We Are Lady Parts - review!

 

We Are Lady Parts - review

This is long overdue BUT here is my review of We Are Lady Parts, season 1!

TL;DR: It's great, watch it now!

It was announced back in November '21 that We Are Lady Parts will return for a season 2, which was great to hear. It's well deserved.

What is We Are Lady Parts?

We Are Lady Parts is a British sitcom series from Channel 4 (watch trailer here) that debuted in May '21, written and directed by Nida Manzoor. 

The series follows an unsigned British punk rock band consisting entirely of Muslim women.

In the US it is distributed by Peacock. If you're in the UK you can watch it on Freeview streaming, Channel 4.

It should be noted that We Are Lady Parts has had rave reviews across the board. 

My peers who watched it before me also gave it great reviews. 

What delayed me in watching was my concern that a show about a punk rock band would simply be like many mainstream (cough, white, cough) shows or movies before it, and feel contrived or fake. Sometimes it's just more cringe than I can handle!

BUT I am very pleased to report that We Are Lady Parts is not one of those shows. 

I was pleasantly surprised at how genuine it is, how charming and down to Earth. What a relief!

A quick Google later, my feeling is that this is all down to writer and director, Nida Manzoor. 

She's clearly been into music from an early age, and has said that We Are Lady Parts is somewhat autobiographical, citing This is Spinal Tap and The Young Ones as influences for the series.

Nida Manzoor pictured center with the cast of We Are Lady Parts.

Manzoor co-wrote the original songs featured in the show with her siblings Shez Manzoor and Sanya Manzoor, and with her brother-in-law Benjamin Fregin. (x) 

This all made sense now. 

We Are Lady Parts feels like a love letter to the London unsigned band scene, to gigging, and to being in a band with your mates. 

That camaraderie, that vibe of excitement, runs through the show and ignites all the characters.

I must mention that scene in the pub; where the band show up to their first ever booking and look around in horror to realise it's a tiny little pub with only old white men in it. 

This is painfully accurate to first time gigs in the UK, I laughed so hard. 

So, now that the show had won me over and then some, I could relax knowing I was in safe hands.

We Are Lady Parts is absolutely The Young Ones, a classic British sitcom known for wild antics and also surrealistic arty scenes mixed in. 

We Are Lady Parts is also a musical rom com, focusing mainly on character Amina's pining and love life.

Amina is the narrator, the audience's viewpoint, our main character to watch as she stumbles into the world of bands and gigs for the first time. The other women in the band are already established in their passion, which is making music, and while we do see them also it's Amina we are rooting for.

Some of my favorite scenes are when Amina goes into her little fantasy dream sequences, often involving her crush, Ahsan (who is drummer Ayesha's brother) or where she sings to express her feelings. That cover of Creep by Radiohead was brilliant.

Here is a great little clip of how Amina is first introduced to the band via her crush: video on YouTube.

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Side note: I kept an eye out for annoying tropes that often pop up whenever Muslim women wearing head scarves are present; such as the woman character removing the head scarf in front of a mirror or in a way to titillate a non-Muslim audience. Happy to report, none of that was present in We Are Lady Parts. (As the show is written and directed by a woman, that's probably the reason why!)

Shout out, then, to the scenes at home that show Muslim women in a more authentic way, such as Amina shown without her head scarf (usually a hijab) at home with her family. 

There is no removal of head scarf, it isn't the focus and it's already gone when the scenes start; she's just existing at home with her mother and father present. Very relaxed and everyday normal. Great! More of this representation.

Another scene with a character at home shows Momtaz the band manager at her computer desk in her bedroom without her niqab, but the camera angles of Momtaz never show us more of her face than the niqab has done. We only see a close up of her eyes, or the back of her head. 

This fit in well with the show's artful visuals, and I thought it was tastefully done for the character. 

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In conclusion: this show has no cringe, no bad tropes, so you can relax! There is every reason to watch and support it! 

Season 2 has already been announced. 

The cast are wonderful and diverse, and the show and its characters are very charming and heart warming.

This is a story about Muslim girls against all the odds, following their passions to make music together.

It's such a sweet show, I really can't recommend it enough. Go watch now!

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A collection of funny moments from the show on Buzzfeed.

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