COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Bhaji on the Beach  (dir. Gurinder Chada 1992) explores what it means to be British and Asian in contemporary British society. In UK Bangladeshi terms, the word ‘bhaji’ refers to anything stir-fried and it stands as a metaphor for identity formation in the film. The onion bhaji is an Asian snack food whose identity has been ‘Westernised’ like the women in the film. The stir-fried identities of the characters in the film are mixed together as a new kind of identity; they are not homogenized (mixed up) and absorbed into a melting pot but, rather, they take on a new hybrid identity. This brings them into conflict with more traditional husbands and parents. The generation divide is a metaphor for ways in which English and South Asian picture each other.

The film’s structure is that of a day trip to Blackpool but it is really a journey to self-knowledge as the women question their identities. It becomes a farcical chase set against the clock of the 8 p.m. return as angry men pursue an estranged wife and pregnant girlfriend. The film therefore also offers various models of masculinity.

The film’s style itself challenges mainstream British audiences about what counts as British culture and what is ‘Othered’ by society as it includes Bollywood style fantasy sequences. It challenges the concept of a homogenous British English culture and moves towards a multiculturalism with which the dominant white English culture is not yet at ease.

The film followed Chadha’s earlier documentary I’m British But… (1989) in which it emerged that the label ‘British’ was a politic-legal identity rather than a social one, as South Asian communities reported feeling marginalised from white British culture despite appearing assimilated into the way of life and taking on English mannerisms, as do the family in the TV comedy series Goodness Gracious Me! (Meera Syall) who change their name from Kumar to Cooper and evade all identification as Asian. Here we have a second-generation British Asian film-maker offering self-mocking comic representations of attempted cultural assimilation. Meera Syall sharply satirises their futile attempts to pass as British as they attend a church service (‘Get me a seat near the band, there’s a good chappie’ to the bemused vicar) and go for an English (as opposed to a curry) on a night out.

The film predates Damien O’Donnell’s East Is East, written by Ayub Khan-Din in 1995 but set in the 70s. In this film, there is more emphasis on the culture clash between second generation BrAsians who live parallel secret lives, sneaking out of the house to discos, pretending to be white as they enter the club (‘Hello Tony’ to Tariq), eating bacon behind their father’s back, snogging white girls behind the garden wall and secretly attending art college. Here, Khan-Din’s autobiographical film explores the oppositional relationships between the Muslim Khan brothers and their traditional community, represented by their father George Khan. The children develop dual identities in order to survive. 

Erving Goffman’s model of performativity (The Presentation of Self In Everyday Life, 1959) helps us to understand this, with its account of front stage and back stage behaviours.  For instance, in order to survive unscathed in two worlds whose cultural practices are irreconcilable, the children play the part of being traditional Muslims as required by their father to save his face in the Muslim community whilst adopting Westernized values with their white Catholic mother’s knowledge behind closed doors. This is a complex model complicated by the fact that they put on a performance not just to the outside Muslim world but also behind doors to their father. They pretend to obey their father to his face, pretend to be attending engineering courses not art college, attend mosque reluctantly, only wear the salwar kameeze when visitors come to the house and feign acceptance of plans for arranged marriages. However, this model of identity as performance is shown to be unsustainable when cultural practices involve compromising personal values in a way that negates fundamental beliefs about personal identity. Crises relating to forced circumcision and arranged marriage tear the family apart.