"A Funny Kind of Englishman": Representations on South Asians in British Cinema in the Films of Hanif Kureishi

Britain's direct power over India and Pakistan might have ceased in 1947, yet their control over the "Jewel in the Crown" in popular media lasted for almost another forty years. While images of the subcontinent and its peoples are still prominent in British cinema today, it was not until the 1980s that South Asians were able to represent their own communities on the screen and thus break Britain's hegemonic control over the presentation of Indians and Pakistanis. Films about Anglo-Asian relations were quite popular in the 1970s and 1980s with films such as A Passage to India (1984) and Gandhi (1982), yet these movies showed the conflicts between these cultures as being the subject of history. My Beautiful Laundrette, however, showed the tension between English and Pakistani residents in modem London. Hanif Kureishi's screenplay brought South Asian issues to the forefront of popular culture with insight, wit, and a desire to shock. His first film noted the tenacity of the Pakistani business community, with the members being strangely akin to Thatcherites as they pursued wealth over community improvement. As one character states "But we're professional businessmen. Not professional Pakistanis. There's no race question in the new enterprise culture." Kureishi's other films, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987), The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), and My Son the Fanatic (1987) document the political, domestic, and religious issues faced by Britain's South Asian community from the 1970s to the 1990s. While Kureishi's screenplays address Pakistani and Indian issues in modern Britain, Kureishi relies on traditional English conventions and beliefs which occasionally undermine the issues he is addressing. Moreover, Kureishi's half-English background problematizes his suitability as a presenter of South Asian issues as his stories frequently conform to his own liberal English doctrine. Despite Kureishi's suitability as a "community spokesman", his films are important documents of the relations between the dominant English culture and the emergence of a vibrant South Asian culture. As Hanif Kureishi is representing South Asian issues to an English audience with English conventions, he is indeed, like one of his characters, is a "funny kind of Englishman."