"Whiter Girl"
Having now seen "White Girl", I was more impressed than I was by the trailer.
Most of the muslims apart from the teacher and Leah's friend struck me as interchangeable nonentities. The white characters were more like real human beings, apart from Leah's father who appeared to be a stage villain.The programme did not juxtapose Islam with Christianity because with her background it appeared Leah had no real access to Christianity. In the situation she was in, Islam appeared to be the only source of stability.
Of course it was an artificial situation, if she had been elsewhere, she would have become a Jehovah's Witness, a Scientologist or a Wiccan... the question is only who shows up first to provide the guidance her mother is unable to provide.
This, in essence serves as a warning. Nature abhors a vacuum and if we stand back and, whether through postmodern irony or thoroughly modern fecklessness fail to provide the proper guidance our children need, then someone else will, whether it's Miss Jean Brodie, Osama bin Laden, or Gary Glitter.
Most of the muslims apart from the teacher and Leah's friend struck me as interchangeable nonentities. The white characters were more like real human beings, apart from Leah's father who appeared to be a stage villain.The programme did not juxtapose Islam with Christianity because with her background it appeared Leah had no real access to Christianity. In the situation she was in, Islam appeared to be the only source of stability.
Of course it was an artificial situation, if she had been elsewhere, she would have become a Jehovah's Witness, a Scientologist or a Wiccan... the question is only who shows up first to provide the guidance her mother is unable to provide.
This, in essence serves as a warning. Nature abhors a vacuum and if we stand back and, whether through postmodern irony or thoroughly modern fecklessness fail to provide the proper guidance our children need, then someone else will, whether it's Miss Jean Brodie, Osama bin Laden, or Gary Glitter.
posted by ur.alcuin@googlemail.com at 3:48 AM
3 Comments:
Interesting take on the 'White series HERE ...although it might be what you'd expect...almost fit for thr R5L Uk News MB :-)
"Instead they commissioned a bunch of programmes that said: white working-class people, we feel your pain, but unfortunately, you’re wrong. In other words, they demonstrated precisely the same mindset which infects every single news bulletin, documentary and drama we have witnessed for the last 20 years on the BBC. Can you imagine them commissioning a film about a Muslim girl who converts to Christianity, converts her mum — and by the denouement is proven right to have done so? It will never happen."
"These days, Jack Straw can tell you he insists that women who arrive at his office for surgery must remove their hijab because he doesn’t like it very much. Five years ago he’d have been deselected: now he’s ‘opening a very real and valuable debate’. Five years ago even the BNP would not have been so crass. Even a Monday Club politician would have thought twice before saying such a thing."
Thirty years ago, only John Brunner COULD even have thought such a thing. (As he did in The Jagged Orbit - where a teacher was worried about being castigated if he asked a girl to remove her "yashmak" in class).
I can't imagine them commissioning the film described (a) because it's boring - and is not the reciprocal of this piece anyway but (b) because I can't imagine a writer - other than a religious writer, finding it interesting.
More interesting (in that I'd like to write it) might be the story of an Egyptian Moslem girl who becomes an apostate with all that implies, through her enjoyment of Heavy Metal music.
Having seen a BBC programme called "the Funny Thing About Ramadan" about a Scottish (nominally) Muslim woman in her late twenties deciding to celebrate Ramadan for the first time as an adult.
Perhaps with her as an equivalent to Leah, the film Span described might be a possibility. I could imagine a film in which a young Scottish woman raised as a Moslem but seeing herself as Muslim only inasmuch as many English people describe themselves as "C of E", comes into contact with a charismatic preacher from the Wee Frees and eventually joins an Orange Lodge (or marries into it if women can't actually join. Does that sound like an equivalent?
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