When I was in middle school, kids would always come up and ask me questions like "Do Indians eat monkey brains?" and "What do snakes taste like?". I never knew why I was being asked this until I finally saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and realized that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg made a horrible movie that told an entire generation completely idiotic stereotypes about my people. However, that movie came out 30 years ago and I figured times had changed. I've seen that Indians are more respected in media and have watched them receive an increasing number of positive roles in television and movies. I never really expected to see a show with a mainly Indian cast in American television, but I was okay with that for demographic reasons. So when I heard about Outsourced, I was very pleasantly surprised that this show was being made. After I watched the pilot for Outsourced, however, the only thing I could think of was that this was The Temple of Doom rebuilt for the 21st century.
For those of you unaware of this show, Outsourced is about an American call center manager who gets sent to India after all the call center jobs are. . .well. . . outsourced. This show is based on the movie Outsourced and its intention is to poke fun at the inevitable culture clash between America and India. I want to say right now that I would have no problem with this. There are many truly amusing things about both American and Indian culture and how they interact. There was a true possibility for a good comedy show here. My problem was that Outsourced crossed the line from teasing and mocking the mutual ridiculousness of our cultures to being outright offensive toward the Indian people.
Outsourced took every bad stereotype about Indians and went for jokes that hit the lowest common denominator. At lunch, the call center manager, Todd, is told by another American to not eat Indian food as it will make him shit for five days. I grew up in California but my understanding is that Indian food is pretty popular, generally. I've had Indian food in India. While you can cheerfully make fun of how it looks, it tastes amazing. Todd also finds much amusement in the name of one of his employees, "Manmeet". You'd think primetime television would have progressed beyond mocking someone just for their name. There is the requisite meek and low voiced Indian character. Todd's assistant manager, and Indian, explains that she was hired simply so she could be fired as an incentive to the other employees. When Todd objects to this, his assistant manager says that it's okay as she's from a lower caste. This is incredibly offensive and shows an extreme lack of understanding on the writer's part. To an Indian, this is the equivalent of saying it is okay to fire someone because they're black. There is no way that would ever be said about African Americans or Hispanics on television today. If it WAS said, it would be clearly understood that the person was racist and an idiot, it wouldn't be depicted as just being the way things are. There is also a scene where Todd is astonished that Indians don't know why Packer fans wear Cheeseheads and equates the funny headgear to the turbans and head coverings Indians wear. Not to mention that in such a large city, these Indians apparently have no knowledge of American culture. Never mind that they've probably seen all the major movies and TV shows. It's Americans who tend to be ignorant of Indian culture, not the other way around.
There were many more little bits in Outsourced that were either offensive or just not funny. As far as I can tell, there isn't a single Indian writer for this show, which I just find puzzling in a show with such a large Indian cast. What are the writers using for research, episodes of the Simpsons? The one funny bit in the show is where an Indian call center employee displays a flawless Southern accent and talks about his love of grits. I found that pretty amusing and a good comment on how Indians are instructed to act American for call centers. I had hoped the rest of the show would be like that, rather than 15 seconds of amusement in 22 minutes.
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