A heated conversation erupted on social media following a slight change in dialogue from popular American TV series Quantico, which went as, “Did you know he was responsible for a club bombing in Bangladesh?”
The line popped in during a segment of dialogues aired on the fifth episode of season one, which starred Bollywood diva Priyanka Chopra.
Shams Al Majhi, a writer on Alal O Dulal blog, retorted, “I have two questions for the Quantico fact-check team. Bangladesh has clubs? That get bombed?”
The damage, however, did not end there.
Bangladeshi director Rubaiyat Hossain shared the link of Majhi’s write-up on Facebook, which gave rise to a great deal of multi-layered discussions on how misleading information may tarnish the image of a country.
She tagged Sharbari Zohra Ahmed, a Bangladeshi writer who is currently working at ABC Television and directly linked with the writers’ panel of Quantico, in her post.
Hossain commented further, “For Bangladeshis, it’s scary to see our country being out on the map as a terrorist country, which we are not. Yes, Bangladesh is not safe and bloggers have been hacked to death, but Bangladesh is not like other Muslim countries where bombing has become an everyday event.”
Tagging Sharbari, she continued, “I wanted to bring this to your attention as you are in the team and you can better inform them.” Sharbari was not found replying to the post until the filing of this report yesterday.
People from different nationalities chimed in the conversation as well.
Some of the comments proceeded as: “In this case, this was a total use of power and lack of knowledge by writers/producers to make use of a ‘Constitutionally Muslim Country’ as a scape goat to attract attention.”
Another added, “Some hotels have clubs. I guess we never call it that. The point is not the fact that it’s just the portrayal. I’m not attacking the show. I think it’s great and love what you’re doing. It’s just these little things in mainstream media that paint Bangladesh.”
