When Stereotypes aren't the Same: South Asian Representation in British and Indian Media
26th August 2023
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People who are bored and emotionally riled up should probably not be left alone in a room with Internet access. Transplant that disposition onto a whole civilisation and the result is the summer of 2020.
Those remarkable few months could be likened to the circumstances surrounding our volatile friend who is prone to regrettable emotional outbursts. Tangibly, they were circumstances that led to the cancellation of a torrent of high profile figures and an increase in the number of UK newspaper articles discussing the existence or nature of UK culture wars from 21 in 2015 to 534 in 2020.
With the outdoors closed and emotions running high, the legacy of 2020 can still be felt in the highly polarising discourse that proliferates through western media today.
A few years before it was removed from Netflix that summer for depictions of blackface, brownface and yellowface, producers of the controversial British mockumentary Come Fly with Me appeared unphased at accusations of racial bigotry.
For those unfamiliar, the six-episode show features comedy duo David Walliams and Matt Lucas, former Little Britain stars, masquerading as regular stereotypes who get on with mundane airport tasks.
Come Fly with Me was the third most watched show on the Christmas day of its release and the most viewed British comedy of 2010.
First there is Taaj — a slightly dim-witted but well-meaning Muslim ground crew member from Bradford; another character is chief immigration officer Ian Foot, the local airport xenophobe who will stop at any opportunity to catch ‘illegal’ foreigners.
An encounter between the two characters occurs in a later series episode which perfectly encapsulates the comedic contrast of their aloof dispositions.
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And the most eyebrow-raising person of all is Barbadian store owner Precious, who elicited a particularly large number of complaints.
The concept of westerners playing stereotypes with a stated intention of bringing societies together through shared humour has been particularly noteworthy in the last half century.
In America, the most notable example that comes to mind is The Simpsons, whose famous Indian store owner Apu was de facto axed from the show five years ago after Hank Azaria, a white man who had voiced the character for nearly thirty years, found his hands tied following a sudden wave of backlash.
It was comedian Hari Kondabolu’s documentary The Problem with Apu that led directly to its cancellation, along with the subsequent wave of celebrities who rushed in to voice their criticism.
The most high profile of these figures was Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra who stated that Apu became ‘the bane of her life’ because of his exaggerated Indian accent.
#TheSimpsons completely toothless response to @harikondabolu #TheProblemWithApu about the racist character Apu:
— soham (@sohamberlamps) April 9, 2018
"Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect... What can you do?" pic.twitter.com/Bj7qE2FXWN
All this despite the fact that the show once was, and still is, commonly dubbed politically left-leaning for its anti-establishment bias. Recently, characters such as Apu have left the left — or at least a sizeable portion of it — unhappy with the cartoon’s producers.
Discontent with Apu is not an isolated phenomenon. Given that the whole of The Simpsons is based on stereotypes, it is unlikely that critics would be satisfied following the removal of a single character.
Hank Azaria, who has voiced over thirty Simpsons characters, said in a New York Times interview, “Once I realised that that was the way this character was thought of, I just didn’t want to participate in it anymore.”
Indeed, a standard diplomatic reply can be found in most of Azaria’s subsequent interviews — but from listening to his neutral and avoidant responses it is clear that the decision to step away from Apu was a reluctant one.
To question the validity of Apu is to question the entire premise upon which The Simpsons is based. And the logical conclusion of such questioning is an end to the show as we know it.
Back in the UK and more recently, we have seen similar criticism run forth. Citizen Khan’s protagonist was written by Adil Ray, a Muslim man of south Asian descent.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph in 2015, Ray said that fans of the show realise it is a “big laugh out loud comedy, not a reflection of every Muslim or Pakistani family in the country.”
Yet criticism once again soared in with accusations of harmful stereotypes and discrimination towards British Pakistanis.
In 2016, Labour MP Rupa Huq called the show’s portrayal of a Birmingham Muslim family “quite backward.”
This is the same MP who was temporarily suspended from the Party a few months ago after she described then-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as “superficially black” due to his apparently upper class manner and upbringing.
She subsequently completed ‘anti-racism’ training.
In 2021, Adil Ray said the BBC was thinking about making a Christmas Special, but conversations would need to be had about the content and ‘offensive stereotypes’.
Regardless of whether one agrees with some of the criticism levelled at the show writers, a clear pattern begins to emerge:
It seems to take a lot for writers to script a British or American Asian character that can be labelled ‘good representation’.
Responding to early criticism around Come Fly with Me, Matt Lucas, who is still well-known in the acting industry and until recently presented the Great British Bake Off, said: “Like in Little Britain we try to reflect, affectionately, the multicultural Britain we love. No offence is intended.”
As a matter of taste, Come Fly with Me is undoubtedly crude at several junctures. But given the personal background of its actors and a lack of tangible proof to link the show with resultant societal discrimination towards people from black or Asian heritage, is it appropriate to universally condemn the show writers or producers as racist on behalf of an entire ethnic group?
Priyanka Chopra, a chief critic of ‘Apu’, found fame in an industry where the merits of cross-playing characters of different cultural backgrounds is often encouraged and embraced.
Despite a growing negative rhetoric around Muslims in India, figures such as the three Khans of Indian cinema (Salman, Aamir and Shah Rukh) as well as other actors and actresses remain respected and well-cherished components of the industry.
It is not uncommon for actors of one religion — most commonly Hinduism, Sikhism or Islam — to play those of another, through a manner of likeable stereotypes.
In the 2018 Bollywood film Gold, which charts the Indian hockey team’s battle against England in its first Olympics, Sunny Kaushal, from a Hindu family, plays the hot-tempered Himmat Singh, a Sikh from Punjab who battles with his temper to help carry his team to victory.
Indeed, it is a stereotype that people from Punjab struggle to control their temper and one that can be noted in other films such as Chak De! India and to a lesser extent, in the 2022 Forrest Gump spin-off, Laal Singh Chaddha. Here, the title character is played by Aamir Khan, a Muslim man who wears a turban for the role.
Another character in the spin-off, Mohammed Paaji, is initially portrayed as an evil war enemy from Pakistan — though he later becomes Laal’s good friend and business partner and one of the most likeable characters of the film.
While slightly more discernable in the last couple of years, the days of English conservatives calling for boycotts of crude film and literature are still few and far between.
The loudest groups in the UK calling for film and TV boycotts today are nominally progressive and can be found in the mainstream, with a dislike for material that could be deemed politically incorrect.
That is the situation in the UK, but in India, this does not seem to be the case.
The release of Laal Singh Chaddha was marred by loud, Hindutva voices which opposed the film on the grounds that it was ‘hinduphobic’ and unpatriotic due to the resurfacing of remarks made by Khan in 2015 where he spoke of a rising “intolerance” in India (towards Muslims).
Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan also elicited weeks of protest that year due to views that the colour of a costume featured was insulting to Hindus, prompting the #BoycottBollywood trend. Effigies of the actress, Deepika Padukone, who is ironically a Hindu, were burned in Indore along with effigies of Shah Rukh Khan.
Of course, film boycotts are not always instigated by Hindu nationalists; however, where they have been called for by India’s ‘left’, it is worth taking a moment to consider the reasons. These are arguably far removed from the western liberal’s offence at satirical depictions.
Recently, The Kerala Story faced scrutiny after it falsely suggested that 32,000 girls had gone missing from Hindu and Christian communities in the southern Indian state due to being recruited to join ISIS.
The fabricated figure published in the film exceeded the entire strength of ISIS, with the popular Indian YouTuber, Dhruv Rathee, suggesting that the real figure was closer to 3.
The film’s performance at the box office was described to the BBC as being “extraordinary” by analyst Taran Adarsh, given its small budget and the absence of big stars.
It is inconceivable that in the UK today such a huge (and purposefully misleading) inaccuracy could be published in either mainstream film or media format let alone that it wouldn’t be met predominantly with outrage, let alone that the political party in power would support it.
Certainly, there may be widespread unfavourable discourse around particular religious groups in the west. But it should be noted that there are very rigorous clauses in UK law and regulating codes which severely curtail direct misrepresentations.
These include Defamation Law and clauses of the editors’ code that safeguard against inaccuracy and discrimination.
For example, insofar as reporting is concerned, a person’s religion, race or gender must not be mentioned unless genuinely relevant to the story.
Those naturally sceptical where British films, books and television series are criticised for reasons related to political correctness have been guilty of veering also towards scepticism where progressive forces in other countries criticise their own media institutions and government policy.
But the difficulty is that in many countries the societal situation is entirely incomparable to that of the UK. The sooner we stop drawing heedless comparisons between political factions in remarkably different societies the better.
Only then will it be possible to recognise racist, inaccurate or misleading depictions for what they are as they remain unmarred by entirely irrelevant situations elsewhere. Only then will perfectly sensible and logical voices be persuaded to listen.
The ‘right’ in this country will dismiss concerns about racist and misleading stereotypes abroad, so long as British citizens continue to complain about ‘backwards and offensive’ depictions at home.
Mainstream news sources often fail to discuss the nuance in complex circumstances for fear of losing the support of their already-existing audience.
Commentators such as Nigel Farage on GB News seem reluctant to appreciate criticism of Indian films like the Kerala Story due to a false conflation with western advocacy of free speech, concerns about immigration and support for creative freedom to engage in satire.
Conversely, the situation is not helped by a large body of ‘progressives’ which stands to criticise, without nuance, any stereotypical depiction on screen.
By all means, we can personally dislike what writers have done for a British show.
Though the fact remains that many people are relentlessly insisting that every British south Asian is equally offended.
I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a bit of a stereotype.
Written by Noor Qurashi
