TV Review: We Are Lady Parts Is A Win For Peacock
From Chewing Gum to The Inbetweeners, the U.K. has found a strange magic in capturing how hilariously awkward it is to “grow up.” From your teens to your twenties, the idea of “aging gracefully” feels antithetical and impossible. There is nothing graceful about getting your period, crushes, and new ideas of what the “cool version” of you looks like. In We Are Lady Parts, a group of young, Muslim working on their PHDs and careers unite to destress the best way they can: by forming a punk rock band of the same name.
There is a beauty and “bustedness” of being human that punk rock completely encapsulates. As a young Latina whom has seen her fair share of mosh-pits and older, white guys yelling “PAIN!’ on a mic, this world always fascinated me because I got to see Wall Street guys completely lose their minds over roaring chords and the very idea that they could. It was as if they were a bunch of Supermans allowed to be Clark Kents, but Amina (Anjana Vasan), Bisma (Faith Omole), Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse), and Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey) it is the opposite experience; they are bunch of Clark Kents waiting for their “Superman” moment.Yet, to get that instance of beauty, they have to confront the bustedness.
For every person of color, there can be something called a “double consciousness,” of which there is the “individual self” constantly catering and clashing with the “communal self” or whatever surrounding they find themselves as the lesser power. These dynamics particularly play as we watch Amina juggle university work, a floundering dating life, a family expecting the latter two to succeed big-time, and her avid attempts to repress how much she wants too emotionally explode over a mic because of them. In many ways, Amina represents all of us that are the “good, responsible” kids whom eventually wonder what those two words mean and why our personal dreams can’t fit within them. This theme interplays as we watch the other young women rebel against systems and ideals they find inhibiting like, a “proper career,” “being a proper girl,” or finding a “proper husband.” The good thing about punk is that the last thing you should be is proper! Hence, the attraction!
Sure Amina may be the “outcast’ of a group of outcasts, but in that lies this comedy’s humor and heart. All of these women are trying to, like punk, turn their alienation into art and power. Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey) plays the lead singer: a butcher shop employee whose tenacity will charm audiences because, for her, Lady Parts is not some garage band…. THIS IS THE BAND TO BEAT! And why not? She has bandmates like, Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), whose wit and unfriendliness can hit some delicious April Ludgate levels, and Bisha (Faith Omole) whose hippie levels of positivity can hit you as colorfully as the cartoons she draws. Moreover, she has a manager Momtaz (Bisha (Faith Omole) whom I firmly believe would scorch the earth just to make sure these women get the chance to light up the stage. As you traverse episodes and see the highs and lows of being a new coming artists, you can’t help but want them to win and have the world see them as the greatness they are.
Life can be rough for someone who is an outcast amongst outcasts who have been outcasted. Yet, as you enter the lives of these five women, you feel warmed. Resilience, like representation, is a simpler act and response than what many believe.The minute you enter a room, you represent something and someone, and if you keep trying to maneuver through and even enter more, grander rooms, you’ll gain the resilience to stay in them. We Are Lady Parts Is
