Goodness gracious me – why aren’t there more Asians on the TV?
Coco Khan
Each year, without fail, someone in my family will say it. Normally, it’s at a Christmas party, or some other mass familial gathering. A relative will say something mildly insulting to someone and it will ring out. “Cheque please!”
For the uninitiated, it’s a reference to a sketch in Goodness Gracious Me: the catchphrase of a tactless, occasionally sexist and often creepy, serial dater asking a waiter for the cheque after inevitably ruining a dinner date (“I really respect you, you’re a modern, strong Asian woman, who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes ... great ****, too. Cheque please!”). It is one of many catchphrases from the show that has become almost a tradition in my family, and I’m sure amongst many other British Asians, too.
Next year, Goodness Gracious Me will celebrate it’s 20th anniversary. Notwithstanding its brilliance and longevity, it’s a bit sad, isn’t it? A whole generation of people preoccupied with a show not seen for over a decade, one that is either too old or too niche to even have a presence on Netflix. Isn’t there something else out there?
Well, no, and that’s precisely the problem.
This week, Meera Syal – one of the writers and stars of the show – commented that depictions of Asian people on TV have “gone backwards”. It’s a damning indictment – nearly 20 years later, there has been no progress in how we portray British Asian communities and people. It may be “just television”, but it speaks to a wider issue: a lack of understanding and willingness to relate to everyday British Asian people or, more broadly, non-white and non-British-born people.
Syal’s comments relate to an upcoming drama based on the Rochdale paedophile ring – a very important story that should be told – and she discusses the need for additional, alternative portrayals of Asian people. Because “if that’s all that TV is doing, it looks like that’s the only thing Asians do”. It’s a valid point – we’ve seen something like this manifest itself at the polling station when, during the EU referendum, the communities least affected by immigration felt most affected by it – presumably, at least in part, as a result of what they’d seen on TV and read online.
It is not doing the country any good only to see Asian people as threatening sexual predators, silent cornershop owners, silk-wearing waiters in a colonial home, pleasant and jolly racial stereotypes or, from the US, the non-threatening, geeky but sex-obsessed computer programmer. Seriously, TV/film people, if you are reading, this obsession with people of colour trying to **** “your women” has really got to go.
These are belittling, stereotypical roles that are a far cry from the everyday reality of British Asians, served up specifically to thrill and appall white audiences, without regard of the consequences. And there are real consequences. TV doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it reflects culture as much as it shapes it.
Riz Ahmed’s speech last week in Parliament reiterated this, and he is the latest in a long line of high-profile celebrities urging the film and TV industries to do more to represent non-white communities.
Ahmed argued that, when the average person sees something that reminds them of themselves and their experience on television, in films or in books, it signals that the viewer’s life has value and is important to society. It signals belonging. But he posed an uncomfortable question: what if the only place a community is seen and heard in a light that is not belittling is an Isis recruitment video?
It’s important to point out, that many of our film and TV success stories from people of colour (Ahmed, Dev Patel, Idris Elba) have required a trip to America to take them to the next level. And while good roles for British Asians are diminishing in general, the situations is even worse for British Asian women – where are they? Where are their roles? Where are their stories? It’s a silence that seems particularly egregious, given the seeming preoccupation with the sexual wants of British Asian men.
The situation is even more troubling when we consider how successful these rare, diverse stories have been in recent years – the Masood family in Eastenders springs to mind – while from the US, TV shows like Aziz Ansari’s Master of None and The Mindy Project – created by and starring Mindy Kaling – resonated widely. There is clearly an appetite for this kind of work.
When I was a teenager and Goodness Gracious Me was on-air, I joined my school drama club. It was a phase – I was never destined for an Oscar nomination – but, looking back, I am certain that seeing that TV show encouraged me, and countless others, to try acting. We can’t let that show be a one-off. We have to demand more voices are heard, and more stories told. Now, more than ever, we need them.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...n-british-tv-no-progress-actors-or-programmes
