YASMIN
Yasmin (Kenneth Glenaan, 2004)
EAST IS EAST
East is East (Damien O’Donnell, 1999)
BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM
Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, 2002)
We watch extracts and analyse the representations of people, places and ideas.
Yasmin (Kenneth Glenaan, 2004) written
by Simon Beaufoy and starring Archie Panjabi as Yasmin and Renu Setna
as her father, Khalid. The film was a response to the demonisation of
Muslims as terrorists. It was made a a time when British Muslims felt
that they were being treated badly by the wider population, the media
and the government because of growing concern over an extremist minority
within Islam. The variety of different representations of this ethnic
group could be viewed as positive as it does not simplify what it means
to be Asian. In the film, Yasmin is seen changing her clothes in secret
in her car as she moves between her family identity and her work
identity.
Despite this, the film still uses several stereotypes. Yasmin has been criticized for its representation of white people in so far as there are few likeable white characters in the film. They are also shown as racist. This starts lightly but gathers momentum over the course of the film with remarks such as ‘get back to your own country’. The collective term ‘you’, to describe anyone from an ethnic minority, becomes important as a symbol of the way that racism simplifies difference as a simple case of ‘us’ meaning white and ‘them’ meaning non-white.
The
film is clearly critical of these attitudes. It is set amongst a
British Pakistani community in parts of Keighley (in West Yorkshire,
England) before and after the events of the September 11, 2001 attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Building.
At
the start of the film, English-Pakistani girl, Yasmin, lives two lives
in two different worlds: in her community, she wears Muslim clothes,
cooks for her father and brother, Nassir, and has the traditional
behaviour of a Muslim woman. On top of this, she has a non-consummated
marriage with the illegal immigrant Faysal Husseini who is a friend of
the family from Pakistan. From Yasmin's perspective, she has gone along
with the arranged marriage just in order to facilitate his getting a
British passport, before divorcing him.
In
the second act, we see the instant and the immediate aftermath of the
September 11th attacks. The effect of those terrible events meant an
upsurge in prejudice against the Muslim communities in many parts of
Great Britain. In her job she endures prejudice when people start
sticking notes on her locker stating 'Yaz loves Osama'. She is
eventually asked to take some paid leave and given no valid explanation.
We see ordinary people in the pub looking down at her as well as yobs
on BMXs attacking an innocent old Asian woman in the street who Yasmin
rescues. We see how young male members of the once harmonious Pakistani
community in Keighley go against their parents and start to become
radicalised by corrupt readers of the Koran to rise up and fight against
the West for the way that they have started to demonise Islam and
persecute their people. Yasmin's younger brother is easily recruited by a
Radical Muslim Group. Finally, after Yasmin's husband is arrested on
suspected terror charges that turn out to have no basis in reality, she
too takes sides against the British establishment and changes her life,
dressing in traditional costume, waiting for her husband outside a
police station for days and eventually comforting him when he is
released, traumatized, without charge. Yasmin refuses to grant her
blessing to him as he prepares to go to a training camp in Afghanistan.
Between the White English characters, both of the young
British-Pakistanis, the old Pakistani father and the newly arrived
immigrant Faysal there are many huge contrasts in belief about what it
is to be British.
East is East (Damien O’Donnell, 1999) is
a comedy drama based on a Punjabi family in the 1970’s based in
Salford. It is arguably one of the first hits to have established
British Asian cinema as a true contender across the world. The film
touches upon the controversial topic of arranged marriages and
traditional families. Based on award-winning actor and playwright, Ayub
Khan-Din’s play of the same name, it depicts BrAsian family life as a
site of conflict with Bollywood actor, Om Puri, leading the cast in his
role as father Zahir George Khan with British actress Linda Bassett
playing his wife.
Media
representations can only ever be just that: individual stories, not
stereotypes anchored in 'truth'. Khan Din rejects the notion that George
Khan is 'typical' Muslim father.
Bend It Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, 2002)
Theory: Erving Goffman and Performance
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959)
is Goffman's seminal sociology book. It uses the imagery of the theatre
in order to portray the importance of human social interaction.
Goffman writes about the nature of social interaction e.g. notions of ‘performance’ reflecting a certain identity. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life is
relevant when looking at the whole idea of identity and can be mapped
onto contemporary media. Identity can be a site of conflict, especially
between generations and often more so between second and third
generation immigrants. There are several film that explore this.
Many second and third generation immigrants openly and confidently challenge their parents (like Anita in Anita and Me), whilst others 'bend', showing flexibility and moving between two cultures (like Jess /Jasminder in Bend It Like Beckham). Some feel forced to hide their real identities in the face of entrenched traditional values (East Is East, where 'east' and 'west' Do not meet).
For Erving Goffman, identity
becomes a matter of performance, with front and back stage behaviours,
which serve to define appropriate behaviours in two different spheres.
For example, in East is East, Tariq pays lip service to obeying his Muslim
father but morphs into his western identity as ‘Tony’ at college and in
the night club. Some conflict leads to outright war, with positions
taken that are poles apart, as when Nazir is disowned by George after
fleeing an arranged marriage for a homosexual relationship. The message
of this film is that hybrid identities are not accepted by traditional
Muslim parents.
