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It feels like the conversation around who the next James Bond will be has been going on for decades. It has filled newspaper columns and flooded social media feeds, becoming a behemoth of Hollywood in its own right. A running joke of sorts in the TV and film industry. And it’s still going to this day. So, when I heard that actor Riz Ahmed had created a Prime Video series that used this very premise as a plot device, I was immediately intrigued.
Bait follows struggling actor Shah Latif (Ahmed) over four chaotic days as his life begins to spiral and unravel while preparing to audition for the role of a lifetime, to be the next James Bond. Set in London, the series is a sharp, hilarious and heartwarming tale of identity, ambition, and cultural pressures. With the cinematic appeal of a typical spy thriller, the series successfully balances comedy with deeper themes of cultural identity and belonging.
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The series reminded me of The Studio in how it’s a comedic reflection of Hollywood, but also in how frantic and stressful (in a good way) the pacing of the story is throughout the episodes. Unlike The Studio, however, Bait is entirely unpredictable in where you think the plot is going versus where it’s actually taking the audience. Ahmed’s performance as Shah is brilliant to witness, especially in the later episodes, and really drives home both the comedy and emotional elements – especially his physical acting.
The highlight of Bait, however, is how it approaches the conversation around inclusion and representation, especially when it comes to Muslims. A few years ago, Ahmed supported a large-scale study into Muslim representation in the industry titled Missing & Maligned: The Reality of Muslims in Popular Global Movies. In the study, researchers analysed 200 top-grossing films released between 2017 and 2019 across four countries: the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand. They found that the overarching trend was that Muslim portrayals in popular films fed into the narrative of the ‘outsider’. Many of the films analysed rooted stories about Muslim characters in historical ‘foreign’ settings and made them distinct through their clothing, faith rituals, and communities. However, Bait doesn’t fall into this trap of negative stereotyping.
Muslims aren’t shown to be ‘outsiders’ or ‘foreign’ but communities that are part of the fabric of British life. And it isn’t done in a way that Ahmed is trying to prove our worth or existence through the series, but in a simple and matter-of-fact way that simply showcases life in a British Muslim community. Yet, it doesn’t shy away from showing the audience the harsh reality of living in the UK as a Muslim today and the Islamophobia and racism that so many of us experience on a regular basis.
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