“She’s behind you!”: a list of the times the ‘resident brown girl’ missed the mark

I wonder whether anyone will look like me on a British screen anytime soon – not limited to Blue Peter’s Connie Huq. I don’t give much thought to it, distracted by the plethora of duties a seven-year-old must tend to.

I wait on the edge of my seat for the Yule Ball scene in one of the first showings of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005). Dad’s at the mercy of my every correction and clarification and comparison to the book’s version of events, much to his bemusement. Parvati and Padma Patil saunter onto the screen wearing matching, equally unforgivable, orange and fuchsia lehengas. I take in their appearance and twist my face, with nothing to add to what’s written all over it. On the journey home, I wonder not only how an award-winning costume department got away with such horrific taste, but why it bothers me so much that the Indian twins were the only characters to be wearing a cultural dress so evidently ‘there’.

We’ve managed to sneak the Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging DVD into my birthday sleepover, despite at least 40% of the title being blacklisted under my roof. Between mouthfuls of popcorn and hushed silences to ensure a responsible grown-up is not going to burst into our illicit screening, we all brutally agree that the brown member of the Ace Gang is the most irritating despite having the least lines. “Why is it always one of our lot?” someone notably remarks. To this day I wonder why said member of ‘our lot’ is hastily given Georgia’s sloppy seconds for a love interest as the credits start to roll, a desultory coming-of-age moment robbed of any build-up.

Bollywood’s Namastey London is being broadcast on ZeeTV again. Londoner Jasmeet declares herself to be named ‘Jazz’ as she parties away with her hedonistic friendship group. I cringe at how many people around the world will file this character into their brains under the label ‘Every South Asian Diaspora Woman’. I wonder whether the film has raised a good question through sheer coincidence or pure intent: would the Jazzes of the British big screen be able to get away with less palatable, more authentic names? How long will we name our South Asian characters Alex over Aryan to satisfy western audiences? 

Nina Wadia and Meera Syal take centre stage during my Goodness Gracious Me binge-watch. It’s comforting to see them as much as it is frustrating. I wonder who would represent us if they suddenly decided to turn their back on acting – and who else, out of the countless incredibly talented British Indian women, has been given a chance to do so. “Do you think it’s common knowledge that more than, like, five of us can act?” my sister jokes from the kitchen.

I rewatch Bend It like Beckham (2002) from start to finish, muscle memory prompting me to complete lines as though I belong on the other side of the camera. I don’t commit heresy by trampling over a Gurinder Chadha classic (I wouldn’t dream of it), but I do comment – amid the tuts of a family who knows me well – on there never being a documentation of the struggles that might occur after the screen fades to black. Would Jess and Joe’s romance truly make it against a less tolerant 90s backdrop? Would the aunties really leave her be? My mum flits the thought away, telling me, “it’s just a movie”. The next day, a masi reveals over 4pm masala chai that the Indian girl on her street is marrying outside her religion. She heard about it from someone else, who heard about it from someone else.  

My concern about the representation of South Asian diaspora women like me wasn’t something I was born with. None of us were. In fact, I’d love to not have the gears of my mind constantly whizzing away. I’d love to be entertained by movies, just that and nothing else. 

But no one was doing the legwork for us for quite some time, and I have things to say.

About how these on-screen identities made me feel a specific cocktail of emotions: a kind of gratefulness coupled with disappointment, with guilt as an aftertaste. A straddle of the thin line between “But she’s there, isn’t she, when just years earlier no one would dream of it?” and “she’s doing more harm than good by being there.”

About how – and this only dawned on me recently – the combination closely matches the one you feel when certain microaggressions ripple through you. 

It’s like being made to sit through an endless pantomime: the character basks in a flood of light, as though a second-coming for women who look like me. Her true identity lurks close by, oh so close to being unveiled to the audience. 

But it doesn’t matter how much you yell out “She’s behind you!” Her truth sticks to the shadows, rejected by a persona that’ll get higher audience ratings or is the product of a multitude of observed stereotypes. There’s a gap where she should be, like the missing piece of a puzzle.

The first step has been taken to tell the tales we need to be told. The wheels are turning by the sheer presence of a non-white female body on a set. But the insubstantiality of her character denies her reality with an “Oh no she isn’t!”, banishing it to the sidelines. 

Maybe it’s a fear of complicating things. Maybe it’s a lack of knowledge within the industry to fill in the cavities of an identity. Whatever it is, there’s a chance to set the record straight about British South Asian women like me that just hasn’t been used for far too long. 

We crave to be seen. For people to see our world through eyes like ours.

We crave to be heard. For people to be privy to the sounds only we are privy to.

But in ways that represent our struggles, the ugliness that comes with dual-identity, with brutal honesty. No censorship. No gaudy sign-posting that makes our otherness stick out like a sore thumb. No constant reliance on the same actors, the same plotlines. Just pure facts.

I wish for these stories to be told so frequently, so candidly that they become mundane, part of the furniture in a room full of classics. I want to get so used to seeing lives like mine played out that my heart doesn’t do a somersault when I see an Asian woman on a cast list, wondering whether it’ll be what I’ve been waiting for.

A Facebook group advertises a fellowship strictly catered to minority filmmakers. Some members are outraged. 

“I was going to apply, this is racism.” 
“The tables have turned, we’re the ones getting unfair treatment now.” 

Swathes more comments appear, but not ones that match my pessimistic predictions:

“People who are a different race to you barely see themselves in film – it breeds incorrect stories and stereotypes. That’s what we’re actively tackling here.”
“People of colour are grossly misrepresented on screen, and if you can’t see that…”
“The audacity of a white man to claim HE’s the minority.”

We’re not going to give a spotlight to what’s hidden in the shadow just yet, I guess. 

But we’re not far off either.