Gurindha Chadha and the Representation of British Indians

Gurindha Chadha and the Representation of British Indians

Whether film or any other kind of media, no media representation can be completely true.

All representations go through a process of mediation whereby the ‘real’ is changed into a representation.

Clearly Chadha’s background I gives her a unique insight into British Indian culture and therefore her representations are constructed from the position of what we might call a situated reality.

For many white British film goers much of their experience of British/Indians is likely to come via the mass media and hence they can be said to have a mediated reality.  

In order to appeal to the majority audience (thus maximise chances of commercial success) Chadha must construct representations that maybe rooted in reality and possess a certain authenticity but equally must fit with the mainstream audiences assumptions. Chadha as an encoder encodes her films with a meaning that will be decoded successfully by the non-Indian film goer and thus has to rely upon intertextual references and standardised if not stereotypical representations of British Indians