{"id":23843,"date":"2010-05-25T10:22:12","date_gmt":"2010-05-25T15:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=23843"},"modified":"2013-12-15T02:58:39","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T07:58:39","slug":"on-the-new-comedy-outsourced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/05\/25\/on-the-new-comedy-outsourced\/","title":{"rendered":"On the New Comedy, Outsourced"},"content":{"rendered":"

K. sent in a trailer for a new comedy called Outsourced.\u00a0 In it, a white call center manager is sent to India to\u00a0 manage a company full of Indian workers who take orders for gag items (including jingle jugs<\/a>).\u00a0 I think the it is both troubling and promising at the same time.\u00a0 My thoughts after the trailer:<\/p>\n

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On the one hand, a lot of prior experience and several aspects of this trailer make me worry that this show is going to capitalize on negative stereotypes of Indians, especially ones that suggest that they are goofy and nerdy and are hilariously unfamiliar (e.g., “stupid” names and “scary” food)… with a handful of stereotypes about Americans thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 The show threatens to reaffirm a binary where the U.S. and India are completely different in every way.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I am encouraged by the fact that the show includes a wide range of Indian characters.\u00a0 In some cases, our stereotypes are upset by traits that Americans are conditioned not to expect in Indians (such as the guy who likes to dance); in other cases, characteristics are clearly attributed to individuals instead of “Indians” (such as the girl who is afraid to talk).\u00a0 Further, it becomes clear in the trailer that the employees in the manager’s office are misfits because they’re misfits, not because they’re Indian.\u00a0 The competitor call center employees are not misfits at all.\u00a0 They are clearly super-effective and excellently-trained (though, perhaps, also Westernized).\u00a0 The ridiculousness of the main ensemble cast, then, isn’t attributed to their Indianness per se.<\/p>\n

So, yes, I fear that this is going to be a show that makes (white) Americans laugh by suggesting that Indians are dorky and weird.\u00a0 At the same time, I see promise in a show that actually casts Indians as individuals instead of representatives of their nation\/race.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

K. sent in a trailer for a new comedy called Outsourced.\u00a0 In it, a white call center manager is sent to India to\u00a0 manage a company full of Indian workers who take orders for gag items (including jingle jugs).\u00a0 I think the it is both troubling and promising at the same time.\u00a0 My thoughts after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1784,285,1759,76],"class_list":["post-23843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-nation-india","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-asianspacific-islanders","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23843"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23972,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23843\/revisions\/23972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}