Media Assignment
Both the film 'East is East' and the poem, 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' deal with the issue of identity. All of the characters within 'East is East' are being brought up within mixed cultures and this causes problems within their lifestyles.
Whilst the poem, 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' is an autobiography, it is written by a woman who was brought to England as a child, from Pakistan and felt confused in later life. Her culture became the significance of her life but she didn't know what culture was her culture and where her native home actually was.
'East is East' Is set in 1971 in the North of England at a place called Salford. We know it was set during the 70's because of the fashion we saw on the film and also there were certain radio reports. The main characters in the film are the parents and their children. The parents are both of different nationalities.
George Khan is the father from Pakistan whilst the mother of the family is called Ella Khan and originates from England. Although the father of the family is from Pakistan, his name has been anglicised into an English name. This is probably so that he fits in more with his new home and can be classified by other people as part of the English community.
George also has another wife who lives in Pakistan. This would be unacceptable in England and would definitely be illegal but in the Moslem religion it is perfectly acceptable to have up to seven wives!
The children of the family are of mixed race. Ella has seven children that vary from a range of ages. There are six boys and one girl. The girl is called Meenah and she is a tomboy who enjoys playing football. Each boy in the family is very individual and has a very different personality.
Maneer is the father's favourite and is very religious. His brothers and sisters refer to him as 'Ghandi'. Tariq, the other son is very popular with the girls and is the local heartthrob. All of the children have to follow their Pakistan religion strictly.
The Pakistan culture is totally different from the English. The fashions are totally different. Women wear a dress called a Salwar Kameez known as a sari. In the film we are shown some of the clothes as the camera zooms up into a chest that contains very rich and colourful traditional wedding clothes. Each child, when old enough, has an arranged marriage. The film shows this when George sets up an arranged marriage for his son but his son doesn't go through with it as he is actually a homosexual.
We know this as George says, "Tradition see son...". This shows us that the father is in favour of the marriage but the children don't think that it is fair and disagree with it.
Tariq does not want to marry a woman from his father's culture and says,
"I'm not marrying a f**king paki".
This shows the audience that Tariq is racist and does not agree with the marriages.. It is also ironic because he is partly Pakistani, therefore he is denying part of his cultural background. The issue of marriage causes many problems ...
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We know this as George says, "Tradition see son...". This shows us that the father is in favour of the marriage but the children don't think that it is fair and disagree with it.
Tariq does not want to marry a woman from his father's culture and says,
"I'm not marrying a f**king paki".
This shows the audience that Tariq is racist and does not agree with the marriages.. It is also ironic because he is partly Pakistani, therefore he is denying part of his cultural background. The issue of marriage causes many problems within the family.
The father of the family represents himself as the Master of the household. This is very sexist but it was what the Moslem culture thought was right.
During the film we acknowledge the fact that instead of the children doing what their father says, they start to rebel against him and lose their respect for him mainly because of the disagreements caused by the different cultures.
The relationship between the mother and the father of the family is strange. There are two moods that the parents may be in; one is the loving relationship that we are shown when George gives Ella a hairdressing chair and they show affection to each other by cuddling up together. On the other hand we are shown a violent side to the pair when George hits Ella during an argument caused by the mixed marriages. Ella tries to defend her son and George becomes very angry by this and hits her. George says to Ella,
"You Bastard Bitch, you bring shame on the family"
This was said in anger and could have been meant racially as Ella was British.
There are also pressures for the family from their community. The neighbours also make racist comments towards the family. This makes it uneasy for the family, as they have to live in the racist environment. An example of this is when Ernest's granddad makes a racist remark towards the Khan family and he also tells his grandchildren to keep away from the Khan family but secretly his granddaughter was having a relationship with Tariq...
Another example of this is when Tariq and his brother go to a local disco and use false English names instead of their Pakistani ones so they will be able to enter the disco. Not only are we shown this but there is also a T.V report on television that shows a politician called Enoch Powell and he says that all foreign people should be sent back to their original countries. Again the pressure is high even from members of the government.
The poem 'Presents from my aunts in Pakistan' is again based on the confusing between mixed nationalities. The poem is an autobiography and is written by a poet called Moniza Alvi. Moniza Alvi originates from Pakistan but immigrated to England as a child. One of her parents was English and the other Pakistani, so cultures for each parent were totally different.
The setting of the poem is mainly in England as the poet can only remember brief amounts of her short life in Pakistan.
The girl in the poem is half Pakistani and half English and finds it hard to adjust from her English self to her Pakistani self. She feels out of place when trying on her Salwar Kameeez sent by her aunts. We know this as she says,
" Was alien in the sitting room"
This gives us the impression that she felt uncomfortable in her foreign identity. She wore Pakistani clothes, which are very much different from her everyday English clothes. The second stanza sums up the girls mixed feelings. We know this when she says, "I couldn't rise up out of its fire".
This shows problems of dealing with her identity. She refers to the phoenix as a metaphor. This gives the reader the impression that she still felt confused with such magnificent coloured clothes on. We now think that the girl felt like a stranger when dressed in her Salwar Kameez.
'East is East ' also deals with the issue of the different fashions between the countries. Again, the children felt out of place when wearing the Eastern clothes but not really confused of their religion as they refused to have arranged marriages within it, so they disagreed with the traditions of the Moslem religion and sided more with their English identity.
Moniza Alvi also had to deal with the pressures of the local community. We know this as we get the impression of what her community is like when she says,
" Indian gold, dangling filigree but it was stolen from out car..."
Here she describes her mother's beautiful Indian jewellery being stolen from their car suggesting that the area in which she lived had a problem with crime.
She also has to deal with the pressures of her friends. In the poem she writes,
"My Salwar Kameez didn't impress the school friend that was sat on my bed..."
We know the pressures of her school friends were quite intense as she might have got bullied for her Pakistani appearance.
Comparing this to 'East is east' there is a slight similarity as around the families there was lots of pressures and racism. Moniza tells us of an image she imagined later on in life of Pakistan, "When I was older, there was conflict, a fractured land"
The saying 'fractured land' is a powerful phrase to use. It is trying to emphasise the civil war between India and Pakistan. The country of Pakistan does not sound very appealing after this comment was made.
The readers are given an idea of how the Pakistani's lived as there were certain rules women and men were educated to follow,
"My aunts in shaded rooms-screened from male visitors".
The women and the men were expected to lead separated lives.
She mentions two words that give the reader quite a vivid impression of Pakistan.
"Beggar and Sweeper girls"
This gives a negative feeling of Pakistan as a very poor country.
There now seem to be a lot of cultural differences between the countries, these being: fashion, religion, tradition, food and the general way of life.
Both the film and the poem deal with the major issue of identity, the film uses humour to show the issues caused by mixed nationalities whilst the poem deals with this issue more seriously. The poem is also realistic, in the sense that it shows the identity issue is quite a serious issue in her life. This is mainly because it is not fictional like the film butit is an autobiography.
The film and the poem are similar as they both express problems caused by their mixed nationality and tell the audience / reader of pressures around them because of their mixed race.
The poem also describes Moniza's personal thoughts and feelings towards her Pakistani and English culture. However, the film shows that the people who are having issues with their identity confronting their actual problems by standing up for themselves and knowing what they think is acceptable for themselves to do. An example of this is when each son refuses to have an arranged marriage as they do not think it is fair.
Both Mediums challenge our innate prejudices, they do this because both media show the audience / readers that each individual person is having problems because of something related to their mixed culture and we are shown what affect it has both on them and their families.
I think that the film 'East is East', deals with the issue of identity more successfully than the poem 'Presents from my aunts in Pakistan', because the film uses humour to get the message across. This works and the audience understand the problems easily and are more interested to watch on unlike the poem. I think it was not easy to follow because of the sentence structure and the choice of words used, " I couldn't rise up out of its fire..."
This was not clear to me, as I did not fully understand what a phoenix had to do with the phrase until it was explained to me but the use of adjectives in the poem made it easier to imagine various pictures of clothes and the vibrant, glorious colours that were described to us.
Moniza Alvi used phrases that were more mature in a serious way to get the problem across to the readers whilst the film used humour to show this.
The characters in the film were against their Moslem culture and disapproved of it unlike Moniza as the poem focussed on her confusion as to which nationality she actually was. The poem tells us that the writer was confused and embarrassed rather than unhappy with her Pakistani culture.
'East is East' was much easier to understand than the poem, it was easier to follow and more interesting to follow, especially to teenagers as the humour is quite rude.
An example of this is of the swearing used and the way it was used. It shows the viewers that their mixed nationality was a big problem for them, their lives and a problem to some of the people around them; therefore we are given a bigger impression of mixed identity and how it effects people on a bigger scale.
Lynne Hunter
April 2004