ESSAY ON COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

“Media representations are just reflections of reality, not constructions or distortions”. Discuss with reference to one or more groups of people. You disagree with this!

Remember to underline texts, concepts or theorists

It can be argued that media actually does offer constructions and distortions as well as reflections of reality, as they are able to construct our own perception on how we look at a certain group. Martin Sohn-Rethal claims that “media not only offers reflections of reality, but also constructions and distortions”.   What media, especially fiction such as films and TV doesn’t offer is fully realistic depictions, as they can only give us constructions, not fully offer absolute realistic portrayals of a certain group. Jean Luc Goddard claimed “film does not act as a neutral media to convey reality”, indicating that media only offers constructions of reality, rather than fully realistic portrayals of a particular group of people.  In analysing a group that is often represented in media, I will be discussing in reference to British Asians through how they have been portrayed in film, TV, newspapers and the internet.

When analysing how the representation of British Asians, early texts have often in the past been constructions that arise from racism and stereotyping. Cultural imperialism has shaped these DISTORTIONS. An example that can be used can be seen in older media texts such as the 1960 film The Millionairess. The film stars Sophia Loren who falls in love with an Indian doctor (played by Peter Sellers in blackface). Throughout the film, the character that is played by Sellers is meant to be portrayed as a figure of fun, despite the fact that he is in a medical profession that is held in extremely high regards. He is played as a classic Indian stereotype with an overtly exaggerated accent and the fact that he is being played by a white man in blackface, something that was common throughout the 1960s.  Stuart Hall claims that media at that time offered three types of representations, “the social problem, the native and the entertainer”. Here, the character that is played by Sellers could be classed as the entertainer as he is ultimately meant to be laughed at by the audience. This distortion was primarily in the context of contemporary British cultural imperialism. Richard Dyer claims that “stereotypes are about power and created by those who have power”, which is why they are damaging distortions. In the same way, Asians were often constructed in a negative and demeaning light (distorted), perhaps due to the reinforcement at the time of white, British pride. The Millionairess therefore strengthens the distorted image that many people had during the 1960s of what they thought of British Asians, thereby demonstrating how older texts did shape people’s distortions of their ethnic representations. It can be said that constructions that people have of certain groups are shaped by the ways in which the media portrays them at the time, whether it is meant to be more comedic or more demeaning.

Moving forward fifty years, the representations of BrAsian identity in the media have changed. (topic sentence) A more modern text  displaying a different type of much more positive construction can be seen through the 2012 BBC TV series The Indian Doctor. This text is made in 2012 but set in the 1960s. The text focuses on an Indian Doctor and his wife who have immigrated form India and head to work in a small, Welsh mining village. It is delivered from the doctor’s point of view and he is the hero not the object of ridicule. Ironically, in the first episode, the inhabitants of the village are watching The Millionairess in their village hall as the couple arrive, which shocks the two main protagonists as they walk into the town hall where the film is playing. Whilst (some) of the characters in the show do not understand the racial implications of the text, we as a modern day audience are meant to be shocked by the outdated nature of the text. This further displays how constructions in media texts often change in time as ideologies change, with audience’s beliefs and values. Stuart Hall’s reception theory claims that we interpret a particular text based on our own cultural upbringing. In the same way, the constructions of British Asians in the 60s were made to satisfy the cultural upbringing of the audience from the time, whereas The Indian Doctor takes a more modern approach to the way in which British Asians are constructed as in media, being the characters that we’re meant to feel empathetic for rather than as comedic foils. It can also be argued that ultimately, the way in which we construct British Asians has progressed to provide a more modern interpretation of a particular ethnicity.

Moving on, with the advent of second and third generation BrAsians making their own films, the representations of their identity in the media have become more nuanced and complex, although still ‘constructions’ rather than ‘reflections’, but not ‘distortions’.

It can be argued the reason why media is able to offer more complex constructions is through the fact that more British Asians are creating narratives of themselves in order to shape our own perception of them as a collective identity. This particular trend started in the 1990s with TV sketch and sitcom shows such as The Kumars at No 42 and Goodness Gracious Me being examples of how British Asians attempted to provide more comedic constructions of themselves. Writers and actors such as Meera Syall and Sanjeev Bhakksar were able to poke fun at themselves more often.   “Goodness Gracious Me” was also a line that was taken from The Millionaires as an intertextual joke example of how the construction of British Asians were changing, being more willing to parody themselves in certain situations. 

An example of this can be seen through a scene in the Kumars in which an Indian family who are called the Kumars suddenly become the “Coopers” in an attempt to ‘westernise’ themselves more. This includes an attempt in which they attempt to go to a church but say things to the vicar such as “Give me a seat, my good man, not too close to the band’ in order to emphasise that they are very culturally unaware of Anglo-Christian practices.  This  comedic portrayal contributes to the debate about the integration of immigrants into British society and pokes fun at the idea that abandoning one’s own culture in order to adopt a new identity is either practical or admirable. By contrast, the young heroine of Anita and Me confidently asserts her sense of complete identification with her white contemporaries and her rejection of her parents' culture: "When I grow up, I want to be a novelist" she voices to her shocked mother, "and blonde."

Whilst it is true that some first-generation British Asians have found it extremely difficult to adjust to western society, another tranche of texts made by second and third generation BrAsians honestly represent the family as a site of conflict and show the ways in which the children have expressed their hybrid identities. In texts such as Bend It Like Beckham  and East Is East,  the children as second-generation immigrants have adapted to their life in the UK and have formed hybrid identities, accepting their parents' cultural practices and ways of worship only up to a point. To survive the conflict, they adopt what Erving Goffman terms a mix of 'front stage' and 'backstage' behaviours, that is, they appear to conform when their parents or community require conformation, but they nurse and sometimes hide their true natures, desires and interests for peace in the family. For example, Jasminder is an obedient Sikh daughter at home but in secret she is playing football and dreaming of a US football scholarship: she has to 'bend it like Beckham' (meaning, be flexible in her movements to achieve her goal). Likewise, George Khan's children conceal from him their bacon eating, smoking, skipping mosque and snogging white girls, but when it comes to matters that cannot be hidden, there are irreconcilable differences that tear apart the family. The three oldest sons must either defy their father's requirements to submit to arranged marriages or be cut off completely. The youngest, Sajid, has survived so far by hiding in his parks from harsh reality but the day comes when his lack of circumcision is discovered and he has to face the painful conseqences. 

Stuart Hall claims that “we are able to create stable environments by creating narratives of ourselves”. One such ‘narrative’ is that expressed by the school girl Tahara in Ae Fond Kiss during her school assembly debate speech in which she rejects the society that seeks to position her and all Muslims as terrorists. She claims her right to belong not to any ONE collective identity but to have the complex identity that both her heritage and her family’s new homeland have shaped: “ a dazzling mixture, and I’m proud of it”.

Journalist and broadcaster Sathnam Sanghera would applaud such a claim. When the BBC’s British Asian radio network was threatened with closure in 2010, he wrote in The Times that he doubted the value of claiming that there could be ONE Asian collective identity (you add his quotation here). Ultimately “identity is hybrid rather than homogeneous” although Asians are often constructed as being one identity rather than as several. Often even in modern times, the media can be accused of “lumping together” all the different identities, thereby not offering an accurate construction but one which that lowers the position of individuals such as these. In this regard, it can be argued that the constructions are often negative distortions. In fact, it was to Sanghera that total strangers from different Asian communities wrote after the Rotherham child grooming scandal emerged, asking him to use his position to challenge the assumption that all Muslims were child abusers. “Tell them that it is a Pakistani issue”, wrote those that contacted him, he writes in his internet column. Once again, the stereotyping of a collective identity led to distortion.

However, even in modern there have been criticisms by the ways in which British Asians have been constructed in media, as many still argue that there are still racist and stereotypical constructions still present. 

This can be seen when cultural sensitivities affect media portrayals of collective identities. An example of this can be seen through the ongoing Rochdale grooming scandal that began back in 2012 in which nine individuals were convicted of raping white girls. Out of the nine, eight were Pakistani. The social services, police and child protection agencies were accused of not acknowledging that the majority of these men were all Pakistani, due to the fact that they didn’t want to be accused of making racist accusations.  After the convictions, all this changed. Politician Baroness Warsi responded claiming that “we cannot ignore the fact that many Pakistani men see white girls as fair game”. In this regard, it can also be argued that media does not always offer fair constructions of representations.  Ultimately, it can be further argued that often, media “watered down” the representation of certain groups. By contrast, the papers were comfortable in reporting equally horrific news about the murder of Shafilea Ahmed by her parents for supposedly ‘becoming too Westernised’. A single incident in one family did not constitute stereotyping so the press felt comfortable in reporting it, despite it being an ‘honour killing’.

Ultimately, it can be argued that media does offer a variety of different constructions and distortions in reference to British Asians.  Film makers like Ken Loach (Ae Fond Kiss), Kenneth Glenaan (Yasmin) and Chris Morris (Four Lions) have all responded to the backlash after 9/11 - when all Muslims were treated with suspicion as potential terrorists and suffered demonization as a collective identity – by creating films that challenged such stereotyping. For example, Yasmin.. (complete this example).

In conclusion, it is a false and dangerous assumption that media texts are ‘reflections of reality’ as this can lead to stereotyping and demonization. It is more accurate to join with Godard in saying that ‘cinema is not the reflection of that reality but the reality of that reflection’ and with Martin Sohn-Rethel that ‘realism is not a given reflection of the world but a construction that must, often laboriously, be worked at.’