COLLECTIVE IDENTITY



Nadia, famous from the great British bake off, states that she feels british but feels like others don't approve of her and call her racial names. She was involved in an arranged marriage, although it is a very loving one, she would never expose it on her own children. She is credited as having a positive effect on race relations with the muslim community. 









It is surprising that C4 produced "indian summers" in 2015. set in the final days of the British Raj, it offers a set of stereotypes of a British upper class prejudices about indians who seek to overthrow British rule. Audience appetites for Merchant - Ivory style period drama are long over. poor ratings meant the cancelation of the third series in spring 2015. 





So My Jihad is simply an excellent romcom, ticking all the boxes of magical initial spark, through harsh-reality obstacles that must be overcome, and on towards (we hope) a happy ending. But it does all this through the prism of the young lovers being Muslim: obeying their community’s moral code, frequently invoking Allah, intent on marriage rather than merely dating.


So why do texts look ‘real' ? Sohn-Rethel proposes a set of 7 codes of realism in analysing texts, such as the requirement of surface realism, that the representation looks and sounds like the real world it claims to show; the code of ideological truth, that is, does the fictional representation construct a compelling, persuasive truth; the code of psychology and character motivation, that is, the fictional representation invests greater realism in the psychology of its characters than in other codes.

Jihad Meaning:

The literal meaning of Jihad is struggle or effort, and it means much more than holy war. Muslims use the word Jihad to describe three different kinds of struggle:

  • A believer's internal struggle to live out the Muslim faith as well as possible
  • The struggle to build a good Muslim society
  • Holy war: the struggle to defend Islam, with force if necessary

  • Surface realism: the mis-en-scene of my Jihad offers very convincing surface realism in its depiction of London life in a muslim community with curtains twitching and neighbours watching any woman who is walking out with a man. Nazir, for example, feels obliged to steal a hijab from a strangers washing line to disguise himself when walking with Fahmida home in a scene of comedy that characterises the whole.
  • Ideological truth: The characters express themselves with persuasive conviction as they struggle with their own inner jihad. That is, they convince us of their muslim believes and desire to reconcile their hopes with their religion. 

No comments:

Post a Comment