For the early punks, a lot of them white British blokes, their music was about declaring themselves outdoors the bigger society. The Intercourse Pistols dreamed of “anarchy for the U.Okay.” The Conflict howled for “a riot of my very own.” To be punk was to offer offense, to make one’s self unpalatable, to decide on to face aside.
However what’s punk when your society has already made you an outsider? That is the musical query that the raucous, cheeky comedy “We Are Girl Components,” returning Thursday for its second season on Peacock, seeks to reply.
The primary season, again in 2021, launched Girl Components, a punk band of Muslim ladies in London: Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), the caustic lead singer; Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), the fearsome drummer; and Bisma (Religion Omole), the earth-motherly bassist. Along with their supervisor, Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse), a savvy Malcolm McLaren in a niqab, they recruit a reluctant lead guitarist, Amina (Anjana Vasan).
Amina is nobody’s concept of a rock star, least of all her personal. She is an introverted microbiologist who worships Don McLean, with a extreme case of stage fright that causes her to heave her guts whereas performing — and never in a defiant, Iggy Pop means. (Vasan provides Amina a fascinating nerd-hero vitality, just like Quinta Brunson in “Abbott Elementary.”)
Over the six-episode season, Amina finds that Girl Components provides her a means of defining herself slightly than being outlined, whether or not by the conservative suitors who inform her “Music is haram” or by her free-spirited mom (Shobu Kapoor), who needs Amina would wait to hunt a husband.
The foundation conflicts of “We Are Girl Components” are acquainted rock-band woes — having no cash, having no gigs, being judged by household and by hipsters. That is the place making the collection about Muslim ladies rockers accomplishes greater than representational box-ticking: It makes an previous story new and nuanced.
For Amina and the remainder of the band, rebel is difficult. It means being Muslim ladies musicians, with equal stress on each adjectives. (The identify Girl Components itself seems like a solution to the anatomical identify of the Pistols.) It means proudly owning their sexuality and spirituality, seizing the suitable to outline what being Muslim means to them and affirming their Muslim id, as mirrored of their sly, successfully catchy songs (co-written by the present’s creator, Nida Manzoor).
“Voldemort Below My Headband” embraces the normal garb as a badass assertion as defiant as any ’70s punk’s security pin. (“I’m sorry if I scare you/ I scare myself too.”) “Bashir With the Good Beard” addresses a sure form of haughty, elusive boyfriend. (“Are my garments too tight?/ Do I chortle an excessive amount of?”)
The collection has some resonance with the lately ended “Reservation Canines,” although its humorousness is extra rowdy and brash. It, too, is a narrative about younger folks asserting their individuality whereas affirming their neighborhood slightly than rejecting it. The primary season’s climax, in actual fact, entails the band being mischaracterized by an article profile that labels them “Unhealthy Ladies of Islam.”
Season 2 finds Girl Components within the flush of minor success. (The present additionally exhibits indicators of getting hit the large time, attracting visitor stars together with Malala Yousafzai.)
The band has completed a camper-van tour of England and is planning an album. Their fan base now contains not simply Muslim children, however Muslim children’ dad and mom, in addition to middle-aged white folks, whose cringey reward recollects the backyard occasion friends from “Get Out.” Amina has mastered her stage fright and — with occasional wobbles — is embracing her assured “villain period.”
The present’s sophomore outing is as brassy as the primary, however provides layers of theme and character. Early on, the band discovers it has competitors in a youthful Muslim band, Second Spouse. (“That’s good,” Ayesha grudgingly acknowledges of the identify.) Slightly than arrange a battle of the bands, “We Are Girl Components” places a twist on the “There can solely be one” mentality that pits underrepresented artists in opposition to one another.
Because the band progresses, and Amina grows into her romantic confidence, the season performs with the best way a form of fetishizing adoration will be as poisonous as rejection, each artistically and personally. Being stared at due to your head scarf, in post-Brexit Britain, is alienating, however so is being requested to maintain your head scarf on to guard your Muslim-punk model.
Over six episodes, the season fleshes out its supporting characters, wrestling with who they’re and what they wish to say. Bisma, who’s married and has an adolescent daughter, begins to really feel typecast because the group’s maternal determine. (“I’m Mommy Spice. I’m Healthful, Boring Spice.”) Ayesha is relationship a girl however is reluctant to come back out to her dad and mom, which makes her fear that she’s letting down her homosexual followers. Saira, essentially the most old-school-punk of the group, itches to department out from “humorous Muslim songs” and write extra pointedly political materials, however that dangers hurting the band commercially.
It’s onerous to not see this final story as a meta-comment, intentional or not, on what the collection itself can get away with saying, on a serious media platform, with these characters. There’s reference, as an illustration, to Saira wanting to talk out on how Muslims are being persecuted world wide, however much less reference to any particular battle, be it in Gaza or elsewhere.
One placing scene makes this sense of invisible boundaries literal, as Saira struggles to place her politics into tune kind. She runs by means of a verse: “It’s like dying and the maiden / Dancing with my company / I received’t point out the w—” The what? The world? The warfare? We by no means hear. Her mouth is pixelated as she tries to complete the road, again and again; she strains and screams however the phrase received’t come out. Whether or not “Girl Components” chooses to not full her lyric or can’t, the picture of asphyxiating silence is potent. (The episode closes with a tune by the Palestinian singer Rasha Nahas.)
After all, getting silenced by the business is one other perennial story of rock ’n’ roll, amongst different vocations. As in Season 1’s getting-the-band-together arc, the challenges of constructing it are superficially acquainted from different music tales: What’s promoting out? How do you distinguish progress from compromise? Are you able to make it huge with out abandoning any of your mates?
However the execution and the main points are captivatingly particular. What works about “We Are Girl Components” is what works about nice punk. You’ll be able to nonetheless trend one thing new out of the identical previous three chords. You simply want a particular voice.
