A-listers of Pakistani entertainment industry are currently in Toronto, Canada for the ceremony of 8th HUM Awards under fire, being held in Toronto on 24th September 2022.
Senior politician Sharmila Faruqi recently schooled local celebrities (with the noted exception of Hadiqa Kiani) for not doing enough for flood relief.
In an Instagram post, she shared pictures of several celebrities in Canada for the Hum TV Awards, along with an image of Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie in Pakistan.
The backlash by prominent personalities started a scrutiny fest for the channel on social media. While sentiments of the local netizens have been hurt, the reaction on social media seems to be strikingly overwhelming.
For the unversed, the event was planned months in advance, from the venue to the performances and guests, everything was keyfully planned weeks before the event itself.
Earlier when HUM TV held its award show in 2018, it garnered a similar backlash due to the snubbing of the General elections.
To be factual, bookings of venues of that scale for events that are high profile cannot simply be postponed or cancelled in a matter of days. Celebrities that are set to perform have contracts in place for set performances which cannot be revoked.
The show from the get-go was advertised with a disclaimer that HUM will donate a portion of the earnings through ticket sales to the flood victims. HUM has done its part in helping those in need, also hosting a live fundraiser telethon via their foundation ‘HUMdard’ that was held in Karachi in early September. Another such fundraiser event was also held in Canada prior to the Awards which was attended by numerous celebrities.
Hum TV even officially addressed the controversy on social media.
All this backlash led to several celebrities coming to their own and HUM’s defence. We saw the likes of Ahmed Ali Butt who took to Instagram stories, sarcastically mocking those praising Angelina Jolie and calling out our people’s double standards or lack of fact-checking skills by pointing out how a portion of ticket sales will go to relief funds and that the event is not just some lavish party.
Mahira Khan, Ushna Shah and Haroon Shahid also joined in on this with Haroon taking to Twitter to let people know that they already are and will continue to do their part in raising awareness and doing everything they can to help those in need.
We also however saw Azfar Rehman announce via Instagram post that he has chosen to not attend the event, having withdrawn by choice.
Ushna Shah, who is also in attendance at the fundraiser event in Canada, was seen posting from the event showing millions being raised for the relief funds.
Despite all of HUM’s efforts, the backlash is still nowhere close to dying down. It’s rather unfortunate that in most such cases of online backlash, audiences are proven to assume the worst without any fact-checking done from their end.
That’s exactly what we are seeing here, with #BoycottHumTV still being blasted at them under every post and #BoycottHumAwards trending on Twitter. The internet is a cesspool of misinformation and vicious hate cycles and unfortunately, this is just the next one.
The ceremony will be screened on Hum TV later this year.
