On Monday, the Pakistani fans launched a blistering attack on Turkish actress Esra Bilgic for appearing in Victoria’s Secret bra advertisement and showing ‘too much skin’. Bilgic, having best portrayed the role of Halima Sultan in the Turkish historical television series Diriliş: Ertugrul, the local fans of the show criticized the actress for living her life outside of the character.
Bilgic took to Instagram to share her collaboration with the lingerie company while promoting their latest collection, Love Cloud. “Are you ready to be above the clouds? I am my biggest supporter of its lightness, softness, smoothness, and comfort. Join this journey and experience a completely different comfort”, the advertisement in Turkish read.
The moment she uploaded the video advertisement, Pakistani fans, especially the men crowded the comment section giving her unwarranted advice. Feeling cheated over the Turkish actor’s choice of clothes, a user commented, “Shame on you! After Halima’s character, you should be ashamed of this type of dress”. The other furious user suggested the actress stop showing her ‘naked’ body.
It is observed that the actress has turned off the comment section on her Instagram post. But here are some of the screenshots of the comments that are going viral on social media.
Another one, continuing to shame Bilgic stated that if she wanted to show herself in lingerie, then the actress should never have played the role of Halima Sultan. One of the Pakistani fans also claimed that he was no more a fan of the actress due to the advertisement. “I was a fan of yours but no longer. You should know that majority of your fans exist because of your portrayal of Halima Sultan. What was the need to promote nudity? Seems like you do not care about your fans. It is a great shame!”, the comment read.
Further, the Pakistani men kept on saying that the actress had ruined the Islamic culture and that she no more deserved to be called a Muslim girl. One of the epic comments also read that if the actress had done the advertisement for money and that if she needed money, she should have asked the Pakistani govt to help her.
Meanwhile TV host and VJ, Anoushey Ashraf also took to her Instagram story to point out the trolling on part of Pakistani men. “Why don’t men just unfollow her?” she wrote. Interestingly, this is not the first time that Bilgic has faced unwarranted criticism. Last year, Pakistani fans had criticized her for posting personal photographs. The comments then ranged from her dressing to her dignity and respect owing to her on-screen persona. Responding to the criticism, Bilgic had then given her fans a polite shut-up call and had asked them to unfollow her. “Let me give you a little advice: Don’t follow me, thank you,” she had written.
It is important to note that Diriliş: Ertugrul, an action drama that originally aired on Turkish state TV from 2014 to 2019 was banned by many countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The countries accused Turkey of trying to create an area of influence for itself in the Middle East. The High Fatwa Council- Darul-Ifta in Egypt had also targeted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying that the President allegedly aimed at regaining sovereignty over Arab countries which were previously under Ottoman rule.
Also, Jamia Binnori, a Karachi-based Islamic institute had released a statement banning the Turkish series after the government of Pakistan had announced its broadcast on state television from the beginning of Ramzan 2020. Allama Muhammad Yusuf of the Binnori Town Mosque had stated that the series should be forbidden according to the ‘shariah law’.
According to the reports, Ertugrul was one of the highest-rated shows on Netflix and had acquired worldwide appreciation from the film critics for portraying an accurate history of the Ottoman caliphate. It is rated 8.4 on IMDb and had an average of 100% score from the audience.
