“Outsourced” – NBC’s Latest Foray Into Racist Xenophobia
Comments (51)
The cast of "Outsourced" on NBC (Mitchell Haaseth/NBC)
We start with Todd Dempsey (Ben Rappaport), a dashing young white American go-getter, who has just been informed abruptly that his entire sales team has been axed and the job has been outsourced to India. Dempsey then takes a trip in some rickety auto-rickshaw in what can only be a studio lot depicting the hustle of Mumbai, and lands in his new office as the manager.
Now here’s where the writers get it completely wrong – instead of taking this opportunity to deliver some smart, topical comedy, they resort to racist Indian stereotypes. Within Dempsey’s first day, he manages to insult Indian names (Manmeet must obviously find it difficult when he trawls the internet because, yes, his name sounds like man meat…), insult Indian ‘funny headgear’ (turban and headscarf jokes are so 2001), joke about cows being sacred and yes, you guessed it – give not one, but two speeches on America being the land of the free.
Whether Americans like to believe it or not, India and its people have come a long way from the naively backward depiction in “Outsourced”. Even if the eastern cultures are steeped more in traditional values, it is very likely that educated Indians will know exactly what American culture is like, purely from the saturation of American influence in popular culture around the world – Indians have access to Hollywood movies and American television shows, and chances are, the educated masses will know what mistletoe is (yes, they do have Christians and Christmas in India). Indian food doesn’t usually resemble yellow and green shit, and promiscuity isn’t just an American invention - there is a youth culture in India, and trust me, they do their fair share of experimenting, like any young kids.
And talking of America being the land of the free to express yourself, as Dempsey preaches – really? REALLY?! Just the mere fact that profanity and sexual content is banned from most the networks and yet, it’s perfectly ok to see Khourtney Kardashian being humped on a balcony on primetime E! (the explicit parts blurred out, of course), once again spells out American hypocrisy. By portraying one negative stereotype, the writers either intentionally, or unintentionally, manage to bare another stereotype shared around the world – the ignorant American.
Rebecca Hazelwood (Asha) delivers a disappointing performance, especially since she’s an established soap-actress in the UK. Being a British-Indian should give her the advantage of being able to study the accents much closer to home, and yet her character comes off contrived. Sacha Dhawan (Manmeet) is able to bring a marginally more dynamic performance, but the scripts are so appalling that the cast may as well break out into a Bollywood musical number.
The show is based on a 2006 film of the same name, and the film’s two writers are involved in the script of the television adaptation. The plot is also very similar to a short-lived British television show called "Mumbai Calling," written by the talented British-Indian comedian Sanjeev Bhaskar (one of the masterminds behind BBC’s "Goodness Gracious Me") – being Indian, Bhaskar was able to portray the race without descending into caricatures, and even then, the show didn’t really have staying power.
With shows like "Community" and "The Office", NBC should have a handle on how to do situation comedy without resorting to stereotypes. However, the writers of this show have clearly either never been to India, or else they have a disturbingly skewed impression of it. There are some amazingly talented Indian-American comedians in Hollywood (Aziz Ansari, Arj Barker, "The Office’s" Mindy Kaling and "The Big Bang Theory’s" Kunal Nayyar to name just a few), and while on one hand, it’s nice to see more Indians on television, it’s embarrassing to see them depicting their race in such an appalling light. As for the comedy, there was none. Underlying every joke was a not-so-thinly-veiled insult, and Rappaport does not have the skills to pull off awkward humor like Ricky Gervais and Steve Carell.
Coming from a family of educated, hard-working Indians, it's frustrating to see our race stripped down to such a degrading level. Cultural differences are always a good go-to topic for humor, especially for stand-up comedians (although if I have to hear another “Englishman, Irishman, Scottishman”, bar joke, I’ll lose my mind), but “Outsourced” fails to explore cultural differences – rather, it insinuates India = silly, while America = clever (and what a clever invention that fake dog poo is). Indians are hugely underrepresented on the big and small screen, but when portrayed in this incredibly demeaning manner, it’s safe to say that I’d rather have no representation at all.
Reach Senior Entertainment Editor Piya Sinha-Roy here, and follow her on Twitter @PiyaSRoy.
Comments
Hey dipshits! Shut up! Its a funny show, everyone gets along and forms relationships and bonds, no one IS BLOWING EACHOTHER UP (I am talking to you Iranian and Afgahni show haters). So, step A.) remove poll from ass, step B.) move on
At first I was a little offended (as an Iranian American), until I realized the show's flavor; it's not depicting Indian culture as backwards, it's depicting Americans as IGNORANT. Much like in The Office or Curb Your Enthusiasm, the naive jokes about Indian traditions are less "hahah they are so teh stupids" and more to make you uncomfortable about Todd's naivety about the world. Plus, the show does as many DIRECT jabs at American culture as it does w Indians. Overall I think it is a harmless, amusing program and really enjoy the characterization within.
Not to mention it is a great vehicle to expose a "less-worldy" American audience to some of the fantastic things about Indian culture (clothing, music, etc). You don't have to watch the Discovery Channel to pick up a bit of knowledge. Hell all the German I learned was from listening to Rammstein, and my first English was from watching Three's Company.
“””Jolly Vindaloo Day”””, I like this episode very much. I view it with its entertainment value and its fun with culture clash. Most Americans view it politically and gets bitter. The most offensive show is not outsourced, its “Glenn Beck”.
The real outsourcing has many factor to be mad about. First of all its not Indians who started outsourcing, greedy American corporates are responsible for this situation and its a competitive idea of American capitalism.
Failing American education system takes a big share of this blame. Even though India does not have a well rounded education system and lack fluency in English, their education system is focused on specialization, deep knowledge in their major field of study. While American universities are vague for the first two years. In case of an American engineering student the first two years are filled with unrelated subjects, like history and other general education which has nothing to do with their major fixing the damage done by failing school system. So the Indian graduates have more exposure and knowledge in their field because their general education is finished by 12th grade with mandatory math and science throughout. In University they focus only on their major, no history lessons for an engineering student. This enables the Indian engineers to stay more focused at work which is exactly what corporates are looking for. Even though Indians are underpaid than Americans they are lot easy to manage and more efficient. That’s why even in this bad economy, Microsoft, Nike and Intel are importing Indian engineers to Beaverton, Oregon and Seattle, WA under contract to do the job that American workers are not efficient in doing. Asia (China & India) produces more honor students than America.
Americans should understand that times have changed, its Global Economy. Asian countries (China & India) have put more emphasis in Math and Science in their schools and colleges, and their graduates are skilled than Americans.
Speaking fluent English, bathing in racial superiority and feeding on empty psychological words like self esteem, self worth from Dr. Phil will not do any good for corporates like Microsoft, Intel and Nike. You need to learn math and science subjects very well and prove that you are worthy for these outsourced jobs.
Its the American government, American Educational System and American greedy corporates who outsourced your jobs. So why don’t you channel your racial bitterness to do some good in fixing the above.
Can't take the heat, get out the kitchen!
THIS SHOW IS GREAT!!! Come on the idea is to create characters absolutely exaggerated for
People to laugh about themselves. Here I give you a great point t mostly for the people that
Keep calling the show racist: "they have made a caricature of all the characters EVEN THE WHITE AMERICAN GUY". Actually if u analyze (stop with the whole RACIST CRAP and analyze what u are watching) THE SMARTER CHARACTERS ARE THE INDIAN CHARACTERS. The main WHITE GUY is dumb as hell. The other American is a tacky looser and the Australian is a whore bimbo. The fact they are laughing at the Americans and Australians too makes it NOT RACIST. RACIST WOULD BE IF ONLY THE INDIAN CHARACTERS WERE CARICATURED! God people are so caught up on putting their guards up and look for shit everywhere that totally lose their objectivity, sense of humor and ability to laugh about themselves. For years I have seen LATIN people being totally caricatured and for years (including now) I can still see Latin characters being stereotyped (hard accents, remarks about their legal status in America. Let's not go to far back: 2 weeks a go NINA GARCIA used the phrase: She looks like Miss Guatemala at Project Runway in a totally derogatory way while describing how ridiculous the design of a dress was... That's racist!!!! -and no I'm not from Guatemala) but you don't have riots asking to pull the plug on a show. Or people praying for the show to get cancelled!! For god's sakes!!!! GET OVER! and most of all BE HONEST, how many times have you and everybody else felt frustrated and course at the fact that u call to an American company and an obvious indian person pick up the call and tells u his name is Sean and you complaint about not understanding crap?! At least they have NOT made the characters to change their names
As the companies actually do in INDIA, ARGENTINA (best buy, us robotics among others have their call centers there), PHILIPPINES, ECUADOR, and PAKISTAN. GET OVER IT IS A COMEDY. LEARN TO LAUGH ABOUT YOURSELVES!
I think the show did some good service to the indians depicting them as clean, groomed, nicely dressed people. Unfortunately, our company in the US got the smelly/slobby ones
[...] ?Outsourced? ? NBC's Latest Foray Into Racist XenophiliaNeon TommyDempsey then takes a trip in some rickety auto-rickshaw in what can only be a studio lot depicting the hustle of Mumbai, and lands in his new office as the …and more » [...]
Racism:
"Daniel it is against the law for you to work here. You can come here on vacation but you cannot work here."
-- Indian officials to U.S. IT worker Daniel Soong who wanted to migrate to Bangalore, India to work.
CIO Magazine, March 2003
Still waiting for Piya to tell us what, exactly, her father did at IBM and how he helped bring the internet to the masses.
Or was it all just wild made up claims with nothing to back it up.
And the best you can do is cite your father's accomplishments? How about your own? Or do you have any?