The Representation of Pakistanis
in My beautiful Laundrette

by

Michael Himpler

Contents

1. Introduction  page 3

2. Screenwriter Hanif Kureishi page 3

3. My beautiful Laundrette page 5

4. The Representation of Pakistanis in My beautiful Laundrette page 6
4.1. The adult Pakistanis page 6
4.2. The adolescent Pakistanis page 10

5. Conclusion page 11

6. Bibliography page 13

7. Filmography page 14

1. Introduction

The construction of minorities in films has always been a delicate task for all moviemakers. Race, class and gender have to be created by the media in a special way so that anybody knows that there are outcasts who are represented by cinematic devices. How are outsiders or foreigners represented in a movie? How do cinematic devices, e.g. shots, narration, camera movements, cuts, mise-en-scène (setting, lighting, costumes, actors), sound and genre-expectations lead to a special kind of descriptions of minorities?

The aim of this written paper is to find out how a special group of foreigners, the Pakistanis, are represented in the movie My beautiful Laundrette. Are there any hints that they are shown as the prejudices of the English in the 80s, especially the young ones, see them? Or does the director take side with the Pakistanis? In order to find out how the movie works, one has to start with its author, Hanif Kureishi. His autobiographical elements contributed much to the narration.

2. Screenwriter Hanif Kureishi

Almost everyone was bullied once in a while as a child, but in Hanif Kureishi’s case, it was a kind of leitmotif that passed through his entire childhood. His father is a Pakistani, his mother is English, and he grew up in England. Being born in 1954, he had to bear insults and attacks by children, young people and even his teachers almost every day. As a consequence, he was so ashamed of his origins that he tried to deny his roots, underlined by the fact that he could not find an identity in a country which was his home, England, but which could never feel quite like his real home.

In his youth he read many books about the civil rights movement in the USA and listened to many speeches of Malcolm X. He did not agree with his attitudes; in his opinion total separation was not the solution concerning the integration of minorities in a foreign country.

It was in that time that he made the acquaintance of a boy who later developed into the direction that Johnny did in My beautiful Laundrette. Many of his traits were used to create the character that was played by Daniel Day Lewis. As a he was an offspring of a rich family, he had no problems with money; once in a while he visited his wealthy uncles in Pakistan to find out more about his origins¹. There he soon recognised that he felt the Englishman in him, even if he lead a hard life in England. Apart from that, he always had the feeling of belonging to two different worlds, and he could not decide which one should be his home. In spite of his scepticism about religion, he carefully analysed one of its main topics, the holiness of family virtues; he compared the British family life to that of the Pakistanis and found advantages and disadvantages in both of them:

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1 These rich uncles were transformed into Omar’s relatives in the movie.