04/27/23

Against Forced Decorum

notes on Polite Society by Nida Manzoor

A couple of weeks ago, I got to see an early screening of Polite Society, a British comedy-drama film written and directed by Nida Manzoor – her feature film directorial debut. 

I loved the film so much that yesterday I went all the way to a town in New Jersey (ew) to see it in the only theater that is showing it anywhere near me. 

I went to see this movie with a filmmaker friend of mine – Ashley Ijoema Omoma. The following is the essence of our post-theater-bliss-analysis conversation. 

What I loved about the movie is how Manzoor tweaked the cultural tropes of arranged marriage, pressures of baby making, son preference, returning the “favour” of our “parents’ sacrifices”, and our parents living their dreams through their children – as plot devices into a traditional action movie, without villainizing the culture itself. 

I didn’t realize how much I needed to see women that look like me on screen being angry and fighting, with songs I grew up listening to, wearing lenghas and saris, with diasporic kids immersed in both bollywood dramatic zoom-ins and sound bites coupled with British wryness. 

I didn’t realize how much I needed to see the story of kids of south asian immigrants in a western country normalized without any fetishization. 

I didn’t realize how much I needed to see the rejection of pursuit of traditional careers by children of immigrants on screen and that not being contested in a huge way. 

I didn’t realize how much I needed to see people who looked like me existing in spaces that acknowledge integration of cultures and genres. The gossiping brown aunties in all their glory. 

I didn’t realize how much I needed to see propriety and decorum of what is expected of south asian women, rejected. 

“As women, anger is not something we are encouraged to feel or exhibit. I know I wanted to show a lot of angry women being rageful.”

Manzoor talking about the film with Salon

Manzoor ingeniously employed satire as a vehicle to highlight the nuances of South Asian culture, producing an entertaining and genre-defying action-comedy that avoids reducing our cultural identity to a stereotype. The end result is a relatable and hilarious story that artfully captures the complexities of our unique cultural heritage.

This piece is 27/50 from my 50 days of writing series. Subscribe to hear about new posts.