rep.

This time last week a very eloquent blogger by the name of @pipogypopotamus wrote a blog about how he felt "My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding" was detrimental to the Romany Culture he belongs to.

The press sat up and took notice.

Being a part of a minority makes you somewhat territorial over your culture and rightly so. Therefore when part of your culture is represented on television in a bid to entertain rather than inform you can be left with a sour taste in your mouth.
Ask anyone in their 20s and over, of an ethnic minority and they will recall a landmark time when someone of their ethnicity appeared on TV.

It can mean that much.

You may doubt that anyone in their 20s would remember such an event but the annual circus that is Big Brother brought in characters from all walks of life and it wasn't long before the kids in school regaled you with what General Achmed was doing and in what way it related to your life.

So how do these people you have never met become some sort of representative for you? Even if they are barely a shadow of what your day to day life entails?

Are we dividing our society or are we beginning to acknowledge the different parts of it?

That's why it's with great trepidation I approach "Make Bradford British". But I promise to keep an open mind until I've watched more than the just the trailer.



And it's not just reality contestants that somehow become representatives of you.
I have fond memories of when Goodness Gracious Me appeared on TV. It felt like a comedy about the British and Asians and rather than just British Asians being the punch line; we were laughing along. But tastes in television can change and it seems that now more than ever the more extreme a character or a story the more likely it is to be on TV.

Mr Khan has become somewhat of a YouTube hit and at the risk of sounding like the Daily Mail, I'm dreading the release of his sitcom; Mr Khan Community Leader. A primetime BBC sitcom that's about to be launched. It feels like a bad pastiche of British Asian life and something that's going to be detrimental in the long run.



Generalisations can also happen in drama and even though I joke about it now, people have genuinely asked me how my life compared to East is East. Would you get an arranged marriage? Do you get to meet them before you marry them? All questions that I have been asked within the last year.

I'm not offended by it but it amazes me how people think that a film set in 1960s Salford about a mixed raced family is an insight into my life as a British Pakistani in 2012. But when the dog jumps on the woman that bit is #barehilair.

"It's not fair cuz I love curry an' all".

But that's the lighter side. In the last decade society has turned their spotlight towards the British Pakistani culture and asked us to root out the dark elements. It's something that we have to do. We have to understand why these things are happening in our culture. Documentaries have monopolised on this and it feels like almost every week we have a variety of extreme programmes on TV. But I genuinely feel that often it's a case of sweeping generalisations and one sided arguments which can cause greater damage and runs the risk of isolating those parts of our society.
They say these things work in cycles and perhaps the Backlash for Big Fat Gypsy Weddings has begun. I recently took great offence towards "Exposed: Groomed for Sex" on BBC 3 which whilst looking at a serious issue manipulated the facts in a bid to get those sensationalised moments that would great sound bites.

You can watch that here.

So a more serious blog than usual, but once again props to @pipogypopotamus for making a stand.

theguyinthebowtie