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Warning: this article contains spoilers for the show Bait

Riz Ahmed’s new Amazon Prime show Bait released last week to critical acclaim. It tells the story of a young, struggling Pakistani-British actor, Shahjehan, whose name literally translates to ‘king of the world’. Despite the regality of his title, Shahjehan is always ironically one step behind in his goal to play the famous James Bond 007.

His desire to play the glamorous character traditionally essayed by white British actors reflects the longing to assimilate in Hollywood. He is often humorously mistaken for another actor of South Asian descent, Dev Patel.

His pursuit of the role is driven by the trauma of being an immigrant; he carries both psychological and physical wounds by virtue of being in the West. Consequently, his desire alienates him, hinting at the price one has to pay for assimilation in a predominantly white culture. It is only after fixing his relationship with his family and coming to terms with his traumatic past that he gets the role.

However, his eventual win comes with a twist; the hero disavows the archetypal James Bond representation. Bait resists assimilation by inventing a new character and chiseling an alternative text for the traditionally marginalised South Asian diaspora.

Despite having a name that is an unusual mix of a Mughal emperor and a Sufi poet, Shahjehan Latif (often known simply as Shah) is a nobody. He is not white enough to be called British and does not speak good enough Urdu to act with Mahira Khan, as his father, played by Sajid Hasan, takes a jibe at him for.

Once a recipient of the Rising Star Award, Shah is now in debt and feels compelled to sell his award watch. There’s a peculiar method to the madness that is his acting process — he converses with a pig’s head. The severed head is thrown into his house by racist trolls, and Shah carries it around in a bag like a secret badge of honour.

Overall, like the perfect protagonist of spy thriller, he is a flawed, traumatised, morally ambiguous, transgressive yet deeply humane character with a purpose.

When it comes to Hollywood and mainstream British cinema, South Asian representation has been reduced to either romantic or monstrous figures. So far, only two South Asians have bagged small supporting roles in Bond films. British-Indian actor Zaheera played a brief role of an Indian girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), and Lahore-born Indian actor Kabir Bedi played the silent servant of the villain in Octopussy (1983). Shah wants to make a difference by playing the usually white British MI6 agent.

As a British South Asian, the opportunity will allow him to make a statement: this is also what being British looks like. At the same time, it will catapult him into the world of overnight stardom, status, and much-needed financial success. His vision is directed towards encouraging people to look at his community with respect and dignity instead of calling them “Paki”, a common slur hurled at South Asians in the United Kingdom.

Alienation ensues as he seeks to assimilate into white culture. He is dismissed by his family for being much shorter than other actors who have played Bond. His ex-girlfriend mocks him for using a white filter on his IMDb profile picture. He is essentially stranded on an island while he dreams of building bridges between cultures.

Spatially, he exists in liminal spaces of dressing rooms, streets, nightclubs, airports, and garages. At times, he has a ghostly yet comical presence like the mimic men of Naipaul’s London. Other times, he is chased by his stoic James Bond alter ego in the style of a satirical espionage thriller.

As the show progresses, he gets more desperate about his goal, and his estrangement becomes more pronounced. During one episode about Eid, Shah experiences physical and emotional distance from his family. Everyone is busy with the usual celebrations while he searches for an empty room to make an apology video for a fan whose arm he fractured by mistake.

In the fifth episode, after wandering aimlessly all night and failing to reconnect with his ex-girlfriend, he enters his parents’ house and does not find anyone. He concocts a plot about local terrorists kidnapping his family, only to later find them at the hospital.

Following a series of absurd events and eventually overcoming his alienation, Shah aces the audition. He is no longer threatened by his alter ego, as he mends his relationship with his family and comes to terms with his childhood trauma.

In the last scene, he disregards the trademark line: “The name is Bond… James Bond.” He looks at the audience in the final shot, pauses for a moment, and says, “The name is…. Shahjehan.” This gaze, as African American feminist scholar bell hooks would say, is not merely a look of resistance or reaction but a creation of an alternative text in the form of Shahjehan, a desi James Bond.

This offers new possibilities and creates a new avenue of representation and belonging for Shah’s community.

For the South Asian community, this invention is a call to create and celebrate characters and visuals that are not imitations of colonial masters. Imitations demand assimilating and ironing out the wrinkled parts of the self. For instance, ever since Partition, Pakistani cinema has felt the need to catch up with the technical superiority of Hollywood and later the artistic mastery of Iranian cinema. Instead, it should be working on representations that are free of other imitations and focus on its own peculiar realities.

By creating Bait, Ahmed joins a distinctive group of contemporary filmmakers such as Jean Pierre Bekolo (Aristotle’s Plot), Jordan Peele (Get Out and Nope), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), and Cord Jefferson (American Fiction) who engage with the politics of racial representation. These creators empower people of colour by providing new ways of being on screen, resisting assimilation, and defying colonial desires.