likes, you got your viewership, your video went viral,” he said.
The actor said he was thinking of taking the activity up, but couldn’t figure out where to start and who to criticise first. “The actor who stands outside in the middle of a heatwave and acts for you? Maybe we should criticise him? It’ll be fun, we’ll get our likes.”
He also had a second potential target in mind. “Or maybe that poor director who screams from 9am to midnight, to the point where he can simply scream no more. The one who keeps an eye on everything, dialogues, wardrobes, sets, maybe we should criticise him? What do you think, we’ll get our likes, right?” he said.
“Because I am useless, I don’t have anything to do, nobody asks after me, but I can do this. It’s so easy… So, what do you say, should I start?” the actor said to viewers.
Ahmed isn’t the first to criticise sharp-tongued critics, especially ones who tend to cross a line or rely heavily on debasing their subjects rather than helping them improve their craft.
In May, Feroze Khan raised objections to uninformed criticism from people who had no “knowledge or insight” into the craft and were just reviewing dramas on YouTube.
A couple of weeks before that, in April, industry veteran Bushra Ansari took Firdous Jamal to the cleaners over the unkind words he had for their colleagues.
Agha Ali also thought some critics go too far in their critique — especially when they start critiquing things like wardrobe choices, which aren’t in the actor’s control.