Watched "East is East". I never saw it at the movies when it came out and I regretted it because it seemed like everyone was telling me how fantastic it is. So I saw it for the first time and I was shocked! Genuinely.
The movie peddles in every stereotype going around Muslims, around Pakistanis in England, about inter-faith/ethnicity marriage, about women, about the working class, abnout the North of England. I'm guessing the reason it was so popular was becasue it upheld every single stereotype in the book, not bringing one instance of fresh insight or emotional truth to any aspect of it.
and I just know the defense. It was written by an Pakistani British Muslim! It's his story from his point of view!
And my answer: I know about self-loathing. I have seen other communities, my own community, peddle the stereotypes. And as I have begun to notice - you are always rewarded when you do. The rest of the world is quite happy for you to trot out the stereotypes, conform to type, reinforcing their knowledge that people like you really are as ..... as we thought. You can even get a knighthood or an oscar for confirming that kind of... truth.