South Asian Representation in Britain vs the U.S.
By Sonaili Vasta
These two nations arguably take up quite a lot of the media that is consumed by many around the globe. It is a no brainer that American media does dominate the TV industry with having a massive global reach. However, Britain is hot on their trails with a growing number of people watching shows coming out of it.
Both areas have a big South Asian diaspora population that are constantly on the lookout for characters that look like them on their screens. Here is rough guide of shows most of us grew up with and whether the representation did us justice.
To begin this deep dive, we look at shows we grew up with. I am a bit biased, but I do believe that the Brits were a little ahead of the game when showing South Asian representation. It is safe to say, that for older Gen Z audiences the early 2000s played a massive role in how we perceived the world because of the content we consumed. We all grew up with Disney Channel or Nickelodeon no matter where we were. If you are from Britain, we also had Children’s BBC (CBBC).
It is when we began watching these channels that most of us began to look out for people that looked like us on those screens. When looking at it from a British perspective two characters come to mind, Rani from Sarah Jane Adventures (spin off show of Doctor Who) and Rose from MI high (show about teenage spies). Rani Chandra was played by Anjili Mohindra and Rose Gupta by Rachel Petladwala both their characters were badass South Asian teenagers with one helping defend earth from Aliens and another helping defend it from evil geniuses, with not one hint of a stereotype in sight.
Over on the other side of the pond we got Ravi Ross on Jessie portrayed by Karan Brar. This is and isn’t a celebration. I mean Disney having a South Asian actor is pretty iconic but the character’s story and stereotypes not so much. Disney XD also gave us Mo from Lemonade Mouth portrayed by none other than Naomi Scott and this was definitely a missive step in the right direction and commendable, if it wasn’t for them playing into the trope of shortening her name to appease to a certain audience, Mo’s full name is Mohini Banarjee, a really beautiful name that I wish we could have heard more.
As we grew older American TV series dominated our screen from the likes of The Vampire Diaries to Teen Wolf but I for one cannot remember a South Asian character being anywhere in any of them. It is only recently that we are seeing the rise of South Asian characters in series, with Never Have I Ever having paved the way. Say what you want to say about Never Have I Ever, but I do think it has proved that shows with South Asian characters can gain a massive following because representation matters.
On British television we had series teen like Skins, which gave us the character of Anwar Kharral, portrayed by the one and only Dev Patel. The existence of such a character was a little ahead of it time but albeit the representation was not what Muslim South Asians needed. Anwar was British Pakistani and although he claimed to pray five times a day, he did everything but follow the religion. Anwar’s character trope was being rebellious as he is seen drinking, taking drugs and even eating pork. However, it does beg the question which audience was his character written for?
Those who are familiar with the British TV scene know that long-running soaps like Coronation Street, Eastenders, Casualty, Holby City etc. are very popular. All of these soaps saw the emergence of South Asian characters in the early 2000s and I do believe that their character tropes did not play heavily into stereotypes and when they did, they addressed on going issues within the South Asian community that raised important questions. However, there were obviously several storylines that could have been done better. These I won’t go into because we could be here all day seeing as how dramatic and long these soaps are.
I know the USA does have their own long running soaps too, but I am unaware as to whether there is any South Asian representation on any and after a little research, I still have not found any such characters. If you do watch these soaps, then feel free to call me out! However, something that is quite similar to soaps is sitcoms and the US has several popular ones from The Office that gave us Kelly Kapoor portrayed by the infamous Mindy Kaling, to the big bang theory that gave us Raj Koothrappali played by Kunal Nayyar. These again were landmark characters as it was rare for South Asians to play characters in such big shows. Kelly Kapoor was iconic, but Raj Koothrappali screamed every stereotype there is when it comes to being South Asian. Another icon who deserves a mention is definitely Cece Parekh from New Girl whose character was brought to life by Hannah Simone, but I do think that there were a few story lines that definitely could have been handled better by show when it came to Cece.
With the rise of streaming platforms, the bridge between the TV industry is slowly being closed. This has led to the rise of shows that are produced by Americans, but the characters are based in Britain. This has paved the way for conversations such as representation to being opened up outside the borders of one country. It is because of this that that we have the likes of Bridgeton which although produced by an American producer is set in England and is bringing to the forefront British South Asian actress Simone Ashley. This makes it difficult to determine which country deserves the point. Simone Ashley is also known for her portrayal of Olivia in the British produced series Sex Education, anyone who has watched the show will know of how iconic her character is and we cannot wait to her in Bridgeton season 2. Another equally if not more iconic character is Tahani Al Jamil for The Good Place who is brought to life by Jameela Jamil. Anyone who has watched this show will know that Tahani really did trail blaze.
This journey of South Asian representation on TV is long and complicated and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Although, both the US and Britain have had their wins and loses there is so much to be done. Notice how most of these South Asian characters are not even the main protagonist but rather the side characters. The necessary changes are being made but are they enough? This I will let you the reader decide.