Dame Meera Syal: Goodness Gracious Me ‘took ownership’ of Indian representation
Dame Meera Syal said Goodness Gracious Me was born out of a desire to “take ownership” of negative representations of South Asian culture.
Dame Meera has reflected on her “liberating” and “subversive” role in Goodness Gracious Me as the hit series commemorated 30 years since its first radio broadcast on Saturday.
The actress explained that the hit show was born out of a need for South Asian representation during an event at the BFI Southbank as part of the London Indian Film Festival.
Dame Meera said: “We had seen ourselves represented in so many bad ways, with blackface and the head waggling and the terrible accent.
“We just felt we wanted to take ownership of all of that and turn it upside down.”
The star said one of the TV series’ sketches – which revolves around the mispronunciation of foreign names – channelled “years of rage” and “micro-aggressions”.
“That was the release of the programme. Suddenly, you’re in a room with people who understand the shorthand. It was like getting paid for group therapy,” she added.
Dame Meera also said it was “really magical” to see the diverse audience that the show attracted, and said this was particularly noticeable when performing live.
“The make-up of the audience was really interesting – a third to a half were non-Asian,” she said.
Dame Meera went on to say the soaring popularity of Goodness Gracious Me was “such a good sign of progress”, adding: “We were making the jokes this time. We weren’t the butt of the jokes.”
The actress also praised her experience on the show as “liberating”, and said: “It was really liberating to play ugly, funny, risque (characters). To break taboos, and just be stupid sometimes.
“All of those things that women aren’t usually supposed to do.”
“Funny women are powerful, funny women are subversive, funny women are scary, and you don’t see funny brown women,” she added.
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Goodness Gracious Me first launched in 1996 as a radio programme, and explored British-Asian culture and the conflict of integration between Indian culture and modern British life.
It was later turned into a TV series which ran from 1998 to 2001, and starred Dame Meera alongside her now-husband Sanjeev Bhaskar, as well as comedian Kulvinder Ghir and EastEnders actress Nina Wadia.
The popular series featured guest appearances from stars such as Dave Lamb, Fiona Allen, Amanda Holden and Emma Kennedy across its three-year run.