Skip to main content

MISREPRESENTATION OF INDIANS IN AMERICAN FILM


By: Graham Jaeger

 Minorities have always been misrepresented and stereotyped within American media. More specifically, Indians have had a very hard time getting past these false depictions of themselves, especially because of how they are portrayed on television. One show that does a great job of provoking thought on the treatment of how Indian men are represented comes from the Netflix Sitcom titled Master of None.

 Within this show, they make it clear to the audience that the media heavily relies on a prejudiced view of Indian men. This is mainly because Indian men are often objectified as “weird and amusing” (Pfeiffer, 2016). A lot of times, the media uses these stereotypes about the Indian culture as a joke in order to make the audience laugh. Racism has been around for hundreds of years and will constantly linger for as long as I live because of this exact culture that we live in today. A major problem with racism is how the media portrays Indian men through these stereotypes for the entire world to see. The media often depicts the Indian man as “the guy who runs the convenience store, drives a cab, or even works in IT with a funny Indian accent” (Pfeiffer, 2016). Because the media chooses to ignore the racial issues by characterizing Indians through these stereotypes, it creates this barrier between races. This then causes these major divisional lines between them because of the inequality at hand. Audiences never get to see an Indian man as a doctor, a lawyer, or even a CEO in films, which is the main cause of this division because it creates a hierarchical structure between the races.

The sad reality about this is that white men and women, and even black men and women can play just about any role in a movie, where as people from the Indian culture can not. My point with this is that you do not see an Indian man playing a role that Brad Pitt, Kevin Hart, or even Tom Cruz plays because media depicts Indian men as an outlier in both the television and movie industry. “Unidimensional stereotypical media portrayals is a cause for concern because viewers often assimilate such information into long term memory even if it is false” (Ramasubramanian, 2014). There are so many negative stereotypes about each and every race in our world, but none more than the Indian Man. The media almost isolates India as its own stereotype which gives the audience the notion that this is the truth behind Indian men. This sticks with them long term because they’ve never gotten to see Indian men depicted as anything else. If the media continues to misrepresent the Indian culture in television and films, the viewers will start to believe that this is just the sad reality of it all. Despite our world taking a huge stand to end racism with many different protests and movements, people need to understand that equality is not just meant for one specific race, but better yet, it is meant for all of them. Everyone deserves to be treated as equals through the motto do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The media will twist and turn anything they want in order to get the most viewers, so if that means that they have to use stereotypes and misrepresentation to do it, by all means they will do it. One of the reasons the film industry is so wonky is because they will do whatever it takes to make the most money even if that means stereotyping certain races and creating a divide.

 It is necessary for the increase of diversification in film because it changes this prejudiced perception that so many people in the world have and allows them to see how talented and smart others are despite their race. It is sad but true to say that if you are a minority actor such as Aziz Ansari, nobody would have ever thought about creating this show at all if it wasn’t for him. If it wasn’t for Aziz, nobody would have given the Indian culture a chance to shine and show everybody just how equal they are. Overall, the way media and pop culture represent Indians, and other minorities, is simply as extraneous outsiders and if we do not make an effort to change this in the near future, there will always be this racial divide in the film industry.
References
Pfeiffer, L. (2017). How "Master of None" Discusses Representation of Indian Men on
TV. Retrieved November 28, 2018, from
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/master-discusses-representation-indian-men-tv
Ramasubramanian, S. (2014). A Content Analysis of the Portrayal of India in
Films Produced in the West. The Howard Journal of Communications,
16(4), 243-265.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254693061_A_Content_Analysi
s_of_the_Portrayal_of_India_in_Films_Produced_in_the_West

Word Count: 730

Labels:

Comments

  1. KHNovember 29, 2018 at 8:53 AM

    Graham,

    Good to see you taking up the issue of "representational politics" of Indians in US popular culture. As you suggest, media portrayals of Indians are loaded with demeaning stereotypes.

    Equally important, you've located two sources, one academic, one from the popular press, to inform your post. So far, so good. What's missing is a clear and focused application of this material on a discreet cultural object or institution.

    Indeed, when I first ran across your post, I anticipated a brief but incisive discussion of "Master of None." But that never materialized. Instead, you've laid out a rather generic argument about media representation of ethnic and racial minorities.

    On that score, this is fine. As far as it goes. But I want to push you a bit further. In other words, how can you take some of the material you've consulted to critique Master of None in a more focused fashion? Moving forward, I think you'll find this approach to be more productive and rewarding.

    In other words, deploy the literature you've located to speak about the problematic representations you discuss in a more focused fashion on a particular film, TV show, etc.

    Finally, there are lingering issues with your use of APA referencing. (Hint: Upper v lower case in article titles).

    25 pts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousDecember 9, 2018 at 10:04 PM

    Graham,

    I thought you did a pretty good job with this piece.. Misrepresentation of certain ehtnicities/cultures in TV/media is a topic that seems to be recieving more and more attention, rightfully so.

    The only thing I would work on is focusing in more on the point you are attempting to convey. This would help your piece out. Further analyzing your syntax would also help. Other than that, I think you did a nice job!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HANDS UP

By: Leda Turpen Throughout this week, my group is examining how politics have grown with the introduction of modern popular and celebrity culture in our society. While this is our main focus, I would like to shed light on an activism from the perspective of minority professional athletes, specifically the consequences they face when exercising their constitutional right to voice and demonstrate their political stances. I argue that minority celebrity athletes face a social identity threat when protesting for or against current political events, thus, are hesitant to speak up about them. Undoubtedly, our society is no stranger to the kind of reactions and responses celebrity activism can create. One prominent example being the case of Michael Brown, an African American who was shot in killed by a white police officer (Sanderson, Frederick, and Stocz, 2016). Shortly after the incident, the officer was not prosecuted, causing tension immediately (2016, p. 302). After the verdict, fi...
3 comments
Read more

THE BLACKER THE BERRY, THE SWEETER THE JUICE?

  By Aleysha Ward   “You are just as dark as the bottom of my shoe”, “Your skin color is not light enough to hang with us” and “You're so pretty for a black girl.” These are just some of the comments that black women have had to listen to while growing up. As a brown skinned black women, it is frustrating to know that my skin color will always be viewed as negative by society. Why? Well, because it is not close to a Caucasians skin color. Skin tone is a characteristic that can affect a person’s life in both positive and negative ways. Often times, our society has shown us that being of a lighter complexion or closer to a Caucasian’s skin color will provide us with benefits such as higher educational and career opportunities, a greater chance at marriage, and having the ability to be less conscious about your skin color. Although this is not true, factors as such do affect a black women’s self esteem and self efficacy. The issue of colorism continues to divide and shape the ...
2 comments
Read more

SOCIAL CLASS IN THE HUNGER GAMES: THE STRUGGLES OF THE POOR

By Griffin Spurgin The Hunger Games is an action-packed fiction book that was also turned into a movie. Throughout the series, main characters, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are fighting for their lives in a tournament where they battle to the death of all but one tribute. They don't have much to lose as they are from District 12, the poorest district of Panem. The winners of the game get showered in riches from the Capitol and live the rest of their lives as if they were kings. A constant theme throughout the film is how the wealthy don't have to work as hard as the lower class to maintain their status. The upper and middle class are more prepared for the games just like their respected classes are in life. Class representation in film is a popular category among filmmakers. The Hunger Games portrays class in a way that resembles a lot of social systems in the world. The Hunger Games was published in 2008, at the very moment that the financial crisis was p...
3 comments
Read more