An exception to the trend of using the stereotypical father figure is found in Bend It Like Beckham, in which the father maintains some of the traditional qualities, but is not the most controlling member of the family, and is much more realistic than the almost villainous representation of other media texts. The director of Bend It Like Beckham, Gurinder Chadha, says in an interview with Hollywood film critic Paul Fischer that the film is semi-auto-biographical, and this could explain why the representation of the father figure in her film is less extreme, and therefore more realistic. This shows how representation in other texts may be stereotypical, because possibly the most realistic representation is the one that breaks the trend, thus revealing the inaccuracy of the popular representation. It is a pleasant surprise to the audience when the father in Bend It Like Beckham makes concessions for his daughter, because it goes against how audiences assume, from their experiences of the media, he will behave. It may be difficult for other directors to break away from the stereotype, because they too are consumers of the media, and if they have more experience of Asian families through the media rather than through reality, they will be inclined to accept the media representation.
The violent, patriarchal male roles are often played by Om Puri (East is East and Second Generation), which may explain why they are often so similar, but this may also have a negative effect on the audience, because consumers of the media will repeatedly be given this stereotype, so will inevitably assume that this representation can be generalised to reality. A glimpse of Om Puri, for example, and the audience will expect the violent patriarch character he so often plays. It is worrying that there are so few prominent Asian actors currently. This may be due to a racist approach by casting directors and drama schools, but may also be a result of the extent to which staple characters are used. If a director requires a violent, patriarchal male character, Om Puri is the obvious choice because he has played this character ably before. In films and serials, when a director only has a short amount of time in which to establish the characters, Om Puri helps the efficiency of this establishment, because consumers of this type of media will be able to understand the type of character he is instantly, from past experiences of his work.
There are differences between the representation of the Asian family in broadcast media texts and films. Firstly, soaps are able to use fewer stereotypes because they have longer to establish characters, so the audience will have time to understand the individual personalities of each character. In addition, the above stereotypes all tend to apply to the popular culture clash storyline, and this could not be used repeatedly in soaps, because the audience would become bored. The differences between the two representations reveal the inaccuracy of the film portrayal, which could be seen as poor representation, but then films do not necessarily require accuracy, whereas soaps strive for realism.
Soaps still need to provide the audience with some recognisable features in their representations, for example the oppressive father previously mentioned is present, along with his sexist views, so the stereotypes are not entirely disregarded.
The creators of Eastenders were recently pressured into changing their Asian family because complaints were being made about the stereotypical representation. Previously, Anita was the token Asian character, stereotypically working in the corner shop and receiving pressure from her parents to marry and return to India to fulfill a traditional role. It is obvious that efforts have been made to move the new family away from the stereotype, but this has only really led to making them more westernised on a superficial level, but still maintaining the stereotypical views underneath. For example, the oppressive father stereotype has been westernised by combining it with the obsessive Elvis fan stereotype (also currently used in Hollyoaks’ Dean family on Channel 4), but still the predictable opinions of women’s roles and the value of same-sex relationships, as well as success being epitomized by the running of a lucrative business, remain unchallenged.
Despite these stereotypes, there are certain reassuring similarities between the representation of Asian and western families in the media. Both cultural representations are subject to other stereotypes, such as age and social class, in addition to the obvious cultural ones. Where teenage children are concerned there are similarities in that both sets of parents are often trying to make their children live within the boundaries of their own values, and expect that they will want to follow a similar lifestyle to them and may be upset, confused, or angry when they discover this is not the case. In Bend It Like Beckham, both families have strict mothers and passive fathers, dissenting children, and mothers who wish for marriage or at least courtship. Both mothers place value on traditional femininity and female roles as defined by their own cultures, whereas the film in general advocates sexual equality. In Eastenders, the strong ideology of ‘families sticking together’ is present in both Asian and western families, and despite what has already been said regarding the stereotypical characteristics still featuring, the storylines of the Asian Fereirra family could, for the most part, be transferred to any of the large white families, such as the Slaters.
However, a report by the Commission for Racial Equality critised this aspect, accusing broadcasters of being “colour blind”, pointing out that a character’s ethnic background often has no influence on the storyline. Soaps have been particularly criticised for claiming to represent reality but failing to present a truthful proportion of ethnic minorities, particularly Asians. The same report found that only 1.2% of people on television is Asian or Chinese, compared with 4.3% of the real British population. The same report critised the producers of soaps as incorporating Asian characters as an issue, rather than realistic individuals.
It is difficult to study how the representation of the Asian family has developed, because it is an element rarely seen in mainstream media texts. Until recently, there have been few representations of this type. Earlier texts featuring characters from ethnic minorities such as It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, My Beautiful Launderette and Love Thy Neighbour, were influenced by societies’ attitudes in a time when racial issues were not often dealt with and many people did not have the understanding of other cultures that today’s multi-cultural society does. Jim Perry, the writer of It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, said in an interview with Stuart Jeffries of the Guardian that although it is now “the show we’re not allowed to talk about”, at the time he based it on his personal experiences of how he and his peers percieved India and its inhabitants during their posting there in World War Two. At the time the show was a success, but now society has found the representations in this and other similar sit-coms of the time to be inaccurate and offensive, and can no longer accept this representation. There are even fewer historical representations of the Asian family unit. The Asian family was seen even less than just a single Asian character, because although compared to today few people had experience of Asian people, even fewer had experience of whole Asian families. The media could draw on popular perceptions of the characteristics of Asian men, but not until society had experienced the Asian family unit could this be successfully stereotyped.
It is revealing of the change in social attitudes in recent history that suddenly films about Asian family life appeared in the mainstream, and that representations, despite their formulaic structure, also contain variables such as other familiar issues the heroes have to fight against (sexist views in Bend It Like Beckham, severe peer pressure in Anita and Me (Metin Huseyin, 2003) and prejudices against hippies and homosexuality in East is East). It seems that the media recognises that today’s audiences realise that Asian families have more concerns than how people feel about their ethnic background, and give audiences a wider range of issues to consider. As time goes on, the ethnic background of an Asian character has become less and less of an issue: as society has become increasingly familiar with the concept so have the characters, directly reflecting the audience’s feelings and social attitudes of the time.
In the same way as a genre tends to develop towards eventually becoming self-critical, post-modern, and ready to make fun of itself in the form of parody, so too the representation of the Asian family (which could conceivably be described as a sub-genre itself) appears to have reached a point where previous misrepresentation is recognised, challenged, and parodied. This is epitomised by the Kumars at No.42, which recognises the repeated formula and finds humour in its inaccuracies. Consequently, the media is then reluctant to conform to the old stereotypes, because as in a parody of a film genre, an audience which has seen a parody can no longer easily accept a serious text of that particular genre without finding humour in it. This may explain why representations have grown steadily more accurate over time. The work of Meera Syal has consistently carried out this role, finding humour in both Indian traditions and British perceptions of Indians, making fun of inaccurate representations. Goodness Gracious Me (1998-2000) is just one of her texts that has been recognised for promoting racial awareness through this type of humour, and her overall contribution was recognised at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards in 2002. However, some critics such as author Yasmin Alibhai-Brown have commented that Asian people take entirely different views of the texts, and wonder if audiences are not laughing at the expense of Asians. However, there can be no doubt that without this seemingly controversial comedic representation, audiences would not have been educated in racial issues by such a wide range of texts (Meera Syal was also involved in the first west end musical based in this topic, Bombay Dreams).
In addition to the Asian family gaining a fairer representation over recent years, it has also become considerably more popular as a topic. Since the final years of the 20th century, the media industries have suddenly begun to produce films based around Asian culture, and more particularly the family. Recent texts include The Guru, Bend It Like Beckham, Anita & Me, East is East, Monsoon Wedding, Goodness Gracious Me, Canterbury Tales, and Second Generation, the most popular of which contain the previously mentioned humour, often indeed from Meera Syal. The increased popularity of Asian culture has influenced fashion, music, and theatre as well as the media. The newfound popularity of Bollywood has changed the way society views Asian films, allowing Asian-themed media texts to break into the mainstream. As every aspect of popular culture has suddenly become permeated by Asian influences, mainstream audiences are able to associate and recognise factors of Asian culture when they are presented to them in a text. They can reference them to a minimal extent to their own experiences and this helps attain a small but essential identification with the character in this otherwise unfamiliar aspect of their life. Many films and broadcast fiction texts now include covert references to this relatively new trend. As an example, Footballer’s Wives (ITV), which has introduced a number of new characters for its second series, has been influenced by the rising popularity of Asian culture, and one of the main characters is a Bollywood actress. The footballers wives in the series generally do not have jobs, but when they do, they are those which society regards as glamorous, and to which women may aspire in this sense. This illustrates that society now regards a career as a Bollywood actress as glamorous, whereas only a few years ago this would not have been the case.
Although elements of the representation of the Asian family may be inaccurate or misleading to the audience, according to Morley’s audience interpretation theory, and contrary to the hypodermic needle theory, the audience can draw on its own experiences and opinions and as seasoned consumers of the media can accept that the representation is only one view based upon the individuals involved in creating the text and the requirements of the text. It follows that this can prevent a film’s representation from being too heavily relied upon and generalised to reality, provided that the audience can negotiate the messages presented to it.
In conclusion, the representation of the Asian family is an important factor in publicising Asian culture in Britain. Although it keeps to a formula, this helps the audience to understand more easily an area where it perhaps has less experience, so would find it difficult to cope with more contrasting, complex characters and family structures. As society has become more accustomed to different aspects of Asian culture, representations have become increasingly more realistic, with fewer stereotypes and more individual variations in personalities and settings. Comedy has played an important part in this progression, as has the growing fashion of aspects of Asian culture. Bend It Like Beckham is an example of a progressive text, because although the presence of the formulaic family prevents realism, it allows for the main characters to be expanded and explored in more detail, preventing them from becoming stereotypes. Many films that focus on one main hero must make concessions elsewhere in character development to allow time to focus on the complex and realistic personality of the hero and to avoid giving the audience too much to digest, and this is what happens in Bend It Like Beckham. Humour also is derived from the presence of stereotypes, providing light relief from the more serious main plot. Soaps, in general, contain fewer stereotypes, and are criticised more heavily when such stereotypes do feature. Soaps have longer to establish characters, and are supposed to portray realism. It is therefore more important that soaps break away from old stereotypes, in order to prevent audiences from generalising what they believe to be a true and accurate representation to reality.
