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

Day 21: I'm one of *those* ethnicities. I'm also Harry Houdini.

This post is brought to you by Futurama: Season 6, specifically this episode written by another idiot who thinks stereotypes = humor oh, I meant Patric M. Verrone. 

I've taken to watching Futurama Season 6 - an addiction I developed thanks to Daisy (who no longer blogs).
The show used to be interesting for its take on, among other things, Othering. Take captain Turanga Leela for instance - female, cyclops and one of the mutant sewer people. There's a good message there, right?

Wrong, apparently.
Because its forward-thinking take on othering has less depth than, oh, let's see, the threads on a car tire that's been used for twenty years.

I'm talking of course, of Futurama's "eyePhone" episode.
It started out fairly well - taking jabs at consumerism, internet phenomena and social networking.
See this clip:

Funny, right?

Except, not really.
This episode more than once, singles out desi communities in the roughest of stereotypes.

Watch closer.
You're one of those ethnicities that knows about technology, right?
Um, this is not really the compliment that it sounds like.
I'm that ethnicity Patric Verrone. And I'm A LITERATURE GEEK. I'm by no means a Technology Geek.

What? I'm over-reacting you say?
No, I'm not.
This line of comedy is problematic for two reasons.
First, it perpetuates a stereotype, and not even a funny one at that. Second, it sets the tone for conversations in real life.
(I wish more producers of television shows really understood how true this is.)
Like yesterday.
My very white, very bald, more-or-less friendly neighbor caught me trudging home from school and asked if I or my husband could help him fix his internet router.
When I explained that we'd gotten help with our own from the internet service provider, he said (well-meaningly, of course): "Oh, I'll ask the other Indian guys here then."

This is also problematic because I don't want my identity to be reduced to one aspect of one thing that some people, who are sometimes desi can do, and do well. This is like my associating every white person with George Bush, or *ahem* Michael Jackson.
It is incorrect. And stupid. Not funny, stupid.

II
Now, look at this apparently self-depreciating commentary on the first world taking responsibility for ewaste.

This bit is terribly written. It focuses less on the commentary and more on the general "shock-value" of Third World poverty. If that's not a barely veiled reference to Slumdog-Millionaire*, I don't know what is.

This is a reaction I expect out of my freshman (who, incidentally have called Bharati Mukherjee that weird Indian Chick with a weird name). But coming from a popular television show, ugh! This is juvenile.

(As an aside a.b., this is the other reason that I think Ted Women is a positive influence. People need to see the non-hyped images of women, indeed of people, doing real work in the real (third) world.)

III

And..... my final bugaboo with the show is this little dialog: 

Leela (speaking of a two-faced goat that eats at one end and vomits at the other) : What do you feed him?

Bender: What comes out one end we feed to the other. Also, Indian food.

Such scathing wit! Oh look everyone, it's Noel Coward.

No, no. Don't get me wrong.

There's no reason everyone should like Indian food. 

Indian food can be an invasion on the senses and can be, um, reeky.

But really, this is disappointing. 

For a show that used to have a decent take on othering, this sucks. 

----

Really, Patric Verrone seems to have used this episode as an outlet for some really personal issues. 

Why didn't anyone tell me that's what good comedy was about?

Oh wait, because it isn't.

I've skimmed through a few sites and while several people have mentioned the censorship of the last scene in the episode, nobody seems to talk about these incredibly insulting racial slurs in the episode.
I'm shocked.
And disappointed.
And, oh yeah Fucking Tired of Being Treated As A Generic Stereotype.

*This is a complete post in itself. Among other things, I've been asked if India is really like that. I've taken to saying yes, we all swim in shit and have to leave the country so we can get a bar of soap. 

The lesson is that you pick and choose your battles wisely and understand and communicate your outrage in a cogent, unassailable and proportionate manner.

And while we're on the topic of racism, and commentary about how outrage begets outrage:

It is such a tiny, tiny jump from Stein's faux-satire to this.

Divyendu Sinha, a 49-year-old scientist and professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology, died Monday morning after he and his two sons were attacked while going for a walk in Old Bridge last week. Read On...

The boy, who I inevitably rant to, nodded (before we knew of the Divyendu Sinha story) and sagely added that several of these happen everyday and go unreported. More subtle day-to-day biases get easily brushed off.

Hell yeah, I vote reflection over reaction. I agree with the idea that we need to pick and choose our battles...wisely, even. I'm with you when you assert considered outrage cogent communication. My only conflict (with myself more than anyone else) is with the line, between burshing it off, and doing something about it.