Bobby Friction: Generation 7/7
- TV Movie
- 2007
- 50m
YOUR RATING
Photos
Storyline
Featured review
Worth a glance but nothing more than that unfortunately Friction may have expected his age and race to have helped him but it doesn't
When Radio 1 DJ Bobby Friction was growing up, his identity was very much that of a British Asian and although he is a Sikh he has always seen (in his words) white, black and brown. Now however he sees more people describing themselves as British Sikhs, British Muslims etc and he decides to explore what he sees as the fragmentation of the Asian community. He starts this film to explore how the younger generation has had their identity changed by the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks have had on the culture.
OK, not sure where you start with this film but perhaps it is worth me flagging up something that I consider to be very relevant when considering the modern persecution of Muslims. I am from Northern Ireland an, within my first two years in England as a student, I was arrested under suspicion of terrorism because I was unknowingly in the wrong place at the wrong time popping into a building to use the toilet hours before Prince Charles was due to visit it. After a morning in the cells and a few court appearances I was of course cleared and, although angry about it, I did have to admit that given that some people from Northern Ireland were indeed bombing the mainland in terrorist attacks, perhaps I should accept that I was suspicious simply because of my accent. Now I do not say this to totally undermine the points of view put forward by many of the Muslim community, but just to say that perhaps I can offer some insight myself into the feeling of persecution that some say they are now feeling.
Friction approaches this film with the rather wide aim of exploring how a community that he sees as being all Asians has been affected by the terrorist attacks. It is a rather woolly approach but it does produce some things of interest or at least food for thought. What Friction finds is that the Asian community are defensive, don't trust those in power and don't believe what the media is telling them. OK. Speaking on behalf of white, 30-something Northern Irish men who live in the Midlands and use IMDb too often to be healthy, I feel the exact same way. Friction seems to be shocked that anyone would feel this way and he tries to explore it but of course mostly all he gets met with is mistrust, defensive attitudes and the usual babble about conspiracies and people blaming the fact that they are unemployed solely on the fact that nobody wants to employ young Muslims these days. Suffice to say none of the contributions offer much beyond this angry hand-wringing.
Friction himself is not a great presenter but he does seem to be using the film to think through some points himself and his contributions to-camera are occasionally interesting; it is a shame therefore that the film can't use this personal journey better and to the benefit of the piece. It didn't help me either that Friction looks far too old for the clothes he wears and also seems to have a head that the Face of Boa would think is a bit over-sized. This bugged me a bit but so did the hyping of the "9/11 Blues" which I found to be an obvious and rather poorly delivered piece of hip hop satire points for effort but that's about it.
Overall then the film starts out woolly and ends up having really gone nowhere. Some things that are said are bland and some are outrageous but mostly the film lacks structure and focus and it is my view that they should have used Friction himself as the device to make the personal journey cover for the lack of material in other areas. Worth a glance but nothing more than that unfortunately Friction may have expected his age and race to have helped him but it doesn't.
OK, not sure where you start with this film but perhaps it is worth me flagging up something that I consider to be very relevant when considering the modern persecution of Muslims. I am from Northern Ireland an, within my first two years in England as a student, I was arrested under suspicion of terrorism because I was unknowingly in the wrong place at the wrong time popping into a building to use the toilet hours before Prince Charles was due to visit it. After a morning in the cells and a few court appearances I was of course cleared and, although angry about it, I did have to admit that given that some people from Northern Ireland were indeed bombing the mainland in terrorist attacks, perhaps I should accept that I was suspicious simply because of my accent. Now I do not say this to totally undermine the points of view put forward by many of the Muslim community, but just to say that perhaps I can offer some insight myself into the feeling of persecution that some say they are now feeling.
Friction approaches this film with the rather wide aim of exploring how a community that he sees as being all Asians has been affected by the terrorist attacks. It is a rather woolly approach but it does produce some things of interest or at least food for thought. What Friction finds is that the Asian community are defensive, don't trust those in power and don't believe what the media is telling them. OK. Speaking on behalf of white, 30-something Northern Irish men who live in the Midlands and use IMDb too often to be healthy, I feel the exact same way. Friction seems to be shocked that anyone would feel this way and he tries to explore it but of course mostly all he gets met with is mistrust, defensive attitudes and the usual babble about conspiracies and people blaming the fact that they are unemployed solely on the fact that nobody wants to employ young Muslims these days. Suffice to say none of the contributions offer much beyond this angry hand-wringing.
Friction himself is not a great presenter but he does seem to be using the film to think through some points himself and his contributions to-camera are occasionally interesting; it is a shame therefore that the film can't use this personal journey better and to the benefit of the piece. It didn't help me either that Friction looks far too old for the clothes he wears and also seems to have a head that the Face of Boa would think is a bit over-sized. This bugged me a bit but so did the hyping of the "9/11 Blues" which I found to be an obvious and rather poorly delivered piece of hip hop satire points for effort but that's about it.
Overall then the film starts out woolly and ends up having really gone nowhere. Some things that are said are bland and some are outrageous but mostly the film lacks structure and focus and it is my view that they should have used Friction himself as the device to make the personal journey cover for the lack of material in other areas. Worth a glance but nothing more than that unfortunately Friction may have expected his age and race to have helped him but it doesn't.
helpful•00
- bob the moo
- Nov 15, 2007
Details
- Runtime50 minutes
- Color
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content