KARACHI: When the trailer of upcoming Pakistani teen drama College Gate was released on Instagram last month, many social media users had similar concerns: was this a copy of the Netflix series Elite about an exclusive private school in Spain? How would Pakistani audiences relate to content that seemed to only depict a tiny “upper class”? And why would the producers make a show that looked like it “belonged to another culture”?
In interviews with Arab News, the director and producer of College Gate, scheduled to release on the newly launched Pakistani TV channel Green Entertainment this month, have reassured readers that the show will appeal to Pakistani audiences, particularly young people, and promote family values as well as provide entertainment.
As of 2022, Pakistan is currently the sixth most populous country globally, with two-thirds of its over 220 population below the age of 30, making it among the world’s youngest nations.
“Seventy percent of our population is under 30, you cannot leave this much of the audience to be influenced by foreign content,” producer Imran Raza, who is also the brains behind Green Entertainment, told Arab News on Monday, commenting on the need to make content for young Pakistanis.
“If you don’t give them [local] content, they will watch something anyway because they need entertainment … Nobody is ready to talk about issues of the youth.”
But College Gate, which features a young and emerging cast, would tackle a number of issues important to young Pakistanis, Raza said, including not being allowed by parents to pursue careers of their choice, growing up in a single-parent home, and juggling one’s passions and dreams with the need to chart a path that would lead to financial success and independence.
“The drama also talks about puberty issues and hormonal changes that parents are usually shy to talk to their kids about,” Raza added.
Responding to comments that the series would be against Pakistani culture, director Fahim Burney clarified that College Gate was “just a story of friends.”
In this picture, posted on April 20, 2023, the star cast of the upcoming Pakistani series "College Gate" poses for a group photo in Islamabad. (Photo courtesy: Facebook/Asad Chaudhry)
“If a girl and a guy are going to college, the purpose is not just to have a romantic relationship, they can be just friends,” Burney told Arab News on Monday.
And the friendships were “encouraging good values among each other,” Burney said, whether in its depiction of a girl supporting her father in his business, doing social work, or praying five times a day.
The teens were shown to be respectful to their parents, Burney added, saying the show gave out a “positive messages to young viewers to take inspiration from.”
Talking about his own influences, Burney said he was influenced by the popular British sitcom Mind Your Language and Pakistan’s Kollege Jeans, which revolved around campus life at an art school,
“So, I have revamped that into our Pakistani style, that there should be a uniform and a school [located] somewhere out of the city where the kids go to study,” Burney said.
TV critic and founder of Fuchsia Magazine, Rabia Mughni, said she expected College Gate “to be a fun, young program that will highlight the issues today's youth are facing.”
“I can see a glimpse of issues such as drugs, peer pressure, relationships, and communication gap with parents,” she said, commenting on the trailer.
Speaking about the drama’s comparison to foreign productions, Mughni added:
“As you watch the trailer of the show, the content looks Pakistani, it's not unrealistic. It may not represent the masses or the lifestyle of the majority of the schools in Pakistan but if you take the upper-middle class or upper class, you will see this kind of environment in those institutions.”
