Zoya Akhtar is a renowned female director in the industry. Her new series ‘Made in Heaven’ Season 2 has gained much appreciation. Not just this time, her way of direction and storytelling gave her recognition in the industry.
She was recently questioned by an Instagram user about her portrayal of Muslim characters in the series. In the series ‘Made in Heaven 2‘ in episode 6 named Warrior Princess show Dia Mirza’s character playing the role of Shehnaz, a Muslim bride. Shehnaz is seen trying to kill her as her husband married for the second time which is allowed in Islam.
The user might have questioned the portrayal of this character in the series. The user asked Zoya to normalize muslim characters in her shows and movies. To this the ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ director shared with the user a list of her muslim characters which are ‘normal’ and not ‘oppressed’.
What was in Zoya’s list?
Zoya Akhtar’s list of Muslim characters that she portrayed were “Zaffar Khan and Tanveer in Luck By Chance. Imran and Laila in ZNMD. Farah Ali in Dil Dhadakne Do. Practically everyone in Gully Boy. Sarfaraz Khan and Leila Shirazi, Kabir, Faiza and Nawab in “Made In Heaven.”
In Lucky by Chance, Zaffar Khan and Tanveer was played by Hrithik Roshan and Ashish Sawhney respectively. In ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Farhan Akhtar portrayed an advertising copywriter role as Imran while Katrina Kaif was seen as a fun, carefree scuba diving instructor. Anushka Sharma was seen as a jolly dancer as Farah Ali in ‘Dil Dhadakne Do’ who lives her life carelessly as her own wish. Gully Boy had both Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt as Muslims lovers. Ranveer was a rapper and Alia Bhatt was an aspiring doctor. Even Siddharth Chaturvedi’s character was of a muslim rapper by the street name of MC Sher.
In Made In Heaven season 2 Shashank Aroran is seen returning as Kabir Basrai as a wedding planner agency’s photographer. Kalki Koechlin is seen in the series as Adil’s girlfriend, Faiza, who is also pregnant and the role of Nawab Khan, Karan’s childhood friend, was played by Vikrant Massey. In episode 4 titled Love Story in Made In Heaven season 2, new-to-the-show Elnaaz Norouzi and Pulkit Samrat play the soon-to-be-married Bollywood actors Leila and Sarfaraz.
Reply from the Instagram user
There is no such reply from the Instagram user who commented on Zoya’s Muslim characters, however there are a number of people who supported her in this conflict and also appreciated her for portraying her characters so well to the audiences.
Made In Heaven 2
Made In Heaven Season 2, released on 10 August, is a continuation of 2019’s Made in Heaven. The director, Zoya Akhtar, Alankrita Srivastava, Neeraj Ghaywan, and Nitya Mehra. The series displays different stories of different characters, in 16 episodes. The director showed the audiences different social norms and how people react to it. Though the length of the episodes could have been trimmed at some point but there are scenes which has the capability to glue an audience to their laptop or computer screens.
From bride’s skin texture and colour to domestic violence, discrimination, polygamy, disowning parents’ decision; almost every social faults were beautifully shown here. A muslim wife’s fight against her husband’s second marriage, a parent lecturing his daughter about her career decision, a dark skinned girl fighting through the society to normalize dark skin people; one can name it and it should be there in the show.
All in all the series can be considered even better than the original one however there are some factors that could have been rectified though it is hardly visible for its amazing storytelling.
