Club Friday Q&A: The Writers of 'Get Up, Aisha' On Why We Have to Talk About Mental Health in the South Asian Community
By ArPIta quadir
Content warning: This newsletter contains references to suicide.
CBC Gem’s latest show, Get Up, Aisha, follows Aisha Rehman (Sana Asad), a young Pakistani Canadian student who grapples with her compulsive need for perfection as she struggles with her mental health. After a suicide attempt, Aisha receives a diagnosis of depression—which she decides she’ll combat by running through a checklist of ways to improve mental health. (This will also double as her thesis project, and is sure to earn her an A+. Obviously.) Thus begins Aisha’s journey to cure the incurable. I chatted with the brilliant show creators Rabiya Mansoor, Nisha Khan and Marushka Jessica Almeida, to discuss what it can look like to open up about mental health challenges in a Muslim household, telling honest stories without relying on stereotypes and why we shouldn’t compare Get Up, Aisha to other South Asian stories, including Never Have I Ever. — Arpita Quadir
Where did you come up with the idea for Get Up, Aisha?
Nisha: We all met in a writing group many years ago. We were all budding screenwriters and we used to meet up to exchange notes on scripts. From the writing room, we realized that there's something called an IPF, Independent Production Fund, that gives creators money. We saw that as an opportunity to put ourselves out there and put out a concept. We all had different ideas, but there was one idea of a Pakistani Canadian girl with a Type A personality having depression that resonated with all of us. It also plays into the idea of someone who is part of a culture that places an emphasis on being perfect. Having depression in that kind of environment is the toughest thing ever because you're trying to keep a mask on that everything is going well, and we could all somewhat relate to that feeling. We submitted the idea and we were lucky to get the funding for that year. We created the trailer during COVID, and from there we were able to get more funding to create Get Up, Aisha.
Sana Asad as Aisha in CBC Gem’s ‘Get Up, Aisha.’ Photo: CBC
Can you take me through your creative process—how did it go from the drawing board into a finished product ready for the world to see?
Rabiya: Honestly, so much of our time at the beginning was focused on the funding because to make the show, there were so many applications we had to fill out to get all the money together. We got the confirmation of the last one we applied to in mid-2022 and at that point, we were thinking, “Oh my gosh, we have money, now it’s go time.” We developed the project through the IPF program, but then it came time to sit down and write the scripts. We were also hiring a crew at the same time as we were working on the first round of scripts. We took a little bit of a breather to reflect on what we wrote and figure out what needed to be changed before we could dive back into the editing process. I have found memories from 2 a.m., 3 a.m. editing sessions going over it line by line. It was a very intense process and then we went into production. Along the way, we were running into a lot of production issues, as you do with every single production. I think the show really came together in the editing process because we took our time with it in the post-production. Through the editing process, I think we realized how things translate from paper to screen. Getting to the end product involved a lot of experimentation with the editing. There were a few times the three of us would get together over iMovie and start doing little edits ourselves. I know, for me, I definitely have a newfound respect for production and getting things to the finish line. It was a long process, but I'm pretty happy with how it all came together at the end.
There's been a clear lack in the industry for a story like Get Up, Aisha. Why did it personally feel necessary to share a story like this at this moment in time?
Marushka: I think with COVID, and just how the state of the world has been, we wanted the story to be sort of a reminder that, sure life is hard, but you can also get past it and you can grow from it. We wanted it to be something of a conversation starter in our communities too. I recently lost someone to suicide it was like dealing with the same process all over again that no one in our family was ready to talk about it. And these sorts of starting points are what eventually makes these kinds of conversations possible. The mental health crisis is happening all around us, and intergenerationally to our parents, to our grandparents and to future generations. So we just wanted something that a family could watch and point to and have a conversation about it, or anything at all. I think that if that happens, I think that's a victory for us.
Never Have I Ever also touches on what it can look like to struggle with mental health and how it might be perceived by the South Asian community. It was also one of the first examples in mainstream media of what it can look like to struggle with mental health as a South Asian individual. So, maybe it’s not surprising that I’ve been seeing some comparisons between it and Get Up, Aisha. How do you feel about those comparisons?
Marushka: I honestly don't see the show as comparable to Never Have I Ever. I think Get Up, Aisha speaks to an older audience because she is in university while Devi is in high school. Even though the mother-daughter comparisons are there, they are completely different types of South Asians. We are putting these shows together just because they are brown, but I don't really think that there is a direct link between them, apart from the mental health aspect or their mother-daughter relationships. Aisha is not like Devi at all. Aisha is a perfectionist, always trying to do the right thing, always trying to be there for everyone all the time, as opposed to Devi, who is a bit of a mess. I think we wanted to add another character to the mainstreamization of this kind of story so people could see different brown characters existing in whatever ways they can.
Nisha: I completely agree with Marushka’s sentiment where I didn't see too much of the comparison to Never Have I Ever—but I see where that comes from. I think there’s also differences between their mothers. Devi’s mom always wants everything to be perfect, and Fauzia is the complete opposite. You have a daughter who is trying to keep it all together and trying to get her mother to get on the same path as her, which is not a dynamic you see often. We wanted to show a mother and daughter relationship where the daughter is almost being the parent to the mother and having to guide the mother in some ways. It ends up being a very complex relationship between them because they’re constantly struggling with each other’s emotional needs. I think another part that's pretty unique is this is a Muslim family. Religion does play a part in the show, it’s not heavy, but it's enough to see what it looks like to have mental health struggles in a Muslim household. There's lots of dynamics I think that are definitely very different and new. Even though the two shows feel very different to me, I think it's great to have that comparison because I love Never Have I Ever and Mindy Kaling.
Rabiya: I'll just add that I can see some of the comparisons being made because of how Devi treats her friends. There is a similar aspect to Aisha throughout the season as to how she treats her friends and taking them for granted. The other thing that could be a bit of a comparison is the look because we really wanted to have bright and vibrant colours, which I think Never Have I Ever did really well. And that's something we hoped we captured in Get Up, Aisha.
(Photo: Get Up, Aisha)
Get Up, Aisha is also a story about a mother and a daughter. What made you want to focus on showing that type of relationship specifically?
Rabiya: One thing that I haven't seen explored in the South Asian diaspora shows as much is the adult suffocation of immigrant children and the internalization of South Asian societal pressures. When immigrant parents come into a world where everything is new to them, they're navigating things for the first time too. Immigrants have to take on certain external burdens that later generations of immigrants won’t necessarily have to deal with. Not to say that Fauzia is a first-generation immigrant—I think that was a conscious choice that we made—but there's still an aspect of the adult education of children that I think was really interesting for us to explore. The other aspect of it was having a parent who wants you to live your life, but Aisha has internalized all of these pressures, and all of these expectations from the South Asian community, broader society and herself. It's not directly coming from the parent and that was something really exciting for us to explore. I think we've seen shows where the parents are the ones who are like, “No, you have to do med school,” or whatever it is, and we wanted to explore something different from that.
Marushka: The show was very reminiscent of my relationship with my mom, where I sometimes feel like I have to parent her, and then she has to parent me, and we sort of trade back and forth depending on what the issue of the day is. That's exactly what we wanted to show. We didn't want it to be a very binary relationship. Both mother and daughter are growing and learning from each other, and at the same time having to take care of each other and then also allowing themselves to be taken care of in turn. That's one of the big conflicts between them that blows up in the second half of the season—Aisha’s mom realizing that Aisha has done a lot of the work in terms of taking care of the house, and Aisha realizing that her mom was actually taking care of her all along, but she just didn't know. We just wanted to show the nuances of this kind of relationship.
I’m curious to know how you went about telling this story without relying too heavily on stereotypes, while still remaining true to the main character’s Pakistani Canadian identity. It’s a very fine line to maintain, so I’m wondering if that was important to consider while writing the show?
Nisha: This is definitely something that we contended with. Two out of three of us are Pakistani Canadians, so it helped being able to draw from real life experiences. Part of the creative process at the beginning was to figure out who is Aisha? We were going back and forth on a few things, one of them being thinking about what kind of representation have we seen so far. But at the same time we wanted to be authentic, and we can’t pretend like these things don't happen. I personally think we did a good job balancing the two because there are things that people are gonna be like, “Oh, my God, that's me, that’s my life.” Even in terms of choosing to showcase a mother and daughter relationship, where the mom is more relaxed while the daughter is uptight. So, we spent a lot of time figuring out every dynamic. We kind of took from our own experiences of what we were told growing up in terms of our relationship with God, and what that looked like, especially from a mental health standpoint. We put it all together and decided that this is what feels the most authentic to this specific character. We spent a lot of time going back and forth on who Aisha is and what that looks like, and trying really hard not to fall into stereotypes.
How does it feel to be able to create a show like this and have it on a platform like CBC Gem?Growing up it never felt like we would get there, but now here we all are, creating the stories we wanted to hear as kids.
Rabiya: It feels like such a privilege to be able to tell stories. Just having the support of all of the funders and our other partners in this has been really awesome. Of course it's been a bumpy ride at certain points, but I think I’m just so happy that we're at the finish line and we're able to share this story with everyone.
Marushka: I am scared. I'm really excited, obviously and getting to work with these two has been the best time but I'm so scared to find out how people will react to it when it’s out.
Marina Moreira as Janelle Martinez (left) and Sana Asad as Aisha Rehman (right) (Photo: Duane Cole)
What do you hope people will take away after watching this show?
Nisha: I hope that people can relate to somebody, even if it's not Aisha. Maybe it’s Fauzia, or maybe it’s Humza. I want somebody to be like, “Okay, I feel understood,” in some way because I think that’s what we were trying to achieve with the show. Hopefully, someone watching it is like, “Yeah, okay, I get that,” and feel like they get to see the resemblances on a big screen.
Rabiya: When people are really struggling with mental health challenges, it can feel like a really isolating experience. I hope that this show can tell people that, as cheesy as it sounds, you are not alone and there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. There are other people who have gone through similar things and have come out on the other side, and hopefully it gives people a sense of hope.
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