"All about Meera"
Meera's 'comfortable dual identity' has had a profound impact on Asian representation via the media having written and starred in various projects such as 'Anita and me' and 'Bhaji on the beach.' An article (of which i will paste extracts) in the Observer, 2002 is overall positive but it will be interesting to analyse how her career and previous work affected the outcome of 'Life isn't all ha ha hee hee.'
All about Meera
The Wolverhampton-born novelist, playwright and TV star is the feisty face of multicultural Britain. Now she could even bring Lloyd Webber luck
Akin Ojumu Sunday June 16, 2002 The Observer
Meera Syal's career demonstrates the dramatic impact British Asians have made on popular culture over the past few years. The actress, novelist and screenwriter is at the forefront of a wave of second generation British Asians, born in the Sixties, seemingly comfortable and confident with their dual identity. They include musicians such as Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawnhey, playwright Ayub Khan-Din (East is East), filmmaker Gurinder Chadha (Bend it like Beckham) and actor Sanjeev Bhaskar (Goodness Gracious Me). Of these, Syal is the most prominent and is enjoying a banner year.
She has already appeared in two BBC comedy series, The Kumars at No 42 and All About Me, while Anita and Me, the film based on her semi-autobiographical novel (she also wrote the screenplay) will be released this year.
Interest in British Asian culture has reached critical mass - which means more than that everyone just likes a curry these days. It marks the long-overdue recognition for a section of society that has often been the victim of lazy stereotyping. After the breakthroughs in the world of music in the Nineties and epitomised by the success of Goodness Gracious Me and East is East, interest in contemporary British Asian lives has never been greater. When Syal took her place in the jubilee celebrations, she played a part in telegraphing the message that here was a nation seemingly proud of its broad heritage.
Part of Syal's universal appeal is that she is accessible and non-confrontational. Unlike the more literary Hanif Kureishi, her two novels, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee and Anita and Me, deal lightheartedly with the clash between Indian values and liberal British society. Her comedy is based on a mixture of debunking myths and poking fun at Indian traditions.
But the woman credited with helping to create the 'Asian comedy' genre bristles at the suggestion that she has made a career out of her background. 'I don't want to be known as an Asian personality,' she said recently. In fact, as a British woman of Indian descent, she is wary of the 'Asian' tag. 'I hate the term "Asian",' she said. 'It's something you end up saying because it's been used as our collective noun for so long.'
While critics raved, some commentators expressed reservations. 'I hope people aren't laughing at us rather than with us. If you are Asian, you take a completely different set of messages from it,' said author Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. There is also the danger that 'Asian comedy' has become something of a cliché.
The same strain of humour is present in The Kumars at No 42, a spoof chat show featuring an aspirant Parky constantly embarrassed by his tactless family. While the Kumars counts as a success, her BBC sitcom All About Me, featuring Syal and Jasper Carrott as a mixed-race couple, was unfunny and out of date, sparking fears that she was doing too much.
My comment
Is 'Asian' comedy becoming too cliche? A few BBC reviews thought the same thing..but surely 'life isn't all ha ha hee hee' wasn't presenting the struggling 'Asian' trying to conform to British culture but rather showed 'Asian' women as normal people who dealt with a dual identity and that wasn't the forefront issue but rather everyday trials and tribulations which people from all different walks of life can relate to (evident from BBC reviews).
Syal has definetly been a figurehead in presenting 'Asian' culture in a lighthearded way but perhaps 'life isn't all ha ha hee hee' is the icing on the cake now. With the tried and tested 'racial clown' and overt dissapproval from members of Asian family..Syal should move away from coating serious issues with humour but perhaps move with times and look at how 9/11 and the London bombings have affected the lives of British Asians. Just like British social realism films and dramas such as 'Billy Elliot' reached its peak in the 90s perhaps all Asian-cast dramas have reached theirs too unless another formula is created.
Meera's 'comfortable dual identity' has had a profound impact on Asian representation via the media having written and starred in various projects such as 'Anita and me' and 'Bhaji on the beach.' An article (of which i will paste extracts) in the Observer, 2002 is overall positive but it will be interesting to analyse how her career and previous work affected the outcome of 'Life isn't all ha ha hee hee.'
All about Meera
The Wolverhampton-born novelist, playwright and TV star is the feisty face of multicultural Britain. Now she could even bring Lloyd Webber luck
Akin Ojumu Sunday June 16, 2002 The Observer
Meera Syal's career demonstrates the dramatic impact British Asians have made on popular culture over the past few years. The actress, novelist and screenwriter is at the forefront of a wave of second generation British Asians, born in the Sixties, seemingly comfortable and confident with their dual identity. They include musicians such as Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawnhey, playwright Ayub Khan-Din (East is East), filmmaker Gurinder Chadha (Bend it like Beckham) and actor Sanjeev Bhaskar (Goodness Gracious Me). Of these, Syal is the most prominent and is enjoying a banner year.
She has already appeared in two BBC comedy series, The Kumars at No 42 and All About Me, while Anita and Me, the film based on her semi-autobiographical novel (she also wrote the screenplay) will be released this year.
Interest in British Asian culture has reached critical mass - which means more than that everyone just likes a curry these days. It marks the long-overdue recognition for a section of society that has often been the victim of lazy stereotyping. After the breakthroughs in the world of music in the Nineties and epitomised by the success of Goodness Gracious Me and East is East, interest in contemporary British Asian lives has never been greater. When Syal took her place in the jubilee celebrations, she played a part in telegraphing the message that here was a nation seemingly proud of its broad heritage.
Part of Syal's universal appeal is that she is accessible and non-confrontational. Unlike the more literary Hanif Kureishi, her two novels, Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee and Anita and Me, deal lightheartedly with the clash between Indian values and liberal British society. Her comedy is based on a mixture of debunking myths and poking fun at Indian traditions.
But the woman credited with helping to create the 'Asian comedy' genre bristles at the suggestion that she has made a career out of her background. 'I don't want to be known as an Asian personality,' she said recently. In fact, as a British woman of Indian descent, she is wary of the 'Asian' tag. 'I hate the term "Asian",' she said. 'It's something you end up saying because it's been used as our collective noun for so long.'
While critics raved, some commentators expressed reservations. 'I hope people aren't laughing at us rather than with us. If you are Asian, you take a completely different set of messages from it,' said author Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. There is also the danger that 'Asian comedy' has become something of a cliché.
The same strain of humour is present in The Kumars at No 42, a spoof chat show featuring an aspirant Parky constantly embarrassed by his tactless family. While the Kumars counts as a success, her BBC sitcom All About Me, featuring Syal and Jasper Carrott as a mixed-race couple, was unfunny and out of date, sparking fears that she was doing too much.
My comment
Is 'Asian' comedy becoming too cliche? A few BBC reviews thought the same thing..but surely 'life isn't all ha ha hee hee' wasn't presenting the struggling 'Asian' trying to conform to British culture but rather showed 'Asian' women as normal people who dealt with a dual identity and that wasn't the forefront issue but rather everyday trials and tribulations which people from all different walks of life can relate to (evident from BBC reviews).
Syal has definetly been a figurehead in presenting 'Asian' culture in a lighthearded way but perhaps 'life isn't all ha ha hee hee' is the icing on the cake now. With the tried and tested 'racial clown' and overt dissapproval from members of Asian family..Syal should move away from coating serious issues with humour but perhaps move with times and look at how 9/11 and the London bombings have affected the lives of British Asians. Just like British social realism films and dramas such as 'Billy Elliot' reached its peak in the 90s perhaps all Asian-cast dramas have reached theirs too unless another formula is created.
posted by Pip at 4:08 AM
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