Meet the women tackling racism in UK film and TV | Little White Lies

Meet the women tack­ling racism in UK film and TV

24 Jun 2020

Two portraits showing the faces of two women, one with curly hair and the other with long straight hair. Both women are smiling at the camera.
Two portraits showing the faces of two women, one with curly hair and the other with long straight hair. Both women are smiling at the camera.
Nisha Par­ti and Indi­ra Var­ma dis­cuss their expe­ri­ences in the indus­try, and why they’re opti­mistic for change.

A pow­er­ful open let­ter to the UK Film and TV indus­try call­ing for action to tack­le sys­temic racism amassed 5,000 sig­na­tures before clos­ing this week. Heavy­weight Black and Brown actors like Chi­we­tel Ejio­for, Michaela Coel, Idris Elba, Gugu Mbat­ha-Raw, Meera Syal and Sophie Okone­do put their names to the doc­u­ment, along with mul­tira­cial col­leagues work­ing in direct­ing, pro­duc­ing, pre­sent­ing and all rungs of the industry.

The let­ter was pub­lished by sev­en British Asian female cre­atives who were inspired by a let­ter to Hol­ly­wood from the Black TV and Film Col­lec­tive which they used as a mod­el. Nisha Par­ti (pro­duc­er), Meera Syal (actor and writer), Indi­ra Var­ma (actor), Tani­ka Gup­ta (play­wright), Poo­ja Ghai (direc­tor and actor), Ani­ta Anand (broad­cast­er) and Ani­ta Rani (pre­sen­ter) are in a What­sApp group togeth­er and it was here that Syal dropped a link that got everyone’s minds whirring.

The open let­ter address­es every­one work­ing in the indus­try, mak­ing crys­tal clear demands that high­light the need for more Black and Brown sto­ries told by more Black and Brown cre­atives. There are four head­ings: Ban­ish Your Weak Excus­es”; Empow­er Black and Brown Inde­pen­dent Pro­duc­ers; Expand Your Vision and Be More Demand­ing. The ful­fil­ment of these tasks are the next steps for­ward from the anti-racist dec­la­ra­tions that have dom­i­nat­ed the cul­tur­al dis­course since the police killing of George Floyd. After decades of enabling racism in your ranks and beyond, it is time to do more,” reads the letter.

When LWLies spoke with Nisha Par­ti and Indi­ra Var­ma ear­li­er this week, they were both feel­ing hope­ful. Par­ti says that since the pub­li­ca­tion of the let­ter she’s heard from Eric Fell­ner of Work­ing Title, Jane Feath­er­stone of Sis­ter Pic­tures and Ollie Mad­den at Film Four want­i­ng to set up calls to dis­cuss the issues fur­ther. Var­ma points to nois­es that have emerged from BAF­TA and the BBC, who have pledged to spend £100m of its tele­vi­sion bud­get over the next three on diverse and inclu­sive con­tent. They both feel that there’s a will to change in the indus­try that they haven’t seen pre­vi­ous­ly in their 20-plus year careers. We’ve fought for so long, now it’s time for opti­mism. We are being heard,” says Varma.

So how have they nav­i­gat­ed an indus­try whose norms were cre­at­ed by white peo­ple? Var­ma, whose pro­file rose con­sid­er­ably after play­ing Ellar­ia Sand in Game of Thrones, made her film debut in Mira Nair’s Kama­su­tra in 1996, then fresh out of RADA. The the­atre has been good to her, she says, and is more evolved in terms of cast­ing. She is of Indi­an-Swiss her­itage and the film indus­try strug­gled to fit her into their pigeon­hole, mean­ing she was some­times told, We’re not look­ing for an Asian per­son,” or, We need some­one who looks more Asian; put on an accent”. She has found greater free­dom on the stage. I’ve been giv­en oppor­tu­ni­ties to do peri­od dra­ma – Chekhov, Shake­speare – where­as that’s not the sort of thing I’d get cast in on screen. It is chang­ing, but it’s just too slow.”

Its not about more Brown, more Black everywhere, its just about fair representation. Thats all we want.

Par­ti had to be bloody-mind­ed to get her foot in the door, writ­ing hun­dreds of let­ters after film school until ICM Part­ners took her up. She is a pro­duc­er now, but it has been a long road. Tired of work­ing for suc­cess­ful white men on big stu­dio films like Har­ry Pot­ter and the Philosopher’s Stone, she decid­ed 10 years ago to only make Asian sto­ries. Hon­our, The Boy With The Top­knot and Dark­ness Vis­i­ble make up her fea­ture back cat­a­logue as pro­duc­er and there are two more titles in the pipeline fol­low­ing a co-pro­duc­tion deal with Sony Pic­tures Television.

She believes that her abil­i­ty to pass as one of the estab­lish­ment has helped her to progress, which speaks to oth­er bias­es in the film indus­try. There’s a class prob­lem in that I speak well – on the phone you can’t tell whether I’m Indi­an and that makes a dif­fer­ence. I went to quite a white pri­vate school, I went to a good uni­ver­si­ty, so I know how to deal with posh white peo­ple. I know how to assim­i­late and play the game. If I was much more work­ing class I think it would be even harder.”

Though reluc­tant to point the fin­ger at indi­vid­u­als, Par­ti says the prob­lem lies in Oxbridge-edu­cat­ed white men being pro­mot­ed to the top of the pile. When you go in and pitch them a sto­ry about a young Indi­an kid liv­ing in a coun­cil estate, they nat­u­ral­ly don’t feel it in the way that we would. But if some­one pitch­es them a sto­ry about World War Two they might think, Oh, yes, my grand­fa­ther fought in a war and that means some­thing to me.’ I kind of get it, but [things won’t change] until those deci­sion mak­ers change and take more risks and look a bit more wide­ly at everyone’s stories.”

Var­ma agrees: In the let­ter we said, they call things risky’. They say, We haven’t got an audi­ence for that,’ or, That direc­tor or writer or pro­duc­er is not well known enough’. We’re not cham­pi­oning and aid­ing peo­ple to rise from these bril­liant schemes that have ini­tial­ly been put in place where they’re say­ing, Come on, we need more Brown peo­ple, Black peo­ple in the indus­try…’ but then not help­ing them up the ranks. Like Nisha says, we need rep­re­sen­ta­tion through­out the indus­try, includ­ing the crew and heads of depart­ment of all colour. It’s not about tak­ing over. It’s not about more Brown, more Black every­where, it’s just about fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion. That’s all we want.”

Despite decades worth of accu­mu­lat­ed frus­tra­tion, both Par­ti and Var­ma feel that, for once, the onus is not on them, or on those that the let­ter rep­re­sents. The onus is on the rest of the indus­try. We’ve heard the fight­ing talk on their side,” Var­ma says, We’ve heard the endorse­ments and I think they will be held account­able if they don’t act on it. The ball is now in their court.”

Do your bit by sup­port­ing the racial jus­tice organ­i­sa­tions led by Black and POC list­ed here.

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