Representation of Alpha Male Dominance in Contemporary Pakistani TV Dramas

Abstract

The study investigates the portrayal of Alpha Male Dominance in Pakistani television dramas in the five mainstream broadcasts in 2023. Through a detailed thematic analysis, this research identifies repeated samples of male control, emotional manipulation, economic repression, and romance of toxic masculinity. These plays present a male character as a permanently authorized personalities who dominates through verbal aggression, surveillance, emotional blackmail, and moral policing. The study gives special attention to how such portrayals reinforce the patriarchal values ​​and especially through the glorification of the "angry young man" archetype. This character has been shown as an emotionally unstable but morally superior character, which, despite the abusive actions, has received rhetorical justification and sympathy from the audience. On the contrary, women's characters are often presented as submissive, emotional burdens, with the strengthening of the traditional gender classification. Content Analysis shows how family members, social expectations, and cultural values work together to forgive men's aggression and silence women's resistance in these statements. In addition, emotional and legal risks are often used as tools to maintain power over women, which play an important role in the distorted theory of intimate relationships.