Tuesday, March 22, 2011

In which we talk about Outsourced, Race, Culture and Asians

Pavani on Sepia Mutiny brought up the NBC sitcom, Outsourced asking (among other things) if Lizardi's article changed your mind about the show.


And what with the recent obnoxiousnesses about Asians, I've been thinking about my answer to this question.


First, a disclaimer. I haven't watched Outsourced since the first few (five, maybe six) episodes. Everything I say here is based only on these few episodes.


At the time, I remember thinking it was vastly better than the eponymous film* but the jokes, the style, the plying of the Indian stereotype were way too vaudevillian (I was going to bring up a comparison to Shahrukh Khan's terrible, terrible minstrel-show-portrayal of African-Americans but that's a post for a different day.)**


I can't bring myself to return to the show (although it is somewhat funny, I guess) - because I don't find it funny. And no, Lizardi's article did not change my mind. At All.


Although I buy into her justification of needing to use "character types" to derive humor, I find this whole race-bashing-in-the-disguise-of-humor very, um, unappealing. Even if there are five South Asian characters on the show telling stories that often come straight from (their) personal experiences (LAT). 


And as for the speculation that "perhaps they (non-fans of the show) don't believe (South Asians) should make fun of themselves" - well, I'm South Asian, I've worked in an offshore set up and I don't think I'm fairly capable of making fun of myself***. Why then am I so uncomfortable with the show?


I'm going with the reasoning of the wise and wonderful a.b. with whom I had this conversation earlier today. The show presents the white American male as the norm and the South Asians, inevitably, as The Other - different, ridiculous, funny. Given that Tandon Lizardi is American, and that the show is an American show, this is inevitable - I get that.


(And I'm actually not that angry with this show.)
But it is this Othering that bothers the bludgeons out of me.


I feel like I've said this a gazillion times before: I don't want to be seen as a cultural stereotype, an educational experience, an oddity, an Other. (And with my brown skin, I have enough trouble fending this off, thank you very much.) I don't need a show like Outsourced adding to, what Lizardi "consider(s) to be Indian stereotypes: doctors, engineers, spelling bee champs, Kwik-E-Mart owners".


And I haven't watched the show recently, but going by Lizardi's article, why is she saying "the characters in "Outsourced" care about each other and learn from one another"? 


(Daisy, I know you watch and like the show. So I'm hoping you're reading this and will answer these questions)


Okay, more specifically, why does she follow it up with examples of Todd rescuing  positively influencing Indian people who are bound by culture tighter than Kate Winslet's corset in the Titanic? Besides learning about fabricated, exaggerated, grotesquely simplified Indian Culture, what exactly is Todd learning from the other characters?


In a recent class conversation with M. Butterfly****, one of my better students referred to the entire phenomenon of outsourcing as "those jobs being given off to those people". And the rhetoric itself is not problematic, it is the reasoning behind the rhetoric, the unsaid ("given", "those") Othering that makes me anxious. I'm worried, I guess, that the show has the potential to undermine all our class-conversations about race and culture and David Henry Hwang in subtle, insidious ways. 


That said, meaning is always a process of negotiation. (The Indian student in my class, for instance, does not find the show offensive in any way.) And maybe the lady worrieth too much. 


*Shrug*. I'm with Tandon Lizardi's notion that there is the possibility of a more cohesive diversity. I just don't think exaggerating random, stereotypical "quirks" is the way to it. 


* Really Ayesha Dharker, I want to know what made you accept the role.
** Admittedly, Shah Rukh Khan's incredible ignorance and crassness makes me throw up. It is, in so many ways, MUCH worse. Maybe Shahrukh Khan can write for Outsourced?
*** The sibling will agree that I'm no longer that person, yeah?
**** Which my students are handling brilliantly!


Footnote: Another reaction to the UCLA video

1 comment:

a. b. said...

Anyone invoking the, "X doesn't think it's offensive and they are X!" logic automatically fails. Case in point: I used to think "dumb blonde" jokes were funny.

Argh. Imma go read that article.