She mentions two words that give the reader quite a vivid impression of Pakistan. “Beggar and Sweeper girls” This gives a negative feeling of Pakistan as a very poor country. There now seem to be a lot of cultural differences between the countries, these being: fashion, religion, tradition, food and the general way of life. Both the film and the poem deal with the major issue of identity, the film uses humour to show the issues caused by mixed nationalities whilst the poem deals with this issue more seriously. The poem is also realistic, in the sense that it shows the identity issue is quite a serious issue in her life.
This is mainly because it is not fictional like the film butit is an autobiography. The film and the poem are similar as they both express problems caused by their mixed nationality and tell the audience / reader of pressures around them because of their mixed race. The poem also describes Moniza’s personal thoughts and feelings towards her Pakistani and English culture. However, the film shows that the people who are having issues with their identity confronting their actual problems by standing up for themselves and knowing what they think is acceptable for themselves to do.
An example of this is when each son refuses to have an arranged marriage as they do not think it is fair. Both Mediums challenge our innate prejudices, they do this because both media show the audience / readers that each individual person is having problems because of something related to their mixed culture and we are shown what affect it has both on them and their families. I think that the film ‘East is East’, deals with the issue of identity more successfully than the poem ‘Presents from my aunts in Pakistan’, because the film uses humour to get the message across.
This works and the audience understand the problems easily and are more interested to watch on unlike the poem. I think it was not easy to follow because of the sentence structure and the choice of words used, ” I couldn’t rise up out of its fire… ” This was not clear to me, as I did not fully understand what a phoenix had to do with the phrase until it was explained to me but the use of adjectives in the poem made it easier to imagine various pictures of clothes and the vibrant, glorious colours that were described to us.
Moniza Alvi used phrases that were more mature in a serious way to get the problem across to the readers whilst the film used humour to show this. The characters in the film were against their Moslem culture and disapproved of it unlike Moniza as the poem focussed on her confusion as to which nationality she actually was. The poem tells us that the writer was confused and embarrassed rather than unhappy with her Pakistani culture. ‘East is East’ was much easier to understand than the poem, it was easier to follow and more interesting to follow, especially to teenagers as the humour is quite rude.
An example of this is of the swearing used and the way it was used. It shows the viewers that their mixed nationality was a big problem for them, their lives and a problem to some of the people around them; therefore we are given a bigger impression of mixed identity and how it effects people on a bigger scale.
