White Girl (2008)
Part of BBC’S White Season
Director: Hettie McDonald
Writer: Abi Morgan
BAFTA Award for Best Single Drama
Main Characters: Leah and Debbie
Location: Bradford
The film White Girl says many things about youth and their identity. Firstly, youth have a problem fitting in with society so they become isolated and are unsure of their identity. When Leah first moves to Bradford she and her brothers and sister are basically the only white children in the school and they feel left out. Youth is also misguided; they receive none or very little parental guidance or education. This means they are unclear on who they are as a person which means they struggle to find their place in society or their identity. Another thing that White Girl shows about youth is how impressionable they are by what they see and who they are surrounded by, this is why Leah picks up on religion, the Islamic faith to be precise, because she watches people in the local community and copies what they do, for example, wearing a Hijab. This is a rebellion of sorts and therefore leads to a tension between all of the family members, when Leah comes home wearing the Hijab she is thrown out. She goes to live with her next door neighbour which refers back to the point of no parental guidance. This isolation from her family with only religion left in her life creates a bleakness and hopelessness, portraying that she will have no future which again affects her identity and who she sees herself as.
White Girl shows a contrast between modernist and post-modernist concepts of identity by almost comparing the way Leah’s family lives and her next door neighbour’s family. The Islamic family who live next door are very traditional they are very family and religion orientated, as Leah learns when she lives with them, they all go to pray together, they eat together, etc, which relates to the modernist concept of identity. Where as her family is fragmented, her mum and dad are separated, there is no stability within the family; their life is constantly changing, reflecting the post-modernist concept of identity.
