"Lady Parts. That was their band name, concocting a confused mix of hash anthems and sour girl power."
"Who would have thought that our orbits were soon to collide? Like a freight train careering towards a cute, unsuspecting lamb, who innocently trotted onto the tracks in search of, I don't know, snacks? I'm the lamb, by the way. What you have to understand is I'd never met girls like this before."
— Amina
We Are Lady Parts is a Channel 4 Sitcom that premiered in 2021. The show is available as a Peacock original in the US.
Lady Parts is an all-female Muslim punk band trying to make it big in London. It is comprised of earthy cartoonist/bassist Bisma (Faith Omole), surly drummer Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), rebellious lead singer Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), and enigmatic band manager Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse). Saira, the leader, feels that they're missing something and starts searching for a lead guitarist to fill out their sound. Through this, they cross paths with Amina (Anjana Vasan), a PhD candidate with a deep love of music, and manage to recruit her. Faced with a social circle that views music — especially punk music — as haram, Amina must now juggle her commitment to the band, her crippling stage fright, and her quest for a husband.
Lady Parts provides examples of:
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: In the opening scene, Amina's parents bumble their way through a suitor meeting, hastily putting down Amina and embarrassing her by mentioning her bad stage fright.
- Bad Influencer: The beautiful and well-regarded Zarina is mentioned to be a former influencer and present writer for a Shallow News Site Satire, and allegorically skewers both professions. She twists Lady Parts' interview for maximum dramatic impact and online engagement, to their dismay.
- Bad Review Threat: Drummer Ayesha also drives for Uber. She is giving a ride to a trio of rude guys who see her in her hijab and ask if her dad is making her drive. She responds sarcastically ("Yeah, he said if I don't drive simple, dickless pissheads around, he's going to send me to Iraq to marry my cousin.") One of them thinks she is serious but another threatens to give her a one-star rating. Ayesha does not care and deliberately puts on loud heavy metal music just to mess with them.
- Berserk Button: Don't criticize Ayesha's lyrics. She'll physically try to hurt you if Saira and Bisma aren't around to restrain her.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
- Zarina is introduced as an influencer who wants to ally with Lady Parts, but turns out to be manipulative and pushes her own agenda without much care for how her actions affect the group.
- Amina gradually comes to see that Noor is actually quite controlling and judgmental and isn't the best friend she thought she had.
- Beta Couple: Bisma and Wasim's stable marriage contrasts Amina's Unrequited Love Switcheroo with Ahsan and Saira's Commitment Issues with Abdullah.
- Bumbling Dad: Both of Amina's parents are lovingly awkward, but her father is less perceptive and in tune with her emotions and has a tendency to say the wrong thing. Her mother teasingly dismisses him as a manchild.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Saira is so defined by her anger that she struggles to express herself when trying to be caring and understanding towards others.
- Concert Climax: The sixth episode. The band has broken up in the wake of Zarina's explosive article, but Momtaz decides to stage their own concert in an abandoned junkyard, before which the original members make up. Amina then has to rush to the venue and makes it just in time for a killer guitar part.
- Establishing Character Moment: The series opens with Amina and her parents bombing a meeting with an uptight and conservative suitor, which establishes them as Amazingly Embarrassing Parents and her as an awkward young woman who wants a husband.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Amina and Saira went to primary school together before Saira got kicked out for selling school furniture. Saira was even in the audience for Amina's disastrous talent show performance.
- The Faceless: Momtaz wears a niqab, so only her eyes can be seen. The one time she goes without it, she is framed tightly so only a small part of her face can be seen at a time.
- Foil: Noor and Saira — who clash when they share the screen — are representative of Amina's two "lives". Noor is Amina's oldest friend, a polished religious conservative en route to marriage, and thus representative of the life Amina grew up in and initially wants. Saira is a disheveled misfit with a messy personal life, but it's through her that Amina finds the means to express herself.
- Gayngst: The Muslim Ayesha is into women. When Zarina prods her about her identity as a queer Muslim woman, Ayesha brushes her off, indicating an unresolved issue.
- Happily Married:
- Amina's parents are an endearingly awkward but loving couple who are unerringly supportive of her.
- Bisma and her husband Wasim have a loving marriage and act as a stable Beta Couple to the others. They also have a daughter that their friends adore.
- Honor-Related Abuse: Invoked and Played for Laughs in the band song "Ain't No One Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me":She stole my eyeliner (What a bitch!)
And she's been stretching my shoes out with her
Fucking big feet - Imagine Spot: Episodes occasionally swerve into Amina's imagination as she either launches into musical numbers in her head or delves into fantasies about what's going on around her.
- Karma Houdini: Zarina got away with using Ayesha and disparaging the band.
- Mysterious Past: According to Amina, no one really knows what Momtaz's past is; she mentions rumors that she's spent time in jail, and that she may or may not have divorced some sheikh.
- The Narrator: Amina provides a running commentary about what's going through her head.
- Old Maid: Amina is in her mid-20s but is worried that she'll get left on the shelf forever if she can't find a husband soon.
- Performance Anxiety: Amina has crippling stage fright that paralyzes her onstage at best and outright causes nasty bodily excretions at worst, and part of her arc is getting over it.
- Potty Emergency: Amina's stage fright is said to be so bad that she's soiled herself while trying to perform.
- Shallow News Site Satire: The peppy influencer-turned-journalist Zarina works for an online magazine, Yellow Tongue, which Saira derides as shallow clickbait. Montaz defends it, saying they also do real journalism besides the fluff. However, Zarina herself turns out to be an Immoral Journalist who manipulates situations around the band for her own gain and deliberately misrepresents them in her feature for online outrage and notoriety.
- Ship Tease: The first series ends with Ahsan starting to become attracted to Amina.
- Terrible Interviewees Montage: In "Sparta", Amina meets a series of suitors, each one wrong for her in different ways, with the last one being a straight up pervert.
- Take That!: One towards Muslim fundamentalists occurs in the intro of Episode 1, when Amina talks to two strict Muslim parents who believe that music is haram.
- True Companions: Lady Parts are a tight-knit group who are there for one another through thick and thin and encourage each other to be true to themselves. This leads Amina to realize the band are better friends to her than her own friends, who want her to slot neatly into society's expectations.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Amina starts out with a bad crush toward Ahsan, but he friendzones her. Later, Ahsan starts coming around toward Amina as she is trying to convince herself she doesn't like him anymore.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Whenever Amina needs to puke due to her nerves, she either ducks just out of frame or obscures her face with a prop.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Amina's parents are quite permissive and want her to cut loose and explore her creativity. She, meanwhile, wants to finish her studies and get married.
- Wardrobe Flaw of Characterization: Amina's style is very girlish, resulting in her clashing visually with both Lady Parts (who dress in dark and bold colors) and her original circle of friends (who dress more maturely) symbolizing her inherent discomfort around both groups.
