Debates



	Write down what connotations you associate with Islam? Your list of connotations will obviously depend upon many factors, not least of which is whether you are a Muslim. If you are not a Muslim, list your sources of information about Islam and any Muslim public figures you know.

It is likely that the news gives many of us information about Islam as the media as a whole rarely represents Muslim, or indeed Asian, characters. One recent exception in Britain is the sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, which managed to disrupt the Asian stereotype that included the idea that Asians are not funny (and that white British are not interested in 'Asian television').

East is East, too, managed to dispel the myth that a mainstream audience would not be interested in Asian characters (unless they were playing terrorist types as is True Lies, 1993). Leslee Udwin, the producer, described the prejudice she experienced:

"You have no idea what kind of bigotry we came up against... It bordered on racism. We had number-crunching people saying, 'We don't believe a film that encompasses Asians can have a broad appeal.' Why the hell not? Why don't people say that about a film with Londoners?" (quoted in Minns, 1999, p. 7)

It is to be hoped that the 'crunchers' choked on their numbers after the film took around £15 million at the British box office alone. It is clear that FilmFour Distributors (FFD) were aware of the difficulties in selling the film to the audience, as FFD's head of marketing said:

"If you try and explain the film, it comes out as a film abut an Asian family set in Manchester in the '70s... When you get people through the door to see it, they love it." (ibid.)

She was probably right in saying that selling a film about an Asian family to a mass British audience would be virtually impossible, but why is this the case? Why, do you think, mainstream audiences in Britain are not interested in Asian families? Soap operas, on the other hand, are immensely popular and mostly focus on white families.

The film was marketed in a way that emphasised its 'universality', see promotion. The marketing was based on the assumption that many would see the fact that the film had Asian protagonists a 'problem'.

Gill Branston and Roy Stafford outlined the key questions about positive and negative representations:

We can adapt the above to ask specific questions about East is East; answer the following questions:

In addition to this it is important to consider who is doing the representing. Images of the Anglo-Pakistani community made by a white Brit are likely to be very different those created by those within it. This is not to say that the latter is necessarily more accurate, simply that viewpoint will heavily influence the representation. For example, if a racist had made East is East the character of Earnest's dad would have been more sympathetically portrayed.

The authorship of East is East is, like many of the film's characters, hybrid: Anglo-Pakistani Ayub Khan-Din wrote the screenplay and the film was directed by Irishman Damien O'Donnell. The film is based on Khan-Din's semi-autobiographical play, which was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 1997. Given this, the film is likely to be an authentic portrayal of both time and place, after all this is an Anglo-Pakistani (a rare voice in the media) speaking about his experiences. However when any minority group is represented things are never so straightforward.

In other words, the character of George, in the context of Western culture, is no longer Ayub Khan-Din's dad but a representative of Islamic fathers. He becomes a type just as Ella is a typical working class northern woman replete with foul mouth, big heart and stoic suffering (she also feeds her children cookies for breakfast). Although both parents become types, drawing upon stereotypical images circulating in the media, George is the villain (see narrative) of the film hence Islam is tainted by his patriarchal stance. Ella, on the other hand, is more the victim and so deserves our sympathy; indeed, is literally the victim of George's violence.

Similarly the milieu of the film, the working class community of Salford, seems, in these times of confessions of institutional racism in the light of Stephen Lawrence's murder, almost utopian. The Khans are seen as integrated into the community, their mixed race and cultural differences, driven by George, notwithstanding. The film opens with a Christian parade where the community happily colludes in hoodwinking George who, while he contentedly looks on, would be horrified to know his children had joined. The only racism evident is in the character of Earnest's granddad, who is clearly representative of an older and intolerant generation, and the night club bouncer. However his grandson is Sajid's best mate and his granddaughter, Stella, wants to marry Tariq. I doubt working class communities in Salford (or indeed middle class communities if such a thing exists), or anywhere else was this integrated.

Britain was a far more racist society in the 1970s than it is now. Love Thy Neighbour was a popular sitcom at the time whose 'hero' was a racist with black neighbours; the Saturday night television show The Comedians featured many racist 'jokes' that now are only heard on the pub circuit.

The East is East DVD featured four deleted scenes, two of which significantly alter the character of the Khan's social environment. One, on the Canal Bank, features the young people arguing after Peggy called Meenah a Paki. Tariq upbraids her, 'Who do you think you're calling a Paki?' 'Well you are aren't yer?' is Peggy's reply. Tariq averts his eyes acknowledging the truth that white people consider him Pakistani, whilst he considers himself English, although he is in fact Anglo-Pakistani. The Khan family's confusion about their identity is understandable.

Nowhere in the film, as it was released, do we get a sense of the Khan family's isolation. It is the bigot Moorhouse who is isolated in his bitter and twisted ways. The youngsters in the Khan family can even agree with the racist politician Enoch Powell about sending their father 'back where he belongs'; they do not feel threatened.

Another of the deleted scenes even more powerfully demonstrates the endemic racism of the times. Having resigned himself to marriage, Abdul goes to the pub for his 'stag night' where his work mates meet him. Once again, a member of the Khan family is seen integrated in white working class culture. However, the deleted scene shows what happens later in the evening when a group of black sailors enter the pub. Here Abdul's Scottish 'mate' starts making remarks about cannibalism and when Abdul starts to get upset, another says, 'don't worry, he's not talking about you, he's talking about the Sambos'. Abdul snaps and a fight ensues. He is then seen leaving the ironically named The Brit and returning home where he is consoled by a, for once, wholly sympathetic George.

On the DVD, in the director's commentary, Damien O'Donnell states the scenes were deleted as they held back the narrative momentum that was driving toward the climax with the Shah family. He says that the pub fight was deleted when a member of the preview audience asked what was the point of the scene. After consideration, it was decided to take it out because, O'Donnell reckons, the racism that surrounds the Khans is abundantly clear from the rest of the film and shown with humour. As I have argued above, I do not think this is the case and I think the deletion of these two scenes is severely detrimental to an understanding of what it was actually like in Salford at this time. Obviously the scriptwriter felt they were necessary or he would not have written them.

Whilst the representation of Salford (also the basis for Coronation Street) 1971 is contentious, the representation of gender is also questionable. Would the film would be different if the women to whom Tariq and Abdul are meant to marry were good looking? Tariq is adamant he wants to marry an English woman so it appears he is against arranged marriages on principle. If this is the case why is it necessary that the brides to be should be ugly? (See genre for a possible explanation for this.)

The benign (the poverty excepted) representation of the social environment, added to the portrayal of George as the villain, make this, in my view, a Eurocentric film. That is, the problems of Western culture (such as the endemic racism of the working class), Western economics (why were the Khan children forced to sleep three in a bed?) is rendered invisible while those of the Eastern culture, here arranged marriages, are highlighted.

The commercial considerations of creating a crowd-pleasing climax, and taking out disturbing scenes, made my laughter rather hollow. For example, the line 'I'm not marryin' a fuckin' Paki' is funny but those who laugh have to ask what they are laughing at? The line is only funny if we presume that Tariq is a Paki, which he isn't.

Compared to My Son the Fanatic (1997), for instance, where both West and East get a 'bad press', East is East is one-sided in its presentation of a clash of cultures. It is implicitly stating that 'west is best' an all too common representation that militates against understanding of other peoples. This does not matter if Western audiences can contexualise the film within a number of other representations, but some cannot, and it is probable that some who saw the film had their prejudices confirmed.

It is an interesting case study in reception. I imagine 'Asian audiences' would recognise the characters as representative of individual types; many in the white audience, I suspect, see them as ethnic types (counting Northerners as ethnic).