Such an interesting conversation, thank you. Very much agree and have written about the dearth of Polish characters on screen and in novels (and if they do feature, are played or written by British actors and writers) - although there was one Polish character actually played by a Polish actor on Capital, based on John Lanchester’s novel. Still - he was a builder, so fitted the stereotype. On a brighter note, there’s a certain CEE flavour to what Stefan Golaszewski, the British screenwriter, does, perhaps owing to his Polish ancestry. As for literature, there are some Polish characters in novels written by British writers, even in popular books: Richard Osman’s mega-selling cosy crime series features a Polish man. Guess his occupation? That’s right, a builder. Some characters have wrong names, or the words are misspelled - neither the writers nor editors seem to be too bothered about authenticity in our case, even though it’d be easy to check these things, what with so many Poles around. But again, there are signs of change: Gabriel Krauze’s debut novel Who They Was was critically acclaimed (he’s Polish-British). But we definitely need more representation.
that's fantastic re Osman! and a big LOL. Osman himself has (OBVI!) some Turkish ancestry.
I've also found a Romanian in Francis Lee's God's Own Country (2017) played by an actual Romanian, and the role is fundamental for the movie so... things may be shifting, finally.
Osman’s girlfriend apparently has Polish ancestry, so I was puzzled that he gave Bogdan’s Polish mother the name Marina, which is extremely rare in Poland, and (I think)much more common in other Slavic countries. Maria, Marzena, Marta, Martyna - I’ve met plenty of women with these names, and any of them would’ve been a better choice than Marina, as I’ve never even read or heard of a Polish woman so named. Oh well, we can’t have everything. Now we wait for an Eastern European character who is an Oxford don, or a boss of FTSE 500 company, and not a builder, cleaner or vegetable-picker😉
Such an interesting conversation, thank you. Very much agree and have written about the dearth of Polish characters on screen and in novels (and if they do feature, are played or written by British actors and writers) - although there was one Polish character actually played by a Polish actor on Capital, based on John Lanchester’s novel. Still - he was a builder, so fitted the stereotype. On a brighter note, there’s a certain CEE flavour to what Stefan Golaszewski, the British screenwriter, does, perhaps owing to his Polish ancestry. As for literature, there are some Polish characters in novels written by British writers, even in popular books: Richard Osman’s mega-selling cosy crime series features a Polish man. Guess his occupation? That’s right, a builder. Some characters have wrong names, or the words are misspelled - neither the writers nor editors seem to be too bothered about authenticity in our case, even though it’d be easy to check these things, what with so many Poles around. But again, there are signs of change: Gabriel Krauze’s debut novel Who They Was was critically acclaimed (he’s Polish-British). But we definitely need more representation.
that's fantastic re Osman! and a big LOL. Osman himself has (OBVI!) some Turkish ancestry.
I've also found a Romanian in Francis Lee's God's Own Country (2017) played by an actual Romanian, and the role is fundamental for the movie so... things may be shifting, finally.
Some may remember Ken Loach/Paul Laverty's It's a Free World (2007) which has some good EE side characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_a_Free_World...
Osman’s girlfriend apparently has Polish ancestry, so I was puzzled that he gave Bogdan’s Polish mother the name Marina, which is extremely rare in Poland, and (I think)much more common in other Slavic countries. Maria, Marzena, Marta, Martyna - I’ve met plenty of women with these names, and any of them would’ve been a better choice than Marina, as I’ve never even read or heard of a Polish woman so named. Oh well, we can’t have everything. Now we wait for an Eastern European character who is an Oxford don, or a boss of FTSE 500 company, and not a builder, cleaner or vegetable-picker😉
you and your crazy ideas