Gurinder Chadha's “Bride and Prejudice” and Homi Bhabha's Concept of Mimicry

Gurinder Chadha's “Bride and Prejudice” and Homi Bhabha's Concept of Mimicry

Introduction

Mimicry is both a process of similar reproduction, involving the repetition of a model, and a diversion strategy and subversion, which, therefore, constitute a threat to the social order, issue highlighted by Homi Bhabha (1984). The history of mimicry in the colonial and post-colonial studies and Indian cinema can be traced back to years back. The colonial mimicry of colonial strategies to modify the local issue, native customs, and imitations of the local norms as a procedure of internalizing the colonial hegemonic system has always been a part of critical interest. Recently, many Indian films are observed to be involved in self-parody rather than being offended by the continuous criticism towards them. This tradition has become part celebration of this important segment of Indian national identity and part the reception of the critique. On one hand, mimicry highlights the awareness regarding post-colonial conditions in fiction, on the other hand, this recent trends also stresses upon the maturity of Indian which formulates the national identity through parody as a part of Indian popular cinema norms. “Bride and prejudice” (2004), a movie by Gurinder Chadha, also caters the mimicry and hybridizing effects of the people of the diaspora in both South Asian Sub-Continent and UK. Discussion

Homi Bhabha's Concept of Mimicry

According to the postcolonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha, notion of mimicry calls much more than just imitation and the denial of its own identity and instead refers to the paradox and ambivalence of colonial discourse between colonized and colonizer. Mimicry is thus understood as a strategy of camouflage containing a subversive force she receives from her ambivalent status that has always resulted "almost the same but not quite”.

Mimicry, for Bhabha, the colonial subject can keep his identity inside which can lead to the destabilization of relations of power and knowledge. It is a "double vision threatening". "The threat posed by mimicry is its double vision which in revealing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also demolished his authority. This double vision is a result of the partial representation and reconnaissance recognition of the colonial object by mainstream society because assimilated colonized is an authorized release of otherness. The mimicry describes imitation as a threat to the original supposedly because it calls into question the 'identity' and the 'essence' of the difference between ownership and repeal.

For him, all identities - whether colonial, nationalist, traditional, etc. -are hybrids, but they are put in contact strengthen the branches and tangles which they are subject. Thus he shows that imitation or identification with the other is not the mere production of a resemblance, but an ambivalent process. Imitation is indeed in H. K Bhabha's word, the production of which is "almost the same but not quite". In other words, the colonial discourse, manufacturing of mimicry, is itself ambivalent. Colonization occurs, despite her hybrid identities, according to Bhabha, the effect of colonial power is seen as the production of ...