ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry on Sunday became the latest person to jump on the Ertugrul controversy bandwagon as he said that foreign productions will “ruin” the domestic entertainment industry.
The federal minister took to Twitter on Sunday to exclaim his ‘surprise’ at the PTV for “taking pride on other countries productions”.
“Surprised on @PTVHomeOfficial taking pride on other countries productions,you guys must focus on Pak productions otherwise foreign dramas ll ruin Pak productions, its always cheap to import foreign dramas but this ll have devastating long term effect on our own programming,” he tweeted.
Surprised on @PTVHomeOfficial taking pride on other countries productions,you guys must focus on Pak productions otherwise foreign dramas ll ruin Pak productions,its always cheap to import foreign dramas but this ll have devastating long term effect on our own programming
— Ch Fawad Hussain (@fawadchaudhry) May 31, 2020
Earlier Prime Minister Imran Khan had said the country’s youth can learn ‘Islamic values’ by watching the Turkish series “Dirilis: Ertugrul”, known as “Resurrection: Ertugrul” in English.
Khan called the series “interesting” when speaking to reporters in Islamabad, and blamed Western and Bollywood films for diluting Pakistani culture.
Dirilis: Ertugrul is a big-budget series that depicts the prehistory of the Ottoman Empire. It is based on the life of the 13th-century Muslim Oghuz Turk leader, who was the father of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire.
The show takes the name of the father and presents his tribe as a band of plucky rebels caught between Christian crusaders, Byzantine warriors, and fearsome Mongols. The scene is set for his tribe to invoke Islam and triumph against all odds. The premise is set, historical facts are manipulated for dramatic effect, and the production values are suitably overblown.
Since the show first launched in Turkey in 2014, it has become a hit and a money-spinner for all involved, also airing on Netflix, with Turkish and English subtitles, since 2018.
Perhaps that should have been the end of it. The very nature of our insatiable appetite for TV drama means fans move on to the next big thing. In this case, they did not.
His move made Ertugrul accessible to a far bigger audience and subsequently helped make it even more of a hit TV show internationally. It was instantly popular when it aired with Urdu translation on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and it only continues to get bigger.
Although Turkish drama series have been aired before in Pakistan, Ertugrul is breaking all the previous records. According to a rough estimate, around 134 million people watched it from April 25 to May 14. As requested by Prime Minister Khan, Ertugrul was dubbed in Urdu and aired on the state-run channel PTV. The viewership of PTV’s YouTube channel has gone above 2 million while the popularity of series increasing with every passing day.
