Pakistani Cinema Promoting Foreign Culture

In today’s world cinemas hold much importance in a society mostly because it gives the people the environment to get entertained largely because of the use of advance 3D technology and high definition projection screens that has attractive effect on people. A large group of people in society are seen heading to cinemas for their own respective purposes that include avoid being a loner, to enter the new folds of modernization, displacement of hardships and pressures in life, to be a part of cool movie gossips circulating the society. But have we think over that how cinemas has increasingly entered into our cultural customs which are our identity. Every now and then we see how the cinemas have attacked the audience with latest movies in an appealing and blown up manner. And the audience is consciously and unconsciously taking the effects of these movies that they are buying foreign culture and introducing them in our society. So our lifestyles, preferences, tastes and ways of interacting with society have changed. The cinemas of Pakistan are the good index of foreign culture and the main reason behind it is that they contribute the stuff of cultural life. The owners of the cinemas are much eager to get their hands on latest English and Indian movies than Pakistani movies which are rare ,for they have a know how that they have frequent cinema attendees helping them in generating larger incomes for them.

Pakistani cinemas are more focused towards income parts and are mostly targeting the elite class with higher ticket purchasing powers and do not bother to deal time slots to show Pakistani movies that were once the beauty of Pakistani cinemas such as Armaan , Dosti  etc which help in refreshing and reminding the spirit of  Pakistani culture. When cinemas are used for brand promotions purposes then why not they can be used for cultural promotion purposes. It would serve as a motivation to our present generation to be well familiar with our culture norms. Movies like Bol and Waar do create a buzz in Pakistani cinema markets once or twice in a year but even these movies were seen by the cultural critics as giving an exaggerated false picture of Pakistani culture emphasizing on abuse of women, homeless children and widespread terrorism. The frequent screening of western and Indian movies by cinema houses has made cinemas their cultural mirror. As a result westernized trends and Indian rituals and culture have so deeply interfered into our culture that the social values and Islamic values in our society have faded away.

Going to cinemas is good for rejoicing. It is fun to watch movie scenes with blissful movie fans but we should not adopt the foreign culture shown through films in our local society and should be keen in protecting our culture. The cinemas also need to be sensitive to cultural issues when deciding on screening of different movies.