CBC Has a New Drama Series Set in Brampton
Published May 27, 2019 at 7:53 am
Nothing’s better than a fantastic show set in your home town.
Nothing’s better than a fantastic show set in your home town.
The 410 is a new drama web series created by Supinder Wraich, that takes place in Brampton. The series was also shot on location.
The series follows Suri, played by Wraich, a young South Asian Bramptonian. She has some issues in her family life, and when she returns to Brampton after her father is arrested for smuggling cocaine, she finds herself in something much more dangerous.
“My main inspiration for the series was having a story that has an ethnic woman in a leading role,” said Wraich. “I always wanted to see more stories following characters, especially women, of ethnic heritage, so I wanted to create my own.”
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A major inspiration for the series was a new story from 2011 about a number of Canadian South Asian truck drivers getting arrested at the border for smuggling drugs.
“I found it so interesting because we never really hear about stories like that,” said Wraich. “It made me want to look into the reason they were doing something like that more. It also made me sad because I come from a family of truckers, so I sympathize with their motives of trying to give their families better lives.”
Wraich also says the series is about the double lives people may be hiding.
“I always look at Instagram and wonder if the people are really living the life they post online,” said Wraich. “The two main characters show that they want to live a different life than the one they actually are.”
Wraich also hopes the series validates the experiences of these communities. Usually, people of ethnic descent are used for comedic relief or play second fiddle to a Caucasian protagonist. Creating a dramatic story following ethnic characters can help tell a story that may very well be happening in the real world.
“I hope people can identify with the characters and their motives and lives,” said Wraich. “I want the series to show that the lives people live should be considered embarrassing, rather relatable.”
Wraich picked Brampton as the location for the series for a few reasons.
“There’s a magic that exists in Brampton,” said Wraich. “Growing up in the 90s to 2000s I remembered everyone looking like me and I wanted to be different. I think many people want to get out of there hometown because they may feel trapped. It creates a feeling of needing to get out. In the case of The 410, Brampton is a representation of that feeling and Toronto is seen as freedom. I think quite a few people can relate to that in Brampton and other cities. For millennials, we don’t like the idea of living in Brampton because its the first city we’ve lived in, but our parents wanted it because it may have been better than previous homes at the time. Suri shows a lot of this feeling at the start, when she has to return to Brampton, a city she thought to be freed from. Now, by returning, she can learn parts of herself she tried to leave behind.”
On a final note Wraich had this to say:
“As we have been doing this press tour, I get a feeling similar to when the Godfather first came out. It references a time where Italians were considered new immigrants. These days I feel like many people of ethnic backgrounds, in this case, South Asian, are still considered to be ‘new’ even though they’ve been here for decades. It’s a struggle that immigrant communities are still going through today. I hope more stories like this showing ethnic families have the same life will erase the illusion of them being newcomers.”
You can watch The 410 on CBC Gem here.
Photos Courtesy of Supinder Wraich and The 410 Team
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