Read below to hear about Sharik's discovery of 'Man Like Mobeen' and his thoughts on how the show captures the correct representation of British-Asians.
Everyone kept telling me to check out Man Like Mobeen (2017-). Everyone. My friends and my family kept telling me to check it out but I was hesitant. I’d heard of Man Like Mobeen. Of course, I had. It’s hard to be a young British-Pakistani* man living in Small Heath and not hear about the TV show about the British-Pakistani man living in Small Heath. However, I’d never seen it.
See, I was scared. Scared that it wouldn’t live up to the expectations that I had in my head. Scared that it would be another Citizen Khan (2012). Citizen Khan was a case of negative representation because it’s basically a caricature of an Asian British Muslim family. There wasn’t any nuance to it.
It was just catchphrases and silly voices. Just because this minstrel act is being perpetrated by a person of colour doesn’t make it feel any less disgusting. The creator Adil Ray has gone on record as saying that he created the show in the vein of classic British sitcoms but it just feels like a blend of accents and clichés. We feel like the butt of the joke rather than actually being involved. It spoke volumes to me that when the show came out, it inspired white people in my year to just start using the “Asian” voice for a joke when speaking to me.
It’s almost harmful to that extent. It’s not that many steps removed from Apu but this actually hurts more because it’s being performed by somebody who actually looks like us. We feel like the joke because of that show while Man Like Mobeen is actually funny. That show shows the reality of how it is growing up British Asian in Birmingham. Both shows are set in Birmingham but only Man Like Mobeen actually films here. Citizen Khan was shot in studios in Talford. Talford. How are you going to make a show set in Sparkhill but actually film in Talford? Anyway, I digress! Man Like Mobeen leans into the culture and even pokes fun at it but it never makes the audience feel like they aren’t included in the joke. Never once.
I don’t know if you’ve heard but in 2020 there was a massive world altering pandemic that happened. Everybody was locked down in their homes and nobody was going out. I found myself missing my friends and missing the vibrancy of the area I’ve spent my whole life in. You were allowed to go out for an hour of exercise but the people who make the area what it is weren’t out there at the same time. It was like a ghost town. As we’ve established, there isn’t many shows out there that feature a protagonist that looks and speaks like me. There is even fewer (if any) that take place in the area that I am from. So, it was finally time to take the plunge (if just to see Small Heath on screen how it used to be pre-pandemic).
I’ve never been so happy to be proven wrong and I was actually angry at myself that it took me so long to watch the show. It’s funny, vibrant and thoroughly compelling. The characters actually feel like actual people with real worries and lives and the show never punches down on its audience to make their jokes.
I remember being elated as I watched the show and I saw all three series in one day. However, when I finished I felt a sense of disappointment and shame within myself. You see, there was an opportunity to work on the show in some capacity for its third series and I remember being so excited about it until my brother got in my head and I didn’t apply. I still regret that now. My brother had the same worries about the show that I did. He’s now seen it and is a huge fan. I would have loved to seen a British-Pakistani boss in complete control of his set and creating his show.
I hope I have a chance to see it up close the next time they film. So, I’m still not sure on what finally compelled me to watch Man Like Mobeen. Maybe I just missed seeing Small Heath alive and lit up again but I’m glad that I did. Bring on series 4!
*Forgot to mention that I’m also extremely handsome and very humble too.