Friday

Racial Ignorance in Benedict cumberbatch's Sherlock

Or casual racism? Once upon a time, British racist thugs used the derogatory term Paki for every brown person, whether Pakistani, Indian or Srilankan. Has the situation changed now in 2020? It doesn't seem so as far as British entertainment industry is concerned. 
 
There is a character in Sherlock ( TV series currently being streamed on Netflix) named Chatterji. Sherlock tells his sidekick Watson that Chatterji is hiding a wife in Manchester and possible another in Pakistan. Now anyone knowing a bit about India will know that Chatterji is a Hindu Brahmin surname of Indian Bengalis. 

In Sherlock, this Chatterji guy is depicted as a Muslim from Pakistan and he has been generalised as if all muslims are adulterers and polygamous ( Sherlock doesn't provide any evidence to support his claim that Chatterji has indeed a second or third wife in Pakistan). In another episode, Sherlock and Maggie are in Agra. The whole scene is set as if they are in a Middle Eastern Muslim town. Infact Agra is a city in India. According to Wikipedia, the regious demographics of Agra is : Hindus : 88.8% , Muslims :9.3%. I fail to understand how these cultural aspects are missed or ignored while researching for a TV series? Will they be doing the same thing to White names and cities as well?

Related Posts by Categories



No comments: