Hello! Let me just say that I didn't think this video would get even 1/100th of the views that it currently has. There are a LOT of interesting insights being dropped in the comments, and I'm having a blast reading through it all. I'm grateful and beyond overwhelmed with how much this topic resonates with you, Indian or otherwise. Thank you all for watching! Having said that, I want to clarify a few things: 1.) "I think it's okay to make racist jokes about Indians, so long as it's funny" Another huge component of that is CONTEXT. With the Russell Peters example, obviously his jokes wouldn't hit the same if it was coming from a stand-up comedian that was NOT Indian. Having said that, I have seen people like Lilly Singh receive backlash for her Indian impressions and jokes about Indian people, as well as other Indian comedians being criticized for relying too much on racial humor, whereas Russell Peters (from what I've observed) is universally loved. It is incredibly difficult to write and perform comedic material, which is why it's such an incredible accomplishment when someone is successful at it. 2.) Gandhi may not have been the sole reason Clone High was cancelled, but it is worth noting that the show was rebooted for a 2nd season WITHOUT his character *X-files themesong* 3.) There's nothing inherently wrong with a non-Indian actor voicing an Indian character like with Gandhi or Dr. Vindaloo or hell, even Raj from Camp Lazlo, but I would say that automatically disqualifies that character from being "good representation". How can you represent Indians when you're not even being voiced by an Indian? 4.) Despite all my shit-talking, I don't think any of the shows or movies I mentioned are bad. None of them are *unspeakably terrible* works of TV or film, I even said that I was a fan of some of them. I just think that going forward, Indian characters deserve better.
To respectfully answer the question "How can you represent Indians when you're not even being voiced by an Indian?": I say that I appreciate your concern and I understand your point of view. I'm not an Indian (I'm Black, Puerto Rican, and indigenous) but I acknowledge the importance of having Indian voices and perspectives be represented. However, I believe that working together, regardless of background or identity, is crucial for advancing the cause of justice and equality. I'm here to listen, learn, and advocate for all people, including Indians. But I do like a lot of characters that don't represent the minorities they play. For example, the TV series "The Cleveland Show" features Cleveland voiced by a white actor, and the cartoon film "Anastasia" features the lead voiced by a non-Russian voice actress. These are just some examples of a larger issue of minorities being vocally represented by people outside their communities. Moreover, while it may be preferable to have matching minorities voice act their respective characters, quality should matter more than mere representation. We should like characters for their personality and backstory and just view it as a plus if they represent different races. Let's recognize and appreciate the effort and quality brought by people from all backgrounds and identities rather than just focusing on race as a forefront in storytelling. Also, it would be harsh to discredit someone's voice acting or representation efforts just because they aren't of the same minority as the character they are expressing. And yes, in my opinion, it would be racist to only regard true Indians as representative of Indian characters. Because that would be like saying that despite Oscar Isaac doing an amazing job voice acting Miguel O'Hara, it would be a shame he's not Mexican and Irish and just Guatemalan born American. Even though I'm Latino and I'm just overall happy by the fact Miguel O'Hara is an enjoyable character (despite being a red flag).
Also for the last part I only think it's racist to say things like that if the character doesn't have an accent. Because when it does happen it usually isn't good
I completely understand the direction you are taking... If anything else you are promoting awareness to a topic that should be discussed..... Believe me when I say.... you are NOT the problem....... Thank You.
I'm dominican and I've seen a similar situation with the sophia vergara accent in modern family being make fun of on spanish tiktok because some think it's exaggerated, but the thing is that fresh of the boat first generation inmigrants do have a thick accent, it's second and third generations that manage to completely assimilate and apparently they find the represention offensive now.
I lived in India and Disney adapted a bunch of Disney channel sitcoms. What's funny is that, to make it less offensive, they made the Indian guy in Jessie a Sri-Lankan, and in Suite Life they made the Indian prince come from some made up country.
That's interesting! They cast entirely different actors for DCOMs shown internationally? I mean, it makes sense for representation, but I kind of want to look into this now.
@@ChiangKai-Shrek I will absolutely look into this! I've heard of action movies and rom-coms adapted internationally, but not Disney channel specifically. Thank you!
@@jesserivera2043 Huh, didn't know other countries did that too. Interesting. The strangest thing about them is that they aired on the Indian Disney channel, so they're completely official.
@@KarraMeansSpicyAs someone with a family similar to the Heffley’s (in this case I would be Rodrick) they probably already have just off camera after all you can’t show that kind of stuff in a family film
I cant with the backing music for Baljeet being stereotypically Indian for him talking about his science passion, it's like them trying to signal "look, Indian moment!" Imagine if every American character had bluegrass or the US National Anthem in the background of their dialogue 😭 It's giving "I don't have any type of accent!?" ignorance.
@@icecreamhero2375same I would genuinely like to see that done, if only to showcase to Americans how weird it is (and also bc I would genuinely find it very funny)
@@vincentgeiszler3749 I like All Might from My Hero Accademia. Once Teen Titans Go did a song about America. All the Americans were fat. Robin was also singing about freedom in front of the state penitentiary.
@@vincentgeiszler3749 Most stereotypical American I can think of. He has a cowboy accent. He wears red white and blue, and flys everywhere on a giant eagle.
Let's not pretend we don't in every other country but ours. For fuck's sake we literally do it to a portion of our OWN society-- we KNOW it's goin' on over there, and so does everybody else.
The fact that they put a child in this situation is gross, I'm glad you pointed blame at the adults not him. Sadly most people online are cruel to child actors since they're the face of the character rather than the adults and directors who instructed him in those roles, it's hard enough to grow up as a minority what to say one in the limelight with guardians like those
Child actors have it rough. I often contemplate what the long-term impact of having to say or do assorted things will have or has had on them. Plus, there's the additional pressure to "schmooze" and interact like a tiny adult, and a lot of the adults you'll be interacting with are drunk on fame, utterly detached from reality, or Dan Schneider. I reckon this also underscores the racial double standards in play, because even a white kid who's had to play an inbred, racist Southerner or an aggressive gabagoolin' New Yawkah now and then presumably has gotten to play other types of roles, whereas I imagine having half or more of your career consist of you going "Thank you come again" or "Durka durka muhammad jihad" probably takes its toll on your psyche after a while.
Child actors have it rough. I often contemplate what the long-term impact of having to say or do assorted things will have or has had on them. Plus, there's the additional pressure to "schmooze" and interact like a tiny adult, and a lot of the adults you'll be interacting with are drunk on fame, utterly detached from reality, or Dan Schneider. I reckon this also underscores the racial double standards in play, because even a white kid who's had to play a yeehaw Southerner or an aggressive gabagoolin' New Yawkah now and then presumably has gotten to play other types of roles, whereas I imagine having half or more of your career consist of you going "Thank you come again" in a thick accent can take its toll on your self-esteem and identity after a while.
As a black American, I don't think that it's wrong to compare the minstrelsy of the 20th century to the Indian characters we saw back in the 2000s. It quite literally is a form of minstrelsy. Actors are having to don a voice, play up stereotypes, and put on exaggerated expressions to get roles in Hollywood. Is that not minstrelsy? The kid from Jessie and Wimpy Kid had to get an accent coach, either because he did not have the accent or because no one thought his accent was Indian "enough". Know what I'm saying? Also, I think Kal Pen said what he said because Kumar was different. "At least you're not being called Apu" It's the lowest bar, but there's something to be said about there being put into more than one box by people. At least they don't JUST see you as X. Idk. Also, Whoopi collects the minstrel memorabilia as a way to preserve history. It's a way of knowing where you came from, of not letting others ignore or forget the past. It's history! Recent history! It's jarring at first, but once you sit down and think about the meaning behind the collection, you'll get it. And last thing, I think India took more offense to the Gandhi portyral because he's such a public figure. Like, it's a point of national pride, he's the father of India. So of course they're gonna try and stop something that tarnishes his image. At least that's how I see it.
there are certainly similarities to be drawn between the two! all our struggles are connected. i think the comparison is a tad much. i think its fine to consider minstrelsy in its totality, as a black specific phenomenon, and not use it as a yard stick to measure other people's fights for better representation
Also minstrelsy in the context of shows was done in order to make fun of black people. It was done with Ill intent, with the Indian character it was more playing the stereotype up for laughs without any specific vitriol towards indian people, since there was no segregation of them during the time these characters came out.
its always so interesting seeing native english speakers talk about baljeet, because in the dub i got to watch as a kid he doesnt have an accent. hes just the nerdy kid and happens to be brown. sure, his indian heritage still comes up and the whole "baliwood" number still exists, so its not like that one change suddenly makes him great representation, but when i first heard his original voice i was so surprised because growing up to me baljeet was just a smartypants who, like, sometimes had indian musical cues in the background of his scenes.
The German dub also had nothing of the likes, he talked just like everybody else and hearing his original voice for the first time was just a "wtf" moment to me, though I didn't realize it was a stereotype until much later.
Also Raj, in the spanish dub he has a normal voice in the first 3-4 seasons, I don't now why they change his voice in the rest of the show having an accent
If I can jump in as a guy who watched a lot of Phineas & Ferb growing up. One of the creators Dan Povenmire has expressed regret to early characterization of Baljeet, he thinks that later episodes fleshed out his character. And personally, I agree; Sure, he still nerdy and neurotic, but he becomes a person instead of a stereotype. He gets jokes that aren't just based around him being smart, he is willing to get out of his comfort zone. I have also always been fascinated by his and Buford's (the kid in the clips) relationship. It starts out confrontational, even abusive, but they eventually find a comradery that is genuinely sweet. Now, This is from a white boy who is fully willing to admit he could be wrong, but I would suggest taking some time to watch a couple of the later episodes and specials, you may find them better. great video, hope to hear from you soon!
And Baljeet wasn't the only nerd anyway. There were lots of nerds. Phineas and Ferb themselves, Doof, Irving. All nerds, so it's not like "The Indian is a nerd because he's Indian"
in the Scott Pilgrim franchise, there's an indian character called Matthew Patel. in the comics, he is Ramona's first evil ex and has mystical powers however he's short lived due to easily defeated by the main character Scott. in the live action movie, he's mostly the same but now has a bollywood song. but in the recent anime, they expanded more on his character by giving him more screentime and dialogue, and also making him the CEO and is a theater kid. Matthew doesn't have the accent, but they are few bits of stereotypes in him but overall he's a great character.
I vaguely remember it being very Bollywood in the comics too, but it's been 10 years and it may be one of those things where my brain is mixing the two afterwards, lol Edit: just grabbed my comic, and he definitely summons the "Demon hipster chicks" back up dancers and its very obvious from poses and nature of the dialog that they are having a Bollywood style dance/sing off in the scene.
it's always so interesting to see people of other cultures explain stereotypes that people who aren't of that culture wouldn't notice. Like I once saw an Asian woman explaining the colored streak in female Asian character's hair trope, which is something I never caught on to. as a black woman I obviously can't relate to being Indian, but it was weird to me how exaggerated Karan Brar being Indian was in the show Jessie. He had a whole lizard as a pet...I've never been to India or anything but I'm certain Indians can have normal pets like dogs and cats. Also I don't know if you saw the new mean girls but Karen's actress was played by a beautiful Indian lady who did an interview on how nice it was to break away from these kinds of stereotypes
YES! Avantika from the new Mean Girls movie is so freaking beautiful!! It's weird that playing a "dumb bimbo" is groundbreaking, but truthfully, it IS groundbreaking when THIS is the precedent for Indian representation!! Thanks for watching!
The stereotypical portrayals are insulting. I remember seeing Raj on the Big Bang Theory and thinking “ is this what show runners think Indian people are like?” I really hope portrayals of Indian people are getting better
What sucks too, is that he's still the only character on the show that actually seems close to treating women like people, and the writing treats that like some stereotypical lapse in masculinity? Like they accidentally stumble into improving on the template using a stereotype??
@@FabulousSquidwardYeah, for real. Some of what he did, like hanging out with the girls and all seems to me to have only been a punchline (indian man is feminine, haha funny joke) rather than a consistent part of his character, because he continues to be misogynistic with his friends or even sometimes IN FRONT OF those women. Sorry for the semi-long paragraph. Could probably complain about this show all day lol because it's far from just him.
No they’re not they are genuinely more interesting than indian with American accent, plus i don’t know every Indian Ive met irl actually talks like that maybe a little less exaggerated but pretty much the same, Stereotypes are fun they’re only insulting to westerners that grow up in America i doubt actual indians in India are actually insulted hell none of the ones i met seem to be bothered by characters like apu, Plus we Australians have stereotypes and those aren’t seen as insensitive and no we’re not a race but i don’t think that makes it difference, i don’t know but me personally i love stereotypes especially the super offensive ones of old
This is a topic I have always been SO passionate about! I remember as a kid seeing Ravi in Jessie and wondered why they made him very stereotypically Indian but didn't make Zuri stereotypically African? And then when I saw him in diary of a wimpy kid and heard his accent and was like "oh that's how he really talks" but when I discovered that he actually has an American accent in real life it just made me feel so... Bad? Like why do they make him speak with that accent in every single thing? Even as a kid I realized it wasn't right
To expand on your point, Zuri wasn’t stereotypically African, but she was _definitely_ stereotypically black. Her constant sarcasm, being thirsty for revenge all the time, lazy and obsessed with scamming people to get rich, uncontrollable anger, complusive liar and manipulator.. The Jessie writers were really, really bad at writing characters of colour 😭
Not to play devils advocate or anything, but I think they adopted Ravi as an older kid/tween. And they adopted Zuri when she was a baby/toddler. So one grew up in the country they were born in and the other didn’t. Also Luke was from Detroit, Michigan. I honestly don’t know anything about Detroit so idk if he plays into any stereotypes or not.
@@vincentgeiszler3749even then, Emma grew and matured from her stereotype, but Ravi and Zuri never did And if you count Bunkd, Tiffany and Jorge were stereotypes and they never became anything else
You can thank Cameron Boyce for the fact there's not a Korean stereotype child. Luke was apparently going to be a Korean boy named "Hiro", but the casting directors liked Cameron so much that they changed the character so he could have that role instead.
@@gabby222themoon Mindy also made Velma and Never Have I Ever which Indians have criticized (also Devi is antisemitic, she made a comment in one ep about how Ben should have been taken by H*tler)
@@anglosaxiphone8246While that is true Mindy Kaling plays essentially one character: Herself. This can be a good thing in the office… and a bad thing in Velma.
and it's often ignored. and because all they see is "no melanin. white. european." they actively try and call you racist and tell you you don't need rep. despite the constant negative portrayals of eastern europe. despite the anti-ee sentiment throughout history and even now, from the triple k cult lynching slavs, to the ukrainian internment in ww1, to most of the german invasions being slavic, balkan, and the baltics, to general anti-ee hatred and bullying due to politics like the russia ukraine war, a lot of brexitters being anti-polish, slavic erasure in things like the new witcher, anti-ee propaganda like the taken franchise and it's spirutual successor hostel
Gandhi was a part of why Clone High was cancelled, but not the only reason. MTV was trying a lot of different things at the time, including a lot of animated shows pretty much all of which only lasted a season. So it was mostly likely that the show wasn't getting the ratings they wanted for the cost of animating a show. So combine that with the bad press and it was an easy decision.
Phineas and Ferb is really interesting, where a lot of the characters start one note stereotypes, but over the show's run they get their nuances fleshed out and I think that's partially because characters as characters is just...more enjoyable to watch than stereotypes. Baljeet starts off as the smart, geeky wimp but as the show goes on he becomes a LOT more confident, snarky and arguably the straight man of the group; most likely to comment on how weird the situations they get into are. Him being academically focused goes from being a joke about him being a teachers pet, to him being the reliable Facts & Formula genius to Phineas's creative genius and Ferb's mechanical genius. The moments where he trio's up with Phineas and Ferb to solve a logistical problem are really cute, and emphasis that his genius is as admireable as the titular character. Early on, one of the Fireside girls liking Baljeet is treated as (honestly a kind mean) joke, but by the end lots of girls like him and that's just...a thing about Baljeet that everyone accepts. That's not to say he completely stopped being a stereotype, being a straight laced nerd is still an aspect of the characer that they lean on for humour. However since the show ended I think both the creators and his voice actor have acknowledged that how they treated his Indian identity hasn't aged well, so I hope in the reveival they push to actualise him as an individual beyond a stereotype.
@@Galvatronover Perhaps I should have said "push further". I think Baljeet did end the show in a much better place than when he started, but he was still the 3rd go to character to be the butt of a joke after Doofenshmirtz and Candace. In part I think that may be because his snarky or deadpan responses ARE pretty funny, and something unique to his character. The joke is less about the universe humiliating him and more about how is aware of and unimpressed by the universe doing that. However that still means he takes the most L's amongst the gang of friends, and being the lone non-pale kid, that comes with historical baggage. I don't think they have to totally do away with those jokes, but I think it'd be neat if he got to win a bit more. He's also funny when he's rightfully smug, and it's fun when he gets to bring out his mean streak, usually against Buford so it doesn't feel unjustified. The show's greatest strengths was subverting its formulas and fleshing out its characters, so I think it's within the spirit of the show to improve Baljeet as representation. Maybe bring in Indian voices to inform how his heritage is portrayed and celebrate his background in a more nuanced way.
also whenever Southern Asians are represented in cartoons it's almost always like a "fish out of water" story where they assimilate into western culture only to be shunned by their families (it's almost always portrayed negatively)
Most of the times when South Asians assimilate into western culture, they are in fact shunned by their families. As an unmarried Indian woman in an interracial relationship with a white man, i can attest to that.
If I took my child to audition for a movie and they were instructed to basically put on a minstrel show for the camera, we would be walking out IMMEDIATELY. It’s bad enough that they had a child in the 2010s (not the 1950s, but the 2010s) portray a character riddled with ethnic stereotypes. But the fact that these movies were aimed at impressionable CHILDREN and the writers decided that this was okay is something else. 🤦🏽♀️
@@briansmith48Never said I was surprised. I’m just saying that by the 2010s, it should have been somewhat common knowledge that it’s kind of questionable to portray stereotypes like that on a children’s movie. So, if I was a parent in that era, I would not allow my child to partake in such things because I know that there are shows and movies with much more positive representation.
It’s such weird looking back at shows like Jesse, because being a kid not from english speaking country hearing how much offensive the not dubbed voices were is a shellshock like no other
@@ellenevolyn_ same here, I'm brazilian, and the Brazilian dubs of Jessie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Phineas and Ferb completely removed the accent, so I got whiplash when I saw the og voice acting lmao
i watched jessie and phineas and ferb in spanish and the accent was not present, is really weird how only some versions of those shows showed the weird accents
I rewatched Phineas and Ferb recently and Baljeet has some good character development (although, admittedly most of it is after 2010). Also, many of the other characters also have random accents - like Ferb being English and Doofenscirtz being German. (No explanation however why Isabella doesn’t have a Spanish accent, or use more Yiddish/Hebrew words, as a Mexican jew)
Yeah I was real upset thinking about how Baljeet wasn’t actually all that good representation. It’s been a while since I watched the show so I couldn’t remember if he was actually cool or if that’s the rose tinted glasses talking (Also yeah it is a really good point that a lot of the characters have different accents and backgrounds)
@@custardoftheeggvariety2062I would still call baljeet offensive, just not as offensive as the kid from Jesse or many other examples in this video. Baljeet’s overly exaggerated accent is a problem. Plus he’s still a stereotype. I think if they just let Baljeet either have a realistic accent, or no accent at all, then his character would be much less offensive.
i have no idea what it’s like to experience racism as an indian, but as a black woman, i was always super interested in indian culture and thought that aspects of it are beautiful and alluring
SAMEEE I grew up in the North and where I lived had a high Indian population, they were really sweet and so nice. One of my peers invited me to a dinner and their food is none other! That’s how I became vegetarian lol
I used to watch a cartoon called "Camp Lazlo" which are about these animal kids who go to summer camp, and one of the main characters is an elephant boy named Raj who has a very thick indian accent.
I thought about mentioning Raj in this video, but the only episode I've seen of Camp Lazlo is the episode where Raj is addicted to marshmallows...that, and if I included Raj, that would make two Raj's in the same video, further proving the point that Hollywood has 0 creativety when coming up with Indian names lol
Camp Lazlo is also a Brazilian stereotype. Lazlo is Brazilian and that's a lot of his character, it's also worth pointing out Lazlo is a HUNGARIAN name and there's nothing indicating he's half Hungarian
Lol at the beginning, im not indian but i am indigenous and we’re still called indian by the government. Also such a good video i love when people give their thoughts on cartoon representation!
I feel so bad for you guys as a guy with Indian heritage. I mean, "American Indian??" Wtf those are two extremely well-known cultures that aren't even close to the very diverse and interesting set of cultures you guys have. I thought I had it bad as an Indian, but at least people know SOMETHING about us! People don't know ANYTHING about any Indigenous people other than "haha funni man with feather in hair" and "haha people in teepees." Don't worry though, I'm gonna be a filmmaker when I'm an adult and I'm totally going to write a show/movie starring an Indigenous family. No stereotypes either. No "feather in the hair when you're not Cherokee" kinda thing. just a good family sitcom where the family happens to be Indigenous. You guys don't deserve to be so underrepresented at all. Wishing you the best, hopefully our respective races can see better representation moving forward :)
Ngl I ain’t Indian or Indigenous but hearing y’all get called Indian kinda irks me. People disregard y’all heritage and compare you to people from an entirely different continent
Baljeet is interesting because over the seasons his bully becomes his best friend who follows him around for anything and they have a pretty strange relationship like, they had everything to at least be implied to be a couple in the epilogue if Disney didn’t chicken out and give Baljeet a beard in the last minute
Apu's a tricky one. He was built up over the years into so much more than just the guy who works at a convenience store, but Simpsons definitely made stereotype jokes from time to time. I mainly remember a scene where Apu invites Homer over. He puts on an "Indian pop" record of fast high-pitched singing, then realizes the record player was set to 78 RPM.
True. I mean I get Apu bein seen as a stereotype, but ethnic and national stereotypes other than him exist but never get backlash. Haven't seen anyone complain about Willie being an offensive Scottish stereotype
@@finland4ever55 Because Scottish (and white people) have a variety of representation within Western settings. So people can watch Willie and take it as the joke that it's intended as. Indian culture gets hardly any and 99% of that which there has been is negative - which Apu helps feed in to. The guy who voiced Apu is white. He said his inspiration for the voice was from a racist white comic doing a deliberately racist version of 'the' accent.
He's tricky because he's not really bad, because he isnt 1 dimensional with it and ironically the most developed non-white character in the series (compared to pretty much all their others). The thing with Apu is that I think he is legitimately funny. Apu isn't really 1 dimensional or a punching bag Indian guy. He's kind of a stereotype that falls on the line of not being bad but not being the best.
@@hurley31 Thats a good point. The reason why Willie isnt a good comparison is because, he is already in a mostly white cast of the show. Willie is also more of an exaggeration than a negative stereotype persay. Where as Apu is the only Indian character in the show, aside from his wife and family, so the audience only sees him as thee Indian guy. Thats the problem when you have token minorities, vs a diverse cast. I think the Simpsons also fails this because despite how many characters they have where 99% of them are white, where as you have 1 Indian guy, and the same with their near nonexistent Asian characters but like 2 women and they are just stereotypes of Asian women with no characterization to them (even compared to Willie). You have Cookie Kwan and her stereotype is that she is very rude and rich. Unlike Apu, that is her only character trait. So only having 1 character to represent a group gives the audience less to perceive about the group beyond that 1 character as thee stereotype. Apu would have been fine if he wasn't the only Indian character in the series. If he wasn't then it would be easier to see he is just a guy and just a token Indian mascot character.
As a latina, I feel that our minority was also depicted offensively and still is as well. I hope one day television changes. Im tired ot it! Fantastic video, you totally deserve more subscribers!
Im a black girl and honestly this is relatable. We only have one representation as well and it's pretty much a terrible stereotype. To be honest I grew up on a lot of these shows but never noticed this. It was mind-blowing to come to the realization that all of the Indian characters are the exact same. Nickelodeon was the absolute worst at black girl representation but it seems that for Indian people even Disney was bad smh. Also is it just me or were there no Indian girls represented in the early 2000s?
I have a theory as to why a lot of people in india love the big bang theory. When apu was removed from the Simpsons, a lot of people here in Latin America didn't understand it and where mad that it happened. And i was confused bc shouldn't we be mad about the misrepresentation of indian people too since the same thing happened to us with bumblebee man in the Simpsons? But then i understood that people here are able to see bumblebee man as a joke, yes made at our expense, but only as joke. At the end of the day that's not going to be used by an us american to make fun of us bc this is Latin America and we know that we are not like that. But if you are a latine inmigrant or the child of one, you will only then realize that all of those drug lords and spicy latinas characters in their media are how they see you. That's all we are apparently to them. But that bleeds out to us here, when our already successful actors and actresses try to make it also in Hollywood. I remember when ricardo darin, maybe one of our most talented actors in Argentina, got offered the role to be a drug lord in a hollywood movie. He said he was offended by that bc he knew of the way we were being represented in their media. And yeah, bumblebee man is not as bad but that doesn't mean he is the only case of misrepresentation. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that maybe people in india don't see the problem or don't care bc it doesn't affect them as much as indians in the us, especially the ones who want to be involved in the making of media there. But then again, is a theory
See also: Speedy Gonzales! Whether you can "take a joke" at your own expense depends largely on your own self--perceived level of safety and security. We can often take jokes at our own expense when we feel confident in the ground we're standing on, so to speak, and can rest safe in the knowledge the joke can't or won't be used to undermine our status, rights, or basic humanity. Also, stereotypical depictions of "people like you" land differently depending on whether you feel you're in a lush jungle or a desert representation-wise. Natch, if you feel like representations of people like you are few and far between, bad, inaccurate, or insulting depictions will grate on your nerves all the more, I reckon.
@@dinosaysrawr funny that you mention speedy, it was my grandpa favorite character during his childhood, it never crossed his mind ever the possibility that speedy could have been used as a way for people in the us to make fun of him.
@@dinosaysrawrThing is, Speedy isn't a "joke" about Mexicans. He's a joke about the US government being entirely ineffective. This joke was intended for the time period and while he doesn't age well because we've lost the context (go look it up, fascinating stuff) it really said something about how cartoons were layered. You had something for everyone. Speedy was really geared for a more mature taste because he was steeped in politics but wrapped up with enough cute things so that kids could enjoy him, too. He's always been one of my favorites. He's the "underdog" facing off with the inept who posture themselves as big and tough. The reason we couldn't have Speedy today is thin skinned politicians who cry out for censorship at everything in the guise of "think of the children" and that's very sad.
This is a very good point: Indians who haven't left India have probably not experienced being profiled, being asked dumb questions, even being compared to characters like Apu, Kumar from Harold and Kumar or (in my case) Lilly Singh 💀💀💀 Interesting that you talk about a famous Argentinian actor being asked to portray a drug lord...Ricardo Darin has EVERY right to be offended!!
@@jamie1602 True! I think by this logic they should have been cancelling Pepe for being a French stereotype, portraying the French as lecherous twits, which is a negative stereotype. But of COURSE people don't find that offensive
Great video! I never noticed how Indian representation was almost always male, I wonder why that is? I always thought it was bizarre how many cartoons had characters with Indian accents who weren’t even voiced by Indian people. I think Ruby Gloom and Littlest Pet Shop both have examples of that.
I was also going to mention King Julien in this video, because Sacha Baron Cohen said in an interview that the accent was based off his Sri Lankan lawyers...but I kinda love King Julien, ngl. Thanks for watching!
@@KarraMeansSpicyI have a lot issues w Sacha Baron Cohen as a person (he’s treated Romani people particularly horribly), but I can’t deny that King Julien would not be as memorable of a character if he didn’t have that accent
I have a couple of speculations here. One is that it reflects the experience of the white creators of this shows. Due to the nature of South Asian migration to the USA, until recently the sex ratio was skewed in favour of males. White Americans who only had incidental encounters with Indians living here were more likely to interact with Indian men than Indian women and that determined what they had to draw on when creating characters. Another is that female nerd characters seem to be rare in general. If the main character has a nerdy friend, they're almost always male. Since the go-to Indian stereotype of the time was "nerd", it's going to take more thought to make them female than the creators were willing to put into the character.
Your ‘proving your indian’ bit at the top of the video nearly took me out. You are very talented and I hope you keep making videos. As an African-American I do think there is some validity to comparing the Indian stereotype to the Minstrel Show in America. The popularity of the stereotypes were so pervasive many black actors were only able to make money as performers by performing within the stereotype, black face and all. Many a black performer added blackface to their own face just to work during the height of the Minstrel Show which isn’t too far from Indian Actors being trained to put on an accent. Even after the extreme make-up stopped being as pervasive early hollywood basically had the echo of Minstrel stereotypes for years and years. There’s a movie called Origin which explores caste systems and I think a lot of what you’ve dissected fits well into what that film was exploring.
A very interesting perspective! Yes I do agree in that there is some merit to Hari Kondabalu's claim of Minstrel shows. I did not know that even black actors had to do "blackface" themselves just to get work...there is so much nuance to this topic and we've barely even scratched the surface here. Thanks for watching!
SID: I'm mixed indo-caribbean and white British. On your point of "it's okay to make racist jokes if they're funny" I'd point to Chabuddy G in the BBC show People Just Do Nothing. The actor Asim Chaudhry who played him justified him as "taking the piss out of that one indian uncle everyone has" which really made me feel better about him. He's not meant to be a racist caricature for non-brown folks to look and laugh at for talking in an OTT accent and playing silly scams, he's meant to be FOR brown folks to see as their weirdo family member who's always up to shit. He's a stereotype of a specific type of Indian guy that british-indian folks are familiar with. The same way that you have white nerds and white jocks and white whatever groups, he's your nutty brown uncle. It's not a racist joke/character, it's a character who's joke relies on you understanding race/culture-specific stereotypes. I'm not sure what point I'm making but I just wanted to shout out my boy Chabuddy G Edited for typos. Probably missed some
Very interesting, I can't think of an equivalent to that character in American media. I have never heard of this show, or pretty much any Desi character in a non-American TV show/movie. Makes me wonder about how much I'm missing out on
@@KarraMeansSpicyYou should try and find a way to watch “Goodness Gracious Me”! It’s a BBC sketch-comedy show from the late 90s/early 2000s, and all the main cast are British Indians. It’s a landmark show tbh.
Shout out to Chabuddy G, definitely a character for us lol Also got love for Goodness Gracious Me. It was groundbreaking for British Asian representation. Still funny as well.
I have to bring up Guru Pathik because even though I love ATLA to death, I have to ask why? Like the show has clear real life inspirations for all 4 nations and then there is just a walking Indian sterotype who's just there. It makes me ask but why not just make him from Earth Kingdom who studied Airbender culture before the war instead of the sterotype?
I always wondered why he randomly had an Indian accent when India doesn't exist? None of the other characters have any noticeable accents even though they're all from different parts of the world. Where'd the accent come from? We've literally traveled the whole world, and there are no accents.
I really enjoyed hearing your take on all of this. What I found particularly interesting and saddening is how "surface level" society is. Like not just with the people writing these characters, but the way people project them. The "being called Kumar is better than Apu" argument is awful because (regardless of Kumar or Apu) it shows that society is more keen to identify someone based on race than any personality traits. For example, I bet nobody has ever nicknamed a vegan friend "Apu" in spite of that being a character trait of Apu. But countless people have nicknamed an Indian friend (or stranger) "Apu" because... skin color. It's sad when someone's race is the only thing perceived.
This effects kids so much. I was mistaken for being Indian as a kid (js bc I have a red dot on my forehead that's a birthmark) and was treated like I knew everything about idea even tho I didn't even know what an "india" was😭
Dan Povenmire, creator of Phineas and Ferb, has actually gone on record apologizing for any hate that resulted from Baljeet and admitted that early on in the show they relied on tokenizing before developing him out more.
I always thought these characters were really messed up. Looking back on Jessie in general, all of the characters of color were stereotypes. Ravi, Zuri, Luke. I’m actually so thankful that they at least didn’t make Zuri a huge African stereotype, but making her a black American stereotype is almost worse.
I think some of Zuri’s negative traits just come from the fact the she was spoiled on the show. but the stereotypes got worse as the show went on for her
I'm a 16-year-old boy in the USA in an Indian family and to this day, literally 16 years after Baljeet's first appearance on Phineas and Ferb, I'm still mocked for it. Also I have the glasses and I'm skinny. Yay! Racism! Luckily, I'm going to be a filmmaker in Hollywood when I grow up and I'll definitely fix all these issues for sure
Growing up, I used to watch this really obscure Canadian show with an Indian lead called How to Be Indie. I'm not sure how well it holds up today, but I do remember that the main character was treated as a normal teen. It was my Never Have I Ever growing up.
Weirdly enough, getting Australian television meant we got Canadian and British shows. I've seen at least 2 tween/teen shows from the late 2000s about Indians immigrating to English-speaking countries with most of the conflict being around adopting the local culture vs. celebrating the culture their family was raised in, usually with a balance of the two being considered the best option.
@@quangamershyguyyz7166 true but humor is very subjective, especially stereotype humor, it only works well if you also make fun of yourself as a psychological balance.
This video feels relatable to me as an autistic person. We are often depicted as nerdy, socially awkward people when we can be just as diverse as anyone else.
When I was younger, the character representing India that I grew up with was Raj from Camp Lazlo on Cartoon Network in the 2000s. I haven't remembered that much from Raj until the UA-camr Uncle Al made a parody of Camp Lazlo. I related to Raj a lot due to him being very analytical, but also the one character in Lazlo's friend group that says "No, we should not do that," akin to Double D from the show Ed, Edd, n' Eddy. Buuut, Raj was a slight people pleaser at the same time while trying to do and say the right thing, causing conflict with himself, his friends, and his fellow camp scouts. So yeah: Me and Raj were a bit too alike. Lmao.
Jessie is so much more racist than I remember. I distinctly remember when Jessie threw zuri an “African themed birthday party” to “remind her of home”. THE WHOLE CONTINENT. like I know Jessie grew up on military bases and was sheltered or whatever but WHAT
@@quangamershyguyyz7166Africa is a continent, treating an entire continent as a country and assuming that their cultures and traditions are interchangeable is in-fact very racist.
This video really made me think. I knew Indian people being nerdy and awkward was a stereotype but it was this video that made me realize how egregious that would be having that as the only representation. I’m glad you made this video for people like me (non Indian) to be aware of this stuff.
They do the same thing to characters of other ethnicities in the show - Stacy’s grandma gets an oriental tune, Isabella’s mom gets a Latin tune, and almost every episode opens up to Phineas and Ferb’s house with a western guitar strum. It’s an artistic choice, not meant to be offensive.
@oofcloof I've been noticing it a lot for Asian characters specifically on most shows but I guess that's nice if they did it more evenly for characters on Phineas and Ferb
@@anaiyahluther even so, is it really a bad thing? I can't imagine the intent would be negative, if anything it's more for comedic effect and storytelling purposes. I wouldn't have a problem with an anime playing a Western guitar every time an American character showed up. it also establishes non-visual context for a character's traits that may not be picked up on sight alone.
As a Sikh, the only real representation i saw growing up was the character of Vikram Singh in Spike Lee’s Inside Man. I always found it interesting though, when sitcoms tended to have ethnic background characters (taxi drivers, shopkeepers, doctors, etc) that were meant to be Sikh but tended to be non-Sikh actors in terribly wrapped turbans mixed in with some generic Arab stereotypes. One of the worst offenders is in my favourite sitcom, Scrubs, but even today I noticed it when rewatching an episode of Ugly Betty.
YES!! The amount of ignorance it shows when Hollywood throws a turban on a brown actor and calls him Indian/middle eastern, then proceeds to get virtually everything wrong about their culture... While i havent seen Inside Man, i believe the same actor, Waris Ahluwalia, is in a handful of Wes Anderson movies. It is so refreshing to see a Sikh actor play Sikh roles
I remember hearing Karan Brar speak in his actual voice for the first time as a teen and feeling icky. it gave me second hand embarrassment for everyone involved-including myself for not realizing he was probably faking it & so are a majority of Indian actors
Forget Indian Americans, no one here in India speaks in that annoying accent.. India is like a second language for most Indians because India was ruled by British and with so many languages here, English actually often serves as a connection language being equally alien to all
This video has been long needed. Me as white person was aware of the ‘nerdy Indian guy’ stereotype/trope but didn’t realize truly how prevalent it was til you started listing the characters which then prompted me to start thinking of even more characters and I was like daaaammmn. Prismo from Adventure Time. He’s voiced by Kumail Nanjiani who has a bit of an accent just naturally but it’s not over the top, he’s not putting it on and just is there pretty neutrally. But I definitely think Prismo falls into like the ‘princess & the frog’ type category, in the sense that his main form that he’s shown in throughout his screen time isn’t human. We only see his true human form briefly 2x and he very clearly isnt white he’s a middle aged brown guy with like a crazy huge beard but otherwise while his human form is asleep & dreaming he’s a huge pink shadow. Overall tho I think Prismo is pretty epic, he’s liked by most fans me included, and he’s one of the main characters- Jakes bestie so. Connie Maheswaran from Steven Universe. She’s voiced by a non Indian actress which is super unfortunate (I thought the actress was white up until this point but I looked it up and apparently she’s mixed but still not Indian). Im not an authority to say if her portrayal falls into stereotypes or is just rep so I’ll just say the facts are about her character and you can decide for yourself. Connie is introduced as a girl the main character as a crush on and throughout the series plays the role of his best friend and later love interest. At first she’s very lonely and doesn’t really have any friends except the main character because her mom is very strict and academically focused. Her mom, Priyanka is a doctor and her dad, Doug works in private security. Im not sure if both Connies parents are intended to be Indian or just her mom. Both her parents are voiced by non Indian actors. The ark she goes through in the series is going from sorta meeker type character to a very self assured one as she secretly learns soft fighting, is involved with magical adventures, and develops and heals her relationship with her mom who eventually becomes less strict and more emotionally available. Personally Connie is one of my favorite characters in the series and was as a little girl was a role model for me as she majorly a badass.
Firstly, I was unaware of both of these characters' existence until this comment, so thank you for that! This kinda falls into the category of characters where they're Indian/Pakistani, but anything that makes them Indian is completely removed from their story/character...but then again I have not seen Adventure Time or Steven Universe, so what do I know lol
@KarraMeansSpicy for context of Connie's character she's shy to start because she mainly reads by the beach by herself. She meets steven gets a sense of adventure with him and they become friends, her parents are strict but not too bad, her moms a doctor (not sure what her dad is). Connie acts as pretty much a main character also since she's so close to steven and she ends up breaking the strictness with her parents standing up to her mother respectfully and trains to fight with steven and the gems. I have no say in this but I didn't see anything problematic it's not very representative in terms of culture but they don't really talk about any culture to my knowledge what rubbed me the wrong way was a song called "do it for him/her" where she's basically trained to think her life isn't as important as Steven's and she's disposable In a nice package "deep down you know you weren't built for fighting but that doesn't mean you're not prepared to try. What they don't know is your real advantage when you live for someone you're prepared to die you do it for him" that shocked me because I was like 15 watching a show encouraging a brown girl to fight and die for someone, when everyone around her has powers and could protect her.
@@kaylalezine2295To be fair, I think “Do It For Him” was never meant to be a healthy lesson for Connie, Pearl was just projecting her own feelings of protecting Rose over her own wellbeing (which is also portrayed as unhealthy thing for Pearl to feel). That’s why Pearl had a freudian slip saying “do it for her”, she was still stuck in the mindset that Steven was a stand-in for Rose. Later episodes show and encourage that Connie is an independent person even while in a relationship with Steven. Like when Steven proposes to Connie in Future, she says no because she still has dreams she wants to pursue, and Steven has to learn/accept that Connie needs that space.
I'm a hispanic male, so i can't speak on the offensiveness of any of these potrayals. But for what its worth I've always loved all these Indian characters, how much Chirag was nerdy like Greg, and how much Ravi loved his culture & Mrs. Kipling. Again I'm not Indian, but i enjoyed seeing these happy, nerdy characters that i felt i could relate to
Come think of it, the only non- stereotypically portrayed Indian characters I can think of from the early 2000s are Sav and Ali from Degrassi and CeCe from New Girl. And to be honest I can't remember if these characters were debuted before 2010 😬
Family Guy had a gag about Indian people with Bollywood and how if you press the red button on their forehead, it's a bomb. Oh and Cheetah Girls had a movie that took place in India. Let's not forget Scooby-Doo, I think they had Scooby-Doo dressed up like a Swami and Shaggy was throwing his voice to make it look like Scooby was talking.
On the Suite Life on Deck, London Tipton had a roommate temporarily who’s name was Padma Srinivasanviswanathan. I can’t remember the name of the episode but it felt very stereotypical. And that also means that the Suite Life trilogy had at least two stereotypical Indian Characters.
Before I read the part about how you thought the episode was very stereotypical, I could already tell by that last name. Srinivasan and Viswanathan are already last names on their own, but because I guess there's this stereotype about Indians having long names, they mashed the two together to make it ridiculous which was apparently funny.
The suite life I’m hilarious but UNHINGED, partly hilarious because it’s so outdated. Londons Thai and she goes to visit her grandma who lives on an island with a rice field and a fucking elephant
Ironically, the only reason London Tipton wasn't a complete cliched Asian stereotype was that she was written to be a white character (Parody of Paris Hilton) but they ended up casting Brenda Song (who they were originally going to just make a stereotype character for) instead as the same originally white character. Then she ended up being one of the few Asian characters of the time that wasn't just playing a stereotype character. The 2000s was pretty rough, for underepresented POC characters to not be default casted.
Thank you for this video! I am white and live in predominately white country, so any education about race is very valuable to me. I would say I agree with your statement that it is okay to make racist jokes, but once again I am white, so it is not my place to say it. For me personally, if I make a race-cased joke it is only with my closest friends whom I know won’t take the racist part seriously and just appreciate the punchline
Why do you think that your not allowed to have an opinion on certain things because your white? That’s just silly, and I say this as someone who is not white. It’s no one’s place to tell you what you can and can not talk about or to silence you because of your race. People are allowed to talk about whatever they want. There is no rule book dictating otherwise.
Why do you think that your not allowed to have an opinion on certain things because your white? That’s just silly, and I say this as someone who is not white. It’s no one’s place to tell you what you can and can not talk about or to silence you because of your race. People are allowed to talk about whatever they want. There is no rule book dictating otherwise. If people get offended by something that’s their problem.
Great video, I’m Mexican, so maybe I’ve never seen it, but it’s kinda crazy how I’ve never seen a bigger backlash towards Disney’s Indian characters, because even I could tell that the portrayal felt very…. Wrong to put it mildly, so it’s nice to see a video address it. Also maybe it’s cause I saw Courage as a kid and haven’t seen much since, but I didn’t realize the doctor was meant to be Indian, I feel kinda dumb noticing it now. Anyway again awesome video
I’m glad I’m seeing this now and wish I saw it earlier . Spot on !!! Not just spot on I’ll go one step further … there were two Punjabi Sikh students in my high school who I (among other students of Indian descent ) just did not associate with because they were straight from India and wore turbans to school . They were constantly talked about in ignorant ways and the “blending in “ Indian students stayed quiet out of fear of association and further discrimination. I’m glad you did this video because Indian Americans are constantly reminded by their parents and Indians from India of “how easy they have it “ (including me) . I look back and wonder why I never spoke up against the ignorance … and I remember now … I was SCARED … my nephews too likely have this complex as well
Thank you for making this video... Im not indian, but im puertorican/pakistani... I know that we arent exactly the same, but i think we very much share similar experiences. In puerto rico theres a very big problem of casual racism. Cant tell you the amount of times ive been called things like "baljeet" or other insults/jokes that are typically directed towards indian people (which is definitely due in part to blatant ignorance, and how we are all portrayed in the media. They like to lump us all in one category, its easier for them). I see people making fun of hinduism and hinduism practices, gods etc. more often than i think i should, especially on tv, including portrayals of islam. It hurts to know that these portrayals affect how people percieve me and people who are similar me. I think you did a very good job highlighting all of this, i really hope we get more and better indian representation in media in the future.
I think with Gandhi what people were missing the point of the show. And was that these are clones. This isn’t the REAL Gandhi they are making fun of. The REAL Gandhi doesn’t have ADHD and goes around shaking this ass. But the CLONE Gandhi does. That’s the point of clone high. These clones are NOTHING like the person they are cloned to be. That’s why the characters try so hard to be like their original but fail miserably.
They should make a clone of Mohammed and put him in the show. If they do that then no Indian will complain about Gandhi. I wonder if they will do that or is it a double standard
@@debodatta7398I think that would cause OTHER issues homie 😂 But yes sadly Clone High is a genius show about what if we could hypothetically clone and make a historical figure live under a new environment of the modern American social construct, they would turn out completely different cause everything that made them so amazing is gone. None of the clones are supposed to make fun of the original people cause the point is that modern American society ruins them and makes them all goofy. If there was a way to make this more clear then maybe it could work but even then people just see the appearance of a figure and lose their minds without understanding what it’s about. All of these clones are completely new people and commentary on the US more than anything.
I'm always so fascinated to hear about the history of how various non white groups were portrayed in media over the years. Thank you for making this. Honestly while I'm not Indian, as an Arab I've noticed a lot of similar trends over the years regarding media I grew up with and even seen aspects from Indian culture injected into Arab characters and vice versa because the people writing these characters couldn't be bothered to do the research. Even though it's shitty it's also so fascinating to me how different non white characters have been historically portrayed in largely western media and I wish there was more discussion around it.
the character Samir Nagheenanajar from Office Space comes to mind (he should've gotten a shoutout in this video too, but oh well, too late). He's an Indian actor but in the movie he has an Arab accent...
Congrats on this video POPPING OFF!! Im not Indian, but i love hearing multiple perspectives, especially the perspectives of the people something effects the most.
Thank u for posting this I internalised a lot of these dynamics and ideas and it led to a lot of problems in my life and how I viewed myself Hearing u compare it to minstrelsy was hugely validating It's hard looking back at my past and seeing memories of me minstrelising myself in a lot of ways It hurts Your video is healing Thank you for posting
Thanks for watching! If it makes you feel any better, I think we've all forced ourselves to laugh at cringey Indian jokes for our friends, and sometimes even do a silly accent, just for the sake of being accepted. But nowadays, if someone tries to make jokes at my ethnicity's expense, I shut that shit DOWN!!! Here's to a better future for us 🥂
I don't agree on having strictly only Indians voicing Indians in cartoons / ONLY casting people for voice roles based on race. I think this only becomes an issue when people put on a fake accent. Voice casting should have creative freedom and should fit the character. Of course that also means if the character is supposed to have an accent cast someone with an actual accent, otherwise the person casted is not the right person for the role.
an an indian that lives in the UK, i think it has to be said that British media has far better South Asian representation - bend it like Beckham especially!
the craziest thing is as a kid I remember feeling proud of characters like Baljeet and Ravi because there was such little representation of South Asians. Even though it made me sightly uncomfortable I was just so happy to see people of my race were finally included since we're so used to getting nothing
Surprised no one has mentioned Kevin Gnapoor from Mean Girls, I’m not Indian so I don’t wanna judge how good/bad he is as representation, but I loved him & thought he was so funny in the (‘04) movie although he does kinda fit some of these stereotypical attributes that other Indian male characters in the 00s had that you mentioned. But that rap scene was goated fr
Gandhi's portrayal in Clone High is historically accurate though. Yes, they over-emphasize his sexuality but Gandhi was slightly overly sexual irl. As an example, he would sleep naked with younger women or even girls, in order to resist the temptation or giving in to his urges.
I dont feel like this is something new i bring to the conversation, but (white male) really feel how indian characters evolved in my consciousness. Like i had only known baljeet and the jessy one and didnt have mean spirited thoughts about them, i just saw then as quirky guys. But with people like Devi, Kingo and spidey it hit me, that i've never seen any indian thats not like baljeet.
I think Dave from Flight of the Conchords is a good example of an Indian character being given a level of unique and funny characterization that’s often only reserved for white actors… which is my long winded way of saying I love Dave, I think he’s hilarious, and it’s cool to see him in a show from the 2000s.
Yesss I was thinking about him through a lot of this video a great counter to these more stereotypical portrayals-- he's FAR from being an awkward science nerd, that's for sure. On the contrary, he's the "cool" guy the clueless main characters look up to, and he knows more about american customs than they do. One of the characters of all time for sure
Soy Peruano y tú quieres a experienciar culturas diferentes, inmigrantes que fueron asimilados entre los Estados Unidos no es una buena dirección para ir.
*Master of None* Episode 4 "Indians on TV" was a great moment (for me personally, South Africa: Zulu man) because I felt that things were getting better
I’m an artist who is obsessed with my own characters, and even though I am white, I enjoy adding diversity to my characters when I can, so a lot of them aren’t white. One of my main characters is south Asian (Indian and Pakistani) so It’s always very helpful for me to find videos/articles about stereotypes to avoid with my characters. I found this video informative :) I hope you have a lovely day and can create more awesome content!
This was an interesting vid, gave me a lot of insight and perspective into an issue I'd been a little skeptical about before. Something interesting when it comes to Raj from Big Bang Theory can be applied to other non-caucasian characters as well, not just Indians. It's pretty common to see them portrayed as emasculated sexless introverts who can't speak to women, a lot of the same attributes of Raj can be found in characters of other ethnicities too, like Fez from that 70's Show or Abed from Community. I think there's a real problem with how Hollywood other-ed or type casted non white folks. Stuff like comparing Apu to bIackface made me skeptical, but hearing you talk about it cleared up any skepticism I had. This is a really rational well thought out vid. One lil note tho, I think adding some lo-fi beats or something would really make the vid flow and pop a lil more! Great vid tho, I'm excited to see where your channel goes in the future!
This is something I learned from Film Crit Hulk: I think it's more helpful to think of comedy not as "punching up vs punching down", but as, "Who do I want this joke to be FOR?" I don't know Russell Peters beyond this video, but his jokes seem to land well with the Indian audience because they come from a place of shared experiences. Excellent video, btw!
Okay, I can see how an Indian accent can be offensive but I wanna defend it and say that an Indian accent is one of the cutest accents I’ve ever heard. Never looked down on a character just because they sounded different:)
i think the problem isnt showing an indian accent. it's more so the fact that EVERY character has a SUPER EXAGGERATED version of it. most indians who live in america dont have an insanely strong accent the same way indians who live in india have for example. also altho i appreciate liking the accent :) the shows are obviously not trying to make it a "likable" trait 😭
it's not a bad thing really but they just don't do it very well. like i'm indian and none of my relatives who moved to america really sound like that! especially not the kids, who usually grew up here, with english as their first language. a better indian accent would be slightly choppier and more monotone in my opinion. maybe mixing up long and short vowel sounds every once in a while. and a different delivery, because dialects tend to differ greatly in sentence delivery. for example, american accents tend to go quiet at the end of sentences, while indian accents tend to give a little more energy to the last word.
Thank you SO MUCH for making this video. Growing up, I felt insecure about being a South Asian person because I thought the portrayals of people like me were how other people saw me. I 100% agree with everything you said in this video.
I loved Hapu from the Simpsons but I wished they would’ve made him a doctor or an engineer, because as an Indo-Canadian I like the fact that Indians are high-achievers. Doctors and engineers are just normal professions in India whereas meeting a doctor or engineer in Canada is like spotting a bald eagle or a humpback whale.
Courage the cowardly dog is a great show. I completely forgot about dr.vindaloo tho 💀 Would love to know your opinion on Connie and her family from Steven Universe. Its definitely another case where I wish they got Indian actors instead of white people, but its even weirder cuz its a bunch of white voice actors big in the anime voice scene so they're an indian family who the parents sound like really popular classic anime characters (the mom does the voice of Ghost In The Shell's main character and the Dad is Alucard from Hellsing). Wild
I'm from germany and I very recently watched the Simpsons in the original english Needless to say my perception of Apu changed dramatically when I heard him with an overexagerrated accent. In german he just rolls his Rs but otherwise speaks normally. To me Apu was a university graduate, ladies man, small business owner, passionate about many things, wise about others. The idea he was a negative depiction only came to me when I heard how the creators decided to have him speak
I found your video rather interesting......My first response happens to be in the early 2000's , my ex and I went to the movies and saw a movie called " Bend it Like Beckham ". I enjoyed this movie to the point I sought other movies by the director such as " Monsoon Wedding ".... I am sure you are aware of this movie focusing on an Indian girl balancing life between western and traditional culture... A POSITIVE portrayal of the Indian community... As for racism.... In 2014, I visited my mother in North Carolina at which point my mother introduced me to her yard man... The yard man told my mother that I looked either South Asian OR Middle Eastern; even though I am not EITHER... I informed my mother to tell her yardman THANK YOU for Middle Eastern and South Asian individuals are VERY attractive people....Due to my Poly Racial appearance, I have experienced the unwelcomed racist issues especially after 9/11...... I took a Holiday to the Middle East and experienced a relaxed welcoming entry into Dubai, UNLIKE the stressful, interrogated , and unnecessary detainment that I received when i returned back to my own country USA....BTW I am a FORMER Police Officer.. Over 20 years after the " EVENT ",certain individuals that look a certain way are still judged and harassed without an end in sight even though most of these individuals are a benefit to this country. Have a nice day.
This video got recommended to me and I have to say thank you to the algorithm, I checked out your etsy and saw the bloodywood patch!!! We stan bloodywood so hard
I didn’t realize that Karan Brar’s accent in the Wimpy Kid movies and Jessie wasn’t his natural accent. I had just assumed it was, since he had it in both. Edit: Good video, btw. I thought this was an interesting perspective to hear as someone who isn’t Indian.
Wow I’ve never took time to look at a lot of these characters as wrong. Thank you! This was very interesting and informative video for me. Raj, Baljeet, Chirag, Ravi. All characters I grew up watching and honestly loving. I literally had crush on Ravi. I knew not all Indian people were like that. I thought that Ravi just loved his culture and wanted to show it. Looking back on it now though, Now that I know, the idea of him growing up faking an accent, his loss of Cam, depression and substance abuse is devastating. I hope to see him in better roles as himself. And I can’t believe Whoopi has this weird collection? Great vid.
Hello! Let me just say that I didn't think this video would get even 1/100th of the views that it currently has. There are a LOT of interesting insights being dropped in the comments, and I'm having a blast reading through it all. I'm grateful and beyond overwhelmed with how much this topic resonates with you, Indian or otherwise. Thank you all for watching! Having said that, I want to clarify a few things:
1.) "I think it's okay to make racist jokes about Indians, so long as it's funny" Another huge component of that is CONTEXT. With the Russell Peters example, obviously his jokes wouldn't hit the same if it was coming from a stand-up comedian that was NOT Indian. Having said that, I have seen people like Lilly Singh receive backlash for her Indian impressions and jokes about Indian people, as well as other Indian comedians being criticized for relying too much on racial humor, whereas Russell Peters (from what I've observed) is universally loved. It is incredibly difficult to write and perform comedic material, which is why it's such an incredible accomplishment when someone is successful at it.
2.) Gandhi may not have been the sole reason Clone High was cancelled, but it is worth noting that the show was rebooted for a 2nd season WITHOUT his character *X-files themesong*
3.) There's nothing inherently wrong with a non-Indian actor voicing an Indian character like with Gandhi or Dr. Vindaloo or hell, even Raj from Camp Lazlo, but I would say that automatically disqualifies that character from being "good representation". How can you represent Indians when you're not even being voiced by an Indian?
4.) Despite all my shit-talking, I don't think any of the shows or movies I mentioned are bad. None of them are *unspeakably terrible* works of TV or film, I even said that I was a fan of some of them. I just think that going forward, Indian characters deserve better.
To respectfully answer the question "How can you represent Indians when you're not even being voiced by an Indian?":
I say that I appreciate your concern and I understand your point of view. I'm not an Indian (I'm Black, Puerto Rican, and indigenous) but I acknowledge the importance of having Indian voices and perspectives be represented. However, I believe that working together, regardless of background or identity, is crucial for advancing the cause of justice and equality. I'm here to listen, learn, and advocate for all people, including Indians. But I do like a lot of characters that don't represent the minorities they play. For example, the TV series "The Cleveland Show" features Cleveland voiced by a white actor, and the cartoon film "Anastasia" features the lead voiced by a non-Russian voice actress. These are just some examples of a larger issue of minorities being vocally represented by people outside their communities. Moreover, while it may be preferable to have matching minorities voice act their respective characters, quality should matter more than mere representation. We should like characters for their personality and backstory and just view it as a plus if they represent different races. Let's recognize and appreciate the effort and quality brought by people from all backgrounds and identities rather than just focusing on race as a forefront in storytelling.
Also, it would be harsh to discredit someone's voice acting or representation efforts just because they aren't of the same minority as the character they are expressing. And yes, in my opinion, it would be racist to only regard true Indians as representative of Indian characters. Because that would be like saying that despite Oscar Isaac doing an amazing job voice acting Miguel O'Hara, it would be a shame he's not Mexican and Irish and just Guatemalan born American. Even though I'm Latino and I'm just overall happy by the fact Miguel O'Hara is an enjoyable character (despite being a red flag).
I hope you don't find my answer rude. I'm just answering your question.
And sorry I meant to say Latina not Latino because I'm a girl
Also for the last part I only think it's racist to say things like that if the character doesn't have an accent. Because when it does happen it usually isn't good
I completely understand the direction you are taking... If anything else you are promoting awareness to a topic that should be discussed..... Believe me when I say.... you are NOT the problem....... Thank You.
" a woman?"
* puts the red dot in the forehead*
" a INDIAN woman!!*
I LAUGHED SO HARD I ALMOST FAINTED
The Doofenshmirtz voice
Puts on a fedora: Perry the Indian woman!?
The red dot 😭
@@ytlokop It's both red and a dot.
"...Indian faces like mine, faces like yours"
me, who isn't indian : *nervous sweating*
Me, mexican: sure, yeah
I'm dominican and I've seen a similar situation with the sophia vergara accent in modern family being make fun of on spanish tiktok because some think it's exaggerated, but the thing is that fresh of the boat first generation inmigrants do have a thick accent, it's second and third generations that manage to completely assimilate and apparently they find the represention offensive now.
*narrows eyes at you*
Me a white person: I think I’ve been represented enough
me a black woman: 👁️🗨️👁️🗨️💧
I lived in India and Disney adapted a bunch of Disney channel sitcoms. What's funny is that, to make it less offensive, they made the Indian guy in Jessie a Sri-Lankan, and in Suite Life they made the Indian prince come from some made up country.
I didn't know that, that's actually so interesting! Thanks for watching!
That's interesting! They cast entirely different actors for DCOMs shown internationally? I mean, it makes sense for representation, but I kind of want to look into this now.
@@ChiangKai-Shrek I will absolutely look into this! I've heard of action movies and rom-coms adapted internationally, but not Disney channel specifically. Thank you!
@@jesserivera2043 Huh, didn't know other countries did that too. Interesting.
The strangest thing about them is that they aired on the Indian Disney channel, so they're completely official.
Has anyone played Venba. It's really sweet.
Hey! There's a difference between Greg and Chirag! Unlike that WIMP, Chirag is actually confident and isn't a complete psychopath like Greg 💀
Greg Heffley (and everyone in his family) is one mental breakdown away from committing a felony.
@@KarraMeansSpicyim sure theres one if we look close enough
@@KarraMeansSpicyAs someone with a family similar to the Heffley’s (in this case I would be Rodrick) they probably already have just off camera after all you can’t show that kind of stuff in a family film
manifesting that rodrick moves out soon bc he's the most sane out of all of them- @@KarraMeansSpicy
I feel that Greg was more of a sociopath
I cant with the backing music for Baljeet being stereotypically Indian for him talking about his science passion, it's like them trying to signal "look, Indian moment!"
Imagine if every American character had bluegrass or the US National Anthem in the background of their dialogue 😭
It's giving "I don't have any type of accent!?" ignorance.
That would be hilarious and I would love it unironically.
@@icecreamhero2375same I would genuinely like to see that done, if only to showcase to Americans how weird it is (and also bc I would genuinely find it very funny)
@@vincentgeiszler3749 I like All Might from My Hero Accademia. Once Teen Titans Go did a song about America. All the Americans were fat. Robin was also singing about freedom in front of the state penitentiary.
@@vincentgeiszler3749 Most stereotypical American I can think of. He has a cowboy accent. He wears red white and blue, and flys everywhere on a giant eagle.
Let's not pretend we don't in every other country but ours. For fuck's sake we literally do it to a portion of our OWN society-- we KNOW it's goin' on over there, and so does everybody else.
The fact that they put a child in this situation is gross, I'm glad you pointed blame at the adults not him. Sadly most people online are cruel to child actors since they're the face of the character rather than the adults and directors who instructed him in those roles, it's hard enough to grow up as a minority what to say one in the limelight with guardians like those
YES, YES, YES! Thank you for watching!
Child actors have it rough. I often contemplate what the long-term impact of having to say or do assorted things will have or has had on them. Plus, there's the additional pressure to "schmooze" and interact like a tiny adult, and a lot of the adults you'll be interacting with are drunk on fame, utterly detached from reality, or Dan Schneider.
I reckon this also underscores the racial double standards in play, because even a white kid who's had to play an inbred, racist Southerner or an aggressive gabagoolin' New Yawkah now and then presumably has gotten to play other types of roles, whereas I imagine having half or more of your career consist of you going "Thank you come again" or "Durka durka muhammad jihad" probably takes its toll on your psyche after a while.
Child actors have it rough. I often contemplate what the long-term impact of having to say or do assorted things will have or has had on them. Plus, there's the additional pressure to "schmooze" and interact like a tiny adult, and a lot of the adults you'll be interacting with are drunk on fame, utterly detached from reality, or Dan Schneider.
I reckon this also underscores the racial double standards in play, because even a white kid who's had to play a yeehaw Southerner or an aggressive gabagoolin' New Yawkah now and then presumably has gotten to play other types of roles, whereas I imagine having half or more of your career consist of you going "Thank you come again" in a thick accent can take its toll on your self-esteem and identity after a while.
"Faces like mine, faces like yours"
My black ass:🧑🏾🦱😀
we’re not all too different tbh 🫡
My white ass: 🧔🏼♂️😀
LITERALLYY
REAL LMAOO
Me, a white Hispanic: Well this is awkward 😅
As a black American, I don't think that it's wrong to compare the minstrelsy of the 20th century to the Indian characters we saw back in the 2000s. It quite literally is a form of minstrelsy. Actors are having to don a voice, play up stereotypes, and put on exaggerated expressions to get roles in Hollywood.
Is that not minstrelsy? The kid from Jessie and Wimpy Kid had to get an accent coach, either because he did not have the accent or because no one thought his accent was Indian "enough". Know what I'm saying? Also, I think Kal Pen said what he said because Kumar was different. "At least you're not being called Apu" It's the lowest bar, but there's something to be said about there being put into more than one box by people. At least they don't JUST see you as X. Idk.
Also, Whoopi collects the minstrel memorabilia as a way to preserve history. It's a way of knowing where you came from, of not letting others ignore or forget the past. It's history! Recent history! It's jarring at first, but once you sit down and think about the meaning behind the collection, you'll get it.
And last thing, I think India took more offense to the Gandhi portyral because he's such a public figure. Like, it's a point of national pride, he's the father of India. So of course they're gonna try and stop something that tarnishes his image. At least that's how I see it.
I dunno I think he tarnished his image enough on his own.
@@Jane-ow7sraye very true
there are certainly similarities to be drawn between the two! all our struggles are connected. i think the comparison is a tad much. i think its fine to consider minstrelsy in its totality, as a black specific phenomenon, and not use it as a yard stick to measure other people's fights for better representation
I wonder if Whoopi knows who the founders of the democratic party were?🤔
Also minstrelsy in the context of shows was done in order to make fun of black people. It was done with Ill intent, with the Indian character it was more playing the stereotype up for laughs without any specific vitriol towards indian people, since there was no segregation of them during the time these characters came out.
its always so interesting seeing native english speakers talk about baljeet, because in the dub i got to watch as a kid he doesnt have an accent. hes just the nerdy kid and happens to be brown.
sure, his indian heritage still comes up and the whole "baliwood" number still exists, so its not like that one change suddenly makes him great representation, but when i first heard his original voice i was so surprised because growing up to me baljeet was just a smartypants who, like, sometimes had indian musical cues in the background of his scenes.
I wacthed it in spanish so I did not noticed.
@@freakytostadacartoon same. When your bilingual its like seeing two different movies
@johnindigo5477 Yep. Sometimes, when I watch a movie in the original language, I get very shocked.
The German dub also had nothing of the likes, he talked just like everybody else and hearing his original voice for the first time was just a "wtf" moment to me, though I didn't realize it was a stereotype until much later.
Also Raj, in the spanish dub he has a normal voice in the first 3-4 seasons, I don't now why they change his voice in the rest of the show having an accent
If I can jump in as a guy who watched a lot of Phineas & Ferb growing up. One of the creators Dan Povenmire has expressed regret to early characterization of Baljeet, he thinks that later episodes fleshed out his character. And personally, I agree;
Sure, he still nerdy and neurotic, but he becomes a person instead of a stereotype. He gets jokes that aren't just based around him being smart, he is willing to get out of his comfort zone. I have also always been fascinated by his and Buford's (the kid in the clips) relationship. It starts out confrontational, even abusive, but they eventually find a comradery that is genuinely sweet. Now, This is from a white boy who is fully willing to admit he could be wrong, but I would suggest taking some time to watch a couple of the later episodes and specials, you may find them better. great video, hope to hear from you soon!
I wonder how they're going to handle Baljeet in the new (2020s) episodes.
And Baljeet wasn't the only nerd anyway. There were lots of nerds. Phineas and Ferb themselves, Doof, Irving. All nerds, so it's not like "The Indian is a nerd because he's Indian"
@@TuesdaysArt they don't make new episodes anymore
@@w0rmteethDisney actually green lit a new season of Phineas and Ferb.
@@Little_ErisI hope they don’t ruin the show. Are the old directors still working on it? 😭
in the Scott Pilgrim franchise, there's an indian character called Matthew Patel. in the comics, he is Ramona's first evil ex and has mystical powers however he's short lived due to easily defeated by the main character Scott. in the live action movie, he's mostly the same but now has a bollywood song. but in the recent anime, they expanded more on his character by giving him more screentime and dialogue, and also making him the CEO and is a theater kid.
Matthew doesn't have the accent, but they are few bits of stereotypes in him but overall he's a great character.
I vaguely remember it being very Bollywood in the comics too, but it's been 10 years and it may be one of those things where my brain is mixing the two afterwards, lol
Edit: just grabbed my comic, and he definitely summons the "Demon hipster chicks" back up dancers and its very obvious from poses and nature of the dialog that they are having a Bollywood style dance/sing off in the scene.
it's always so interesting to see people of other cultures explain stereotypes that people who aren't of that culture wouldn't notice. Like I once saw an Asian woman explaining the colored streak in female Asian character's hair trope, which is something I never caught on to. as a black woman I obviously can't relate to being Indian, but it was weird to me how exaggerated Karan Brar being Indian was in the show Jessie. He had a whole lizard as a pet...I've never been to India or anything but I'm certain Indians can have normal pets like dogs and cats. Also I don't know if you saw the new mean girls but Karen's actress was played by a beautiful Indian lady who did an interview on how nice it was to break away from these kinds of stereotypes
YES! Avantika from the new Mean Girls movie is so freaking beautiful!! It's weird that playing a "dumb bimbo" is groundbreaking, but truthfully, it IS groundbreaking when THIS is the precedent for Indian representation!! Thanks for watching!
I haven’t watched Jessie in a while, but didn’t they *all* own the lizard? I thought it was more of a family pet
"Normal pets like cats and dogs" bro ever heard of
do you have a link to where you learned of hair trope? i’m very interested in learning.
@@MOONATlC ua-cam.com/video/7idcSGq-j3U/v-deo.htmlsi=9dkef-TiAr52B9nV
The stereotypical portrayals are insulting. I remember seeing Raj on the Big Bang Theory and thinking “ is this what show runners think Indian people are like?” I really hope portrayals of Indian people are getting better
I think portrayals of Indians have come a LOOOOOONG way, but if we're being honest, Raj walked so the rest of us can RUN
What sucks too, is that he's still the only character on the show that actually seems close to treating women like people, and the writing treats that like some stereotypical lapse in masculinity? Like they accidentally stumble into improving on the template using a stereotype??
@@lilpetz500And then he opens his mouth. And he's maybe the worst one of them all.
@@FabulousSquidwardYeah, for real. Some of what he did, like hanging out with the girls and all seems to me to have only been a punchline (indian man is feminine, haha funny joke) rather than a consistent part of his character, because he continues to be misogynistic with his friends or even sometimes IN FRONT OF those women.
Sorry for the semi-long paragraph. Could probably complain about this show all day lol because it's far from just him.
No they’re not they are genuinely more interesting than indian with American accent,
plus i don’t know every Indian Ive met irl actually talks like that maybe a little less exaggerated but pretty much the same,
Stereotypes are fun they’re only insulting to westerners that grow up in America i doubt actual indians in India are actually insulted hell none of the ones i met seem to be bothered by characters like apu,
Plus we Australians have stereotypes and those aren’t seen as insensitive and no we’re not a race but i don’t think that makes it difference,
i don’t know but me personally i love stereotypes especially the super offensive ones of old
This is a topic I have always been SO passionate about! I remember as a kid seeing Ravi in Jessie and wondered why they made him very stereotypically Indian but didn't make Zuri stereotypically African? And then when I saw him in diary of a wimpy kid and heard his accent and was like "oh that's how he really talks" but when I discovered that he actually has an American accent in real life it just made me feel so... Bad? Like why do they make him speak with that accent in every single thing? Even as a kid I realized it wasn't right
To expand on your point, Zuri wasn’t stereotypically African, but she was _definitely_ stereotypically black. Her constant sarcasm, being thirsty for revenge all the time, lazy and obsessed with scamming people to get rich, uncontrollable anger, complusive liar and manipulator..
The Jessie writers were really, really bad at writing characters of colour 😭
@@tinytaleahI’ve thought about this SO MUCH as I got older. Hell, Emma was a stereotypical dumb blonde. They really just had zero creativity.
Not to play devils advocate or anything, but I think they adopted Ravi as an older kid/tween. And they adopted Zuri when she was a baby/toddler. So one grew up in the country they were born in and the other didn’t. Also Luke was from Detroit, Michigan. I honestly don’t know anything about Detroit so idk if he plays into any stereotypes or not.
@@vincentgeiszler3749even then, Emma grew and matured from her stereotype, but Ravi and Zuri never did
And if you count Bunkd, Tiffany and Jorge were stereotypes and they never became anything else
You can thank Cameron Boyce for the fact there's not a Korean stereotype child. Luke was apparently going to be a Korean boy named "Hiro", but the casting directors liked Cameron so much that they changed the character so he could have that role instead.
"Indian faces like mine, faces like yours" welp, I guess I'm not a black girl anymore, I'm Indian now
THAT'S RIGHT, now put on your jhumkis, the garba starts at 7
one of us fr
You switched with Kamala😂
Kelly Kapoor from The Office seems to subvert the trope. She comes off as a Valley Girl, but with Indian heritage.
Cuz she helped write the show!
69 likes
Feel a lil bad she can be insufferable like real life valley girls. Perfect writing their for a portrayal but wish she had more likeable moments.
@@gabby222themoon Mindy also made Velma and Never Have I Ever which Indians have criticized (also Devi is antisemitic, she made a comment in one ep about how Ben should have been taken by H*tler)
@@anglosaxiphone8246While that is true Mindy Kaling plays essentially one character: Herself. This can be a good thing in the office… and a bad thing in Velma.
"Faces like mine, faces like yours"
my Slavic ass: 👩🏻
Our pop culture rep isn't too great either (esp if you're Russian 😭)
and it's often ignored. and because all they see is "no melanin. white. european." they actively try and call you racist and tell you you don't need rep. despite the constant negative portrayals of eastern europe. despite the anti-ee sentiment throughout history and even now, from the triple k cult lynching slavs, to the ukrainian internment in ww1, to most of the german invasions being slavic, balkan, and the baltics, to general anti-ee hatred and bullying due to politics like the russia ukraine war, a lot of brexitters being anti-polish, slavic erasure in things like the new witcher, anti-ee propaganda like the taken franchise and it's spirutual successor hostel
@@Saga_Anserum I grew up there, yall dont wanna know what it was like in 4th grade in the US!
I'm whiter then snow🧍🏻♀️
@@Saga_Anserum slavic representation: you're either Russian or you don't exist
Gandhi was a part of why Clone High was cancelled, but not the only reason. MTV was trying a lot of different things at the time, including a lot of animated shows pretty much all of which only lasted a season. So it was mostly likely that the show wasn't getting the ratings they wanted for the cost of animating a show. So combine that with the bad press and it was an easy decision.
Phineas and Ferb is really interesting, where a lot of the characters start one note stereotypes, but over the show's run they get their nuances fleshed out and I think that's partially because characters as characters is just...more enjoyable to watch than stereotypes.
Baljeet starts off as the smart, geeky wimp but as the show goes on he becomes a LOT more confident, snarky and arguably the straight man of the group; most likely to comment on how weird the situations they get into are. Him being academically focused goes from being a joke about him being a teachers pet, to him being the reliable Facts & Formula genius to Phineas's creative genius and Ferb's mechanical genius. The moments where he trio's up with Phineas and Ferb to solve a logistical problem are really cute, and emphasis that his genius is as admireable as the titular character.
Early on, one of the Fireside girls liking Baljeet is treated as (honestly a kind mean) joke, but by the end lots of girls like him and that's just...a thing about Baljeet that everyone accepts.
That's not to say he completely stopped being a stereotype, being a straight laced nerd is still an aspect of the characer that they lean on for humour.
However since the show ended I think both the creators and his voice actor have acknowledged that how they treated his Indian identity hasn't aged well, so I hope in the reveival they push to actualise him as an individual beyond a stereotype.
I think you explanation shows they already did that
@@Galvatronover Perhaps I should have said "push further". I think Baljeet did end the show in a much better place than when he started, but he was still the 3rd go to character to be the butt of a joke after Doofenshmirtz and Candace.
In part I think that may be because his snarky or deadpan responses ARE pretty funny, and something unique to his character. The joke is less about the universe humiliating him and more about how is aware of and unimpressed by the universe doing that.
However that still means he takes the most L's amongst the gang of friends, and being the lone non-pale kid, that comes with historical baggage.
I don't think they have to totally do away with those jokes, but I think it'd be neat if he got to win a bit more. He's also funny when he's rightfully smug, and it's fun when he gets to bring out his mean streak, usually against Buford so it doesn't feel unjustified.
The show's greatest strengths was subverting its formulas and fleshing out its characters, so I think it's within the spirit of the show to improve Baljeet as representation. Maybe bring in Indian voices to inform how his heritage is portrayed and celebrate his background in a more nuanced way.
also whenever Southern Asians are represented in cartoons it's almost always like a "fish out of water" story where they assimilate into western culture only to be shunned by their families (it's almost always portrayed negatively)
Most of the times when South Asians assimilate into western culture, they are in fact shunned by their families. As an unmarried Indian woman in an interracial relationship with a white man, i can attest to that.
True, Anwar from skins is a good example
If I took my child to audition for a movie and they were instructed to basically put on a minstrel show for the camera, we would be walking out IMMEDIATELY. It’s bad enough that they had a child in the 2010s (not the 1950s, but the 2010s) portray a character riddled with ethnic stereotypes. But the fact that these movies were aimed at impressionable CHILDREN and the writers decided that this was okay is something else. 🤦🏽♀️
EXACTLY LMAO
They did it to black's in the 1970's in the black - exploitation movies. And all of the Tarzan movies etc...
Why so surprised?
@@briansmith48Never said I was surprised. I’m just saying that by the 2010s, it should have been somewhat common knowledge that it’s kind of questionable to portray stereotypes like that on a children’s movie. So, if I was a parent in that era, I would not allow my child to partake in such things because I know that there are shows and movies with much more positive representation.
It’s such weird looking back at shows like Jesse, because being a kid not from english speaking country hearing how much offensive the not dubbed voices were is a shellshock like no other
Same, I am portuguese speaking, and it's very different broo
@@ellenevolyn_ same here, I'm brazilian, and the Brazilian dubs of Jessie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Phineas and Ferb completely removed the accent, so I got whiplash when I saw the og voice acting lmao
i watched jessie and phineas and ferb in spanish and the accent was not present, is really weird how only some versions of those shows showed the weird accents
Same in the polish versions, none of the tv shows had any characters with accents.
Same I am algerian and watched it in french and nothing seemed out of sorts.
I rewatched Phineas and Ferb recently and Baljeet has some good character development (although, admittedly most of it is after 2010). Also, many of the other characters also have random accents - like Ferb being English and Doofenscirtz being German. (No explanation however why Isabella doesn’t have a Spanish accent, or use more Yiddish/Hebrew words, as a Mexican jew)
Yeah I was real upset thinking about how Baljeet wasn’t actually all that good representation. It’s been a while since I watched the show so I couldn’t remember if he was actually cool or if that’s the rose tinted glasses talking
(Also yeah it is a really good point that a lot of the characters have different accents and backgrounds)
Uhm, acktually, Doof is from the definetly real country of Drusselstein 🤓☝️
@@custardoftheeggvariety2062I would still call baljeet offensive, just not as offensive as the kid from Jesse or many other examples in this video. Baljeet’s overly exaggerated accent is a problem. Plus he’s still a stereotype. I think if they just let Baljeet either have a realistic accent, or no accent at all, then his character would be much less offensive.
@@offbranddorito9668 yeahhhh that’s what I was thinking.. Damn. Unfortunate
doofenshmirtz is german?? i thought he was just like that
I love that part in the Cabin Fever book when Chirag is an asshole to Greg because he doesn't celebrate Christmas and can get away with being naughty.
Hella forgot abt that 😭😭 need to reread these books fr
i have no idea what it’s like to experience racism as an indian, but as a black woman, i was always super interested in indian culture and thought that aspects of it are beautiful and alluring
SAMEEE I grew up in the North and where I lived had a high Indian population, they were really sweet and so nice. One of my peers invited me to a dinner and their food is none other! That’s how I became vegetarian lol
@@afrofaeries im jealous of their clothes and food culture for sure haha
Same here as an Afrolatina
Indians are soooo cool I love their dancing and their old dancers and actresses are so mesmerizing
To even act like these portrayals are racist in any way is ridiculous
In a blooper on “Jessie” Karan was doing a scene & he messed up & said “Ok now let me do it again with an Indian accent” I was shocked
I remember that - it was crazy. I even remember the cast members bursting out with laughter after he said it too.
@@adrielisaacs9228 that’s crazy I couldn’t believe it when the episode came out
I used to watch a cartoon called "Camp Lazlo" which are about these animal kids who go to summer camp, and one of the main characters is an elephant boy named Raj who has a very thick indian accent.
I thought about mentioning Raj in this video, but the only episode I've seen of Camp Lazlo is the episode where Raj is addicted to marshmallows...that, and if I included Raj, that would make two Raj's in the same video, further proving the point that Hollywood has 0 creativety when coming up with Indian names lol
The funny thing is that the same dude who voices him is the voice of Johnny Bravo 💀
Wait, he had an accent? In Spanish he didn’t, not that I remember.
@@flashfunk0373. Really??? 😲
I didn't know that.
An Asian American doing an Indian accent. 😮
Camp Lazlo is also a Brazilian stereotype. Lazlo is Brazilian and that's a lot of his character, it's also worth pointing out Lazlo is a HUNGARIAN name and there's nothing indicating he's half Hungarian
Lol at the beginning, im not indian but i am indigenous and we’re still called indian by the government. Also such a good video i love when people give their thoughts on cartoon representation!
I feel so bad for you guys as a guy with Indian heritage. I mean, "American Indian??" Wtf those are two extremely well-known cultures that aren't even close to the very diverse and interesting set of cultures you guys have. I thought I had it bad as an Indian, but at least people know SOMETHING about us! People don't know ANYTHING about any Indigenous people other than "haha funni man with feather in hair" and "haha people in teepees."
Don't worry though, I'm gonna be a filmmaker when I'm an adult and I'm totally going to write a show/movie starring an Indigenous family. No stereotypes either. No "feather in the hair when you're not Cherokee" kinda thing. just a good family sitcom where the family happens to be Indigenous. You guys don't deserve to be so underrepresented at all.
Wishing you the best, hopefully our respective races can see better representation moving forward :)
Ngl I ain’t Indian or Indigenous but hearing y’all get called Indian kinda irks me. People disregard y’all heritage and compare you to people from an entirely different continent
@@rickyronny4019I mean it's a term that just got stuck with those guys
Baljeet is interesting because over the seasons his bully becomes his best friend who follows him around for anything and they have a pretty strange relationship like, they had everything to at least be implied to be a couple in the epilogue if Disney didn’t chicken out and give Baljeet a beard in the last minute
That’s cause the creators realized their mistake and tried to make him more of a better character as the show went on.
Did not believe you were Indian until you put the bindi on. Your features clearly scream Dutch. (But seriously where did you get that top, I love it)
I got the top in India, do you believe I'm Indian now, or do I have to put the bindi on again?? XD thanks for watching!
As a mexican I love el fuerte on street fighter he yells "TOSTADA" and "ENCHILADA PRESS" in a heavy accent
Apu's a tricky one. He was built up over the years into so much more than just the guy who works at a convenience store, but Simpsons definitely made stereotype jokes from time to time. I mainly remember a scene where Apu invites Homer over. He puts on an "Indian pop" record of fast high-pitched singing, then realizes the record player was set to 78 RPM.
True. I mean I get Apu bein seen as a stereotype, but ethnic and national stereotypes other than him exist but never get backlash. Haven't seen anyone complain about Willie being an offensive Scottish stereotype
@@finland4ever55exactly, the simpsons characters are almost all stereotypes by design
@@finland4ever55 Because Scottish (and white people) have a variety of representation within Western settings. So people can watch Willie and take it as the joke that it's intended as. Indian culture gets hardly any and 99% of that which there has been is negative - which Apu helps feed in to. The guy who voiced Apu is white. He said his inspiration for the voice was from a racist white comic doing a deliberately racist version of 'the' accent.
He's tricky because he's not really bad, because he isnt 1 dimensional with it and ironically the most developed non-white character in the series (compared to pretty much all their others). The thing with Apu is that I think he is legitimately funny. Apu isn't really 1 dimensional or a punching bag Indian guy. He's kind of a stereotype that falls on the line of not being bad but not being the best.
@@hurley31 Thats a good point. The reason why Willie isnt a good comparison is because, he is already in a mostly white cast of the show. Willie is also more of an exaggeration than a negative stereotype persay.
Where as Apu is the only Indian character in the show, aside from his wife and family, so the audience only sees him as thee Indian guy. Thats the problem when you have token minorities, vs a diverse cast. I think the Simpsons also fails this because despite how many characters they have where 99% of them are white, where as you have 1 Indian guy, and the same with their near nonexistent Asian characters but like 2 women and they are just stereotypes of Asian women with no characterization to them (even compared to Willie). You have Cookie Kwan and her stereotype is that she is very rude and rich. Unlike Apu, that is her only character trait.
So only having 1 character to represent a group gives the audience less to perceive about the group beyond that 1 character as thee stereotype. Apu would have been fine if he wasn't the only Indian character in the series. If he wasn't then it would be easier to see he is just a guy and just a token Indian mascot character.
As a latina, I feel that our minority was also depicted offensively and still is as well. I hope one day television changes. Im tired ot it! Fantastic video, you totally deserve more subscribers!
Disney's "oye Primos" series set us back 20 years 😂😂😂😂😂
@@NovikNikolovic brought us back to the encomienda 💀💀💀💀
Im a black girl and honestly this is relatable. We only have one representation as well and it's pretty much a terrible stereotype. To be honest I grew up on a lot of these shows but never noticed this. It was mind-blowing to come to the realization that all of the Indian characters are the exact same. Nickelodeon was the absolute worst at black girl representation but it seems that for Indian people even Disney was bad smh. Also is it just me or were there no Indian girls represented in the early 2000s?
I have a theory as to why a lot of people in india love the big bang theory. When apu was removed from the Simpsons, a lot of people here in Latin America didn't understand it and where mad that it happened. And i was confused bc shouldn't we be mad about the misrepresentation of indian people too since the same thing happened to us with bumblebee man in the Simpsons? But then i understood that people here are able to see bumblebee man as a joke, yes made at our expense, but only as joke. At the end of the day that's not going to be used by an us american to make fun of us bc this is Latin America and we know that we are not like that. But if you are a latine inmigrant or the child of one, you will only then realize that all of those drug lords and spicy latinas characters in their media are how they see you. That's all we are apparently to them. But that bleeds out to us here, when our already successful actors and actresses try to make it also in Hollywood. I remember when ricardo darin, maybe one of our most talented actors in Argentina, got offered the role to be a drug lord in a hollywood movie. He said he was offended by that bc he knew of the way we were being represented in their media. And yeah, bumblebee man is not as bad but that doesn't mean he is the only case of misrepresentation. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that maybe people in india don't see the problem or don't care bc it doesn't affect them as much as indians in the us, especially the ones who want to be involved in the making of media there. But then again, is a theory
See also: Speedy Gonzales!
Whether you can "take a joke" at your own expense depends largely on your own self--perceived level of safety and security. We can often take jokes at our own expense when we feel confident in the ground we're standing on, so to speak, and can rest safe in the knowledge the joke can't or won't be used to undermine our status, rights, or basic humanity.
Also, stereotypical depictions of "people like you" land differently depending on whether you feel you're in a lush jungle or a desert representation-wise. Natch, if you feel like representations of people like you are few and far between, bad, inaccurate, or insulting depictions will grate on your nerves all the more, I reckon.
@@dinosaysrawr funny that you mention speedy, it was my grandpa favorite character during his childhood, it never crossed his mind ever the possibility that speedy could have been used as a way for people in the us to make fun of him.
@@dinosaysrawrThing is, Speedy isn't a "joke" about Mexicans. He's a joke about the US government being entirely ineffective. This joke was intended for the time period and while he doesn't age well because we've lost the context (go look it up, fascinating stuff) it really said something about how cartoons were layered. You had something for everyone.
Speedy was really geared for a more mature taste because he was steeped in politics but wrapped up with enough cute things so that kids could enjoy him, too. He's always been one of my favorites. He's the "underdog" facing off with the inept who posture themselves as big and tough.
The reason we couldn't have Speedy today is thin skinned politicians who cry out for censorship at everything in the guise of "think of the children" and that's very sad.
This is a very good point: Indians who haven't left India have probably not experienced being profiled, being asked dumb questions, even being compared to characters like Apu, Kumar from Harold and Kumar or (in my case) Lilly Singh 💀💀💀 Interesting that you talk about a famous Argentinian actor being asked to portray a drug lord...Ricardo Darin has EVERY right to be offended!!
@@jamie1602 True! I think by this logic they should have been cancelling Pepe for being a French stereotype, portraying the French as lecherous twits, which is a negative stereotype. But of COURSE people don't find that offensive
Great video! I never noticed how Indian representation was almost always male, I wonder why that is?
I always thought it was bizarre how many cartoons had characters with Indian accents who weren’t even voiced by Indian people. I think Ruby Gloom and Littlest Pet Shop both have examples of that.
I was also going to mention King Julien in this video, because Sacha Baron Cohen said in an interview that the accent was based off his Sri Lankan lawyers...but I kinda love King Julien, ngl. Thanks for watching!
@@KarraMeansSpicyI have a lot issues w Sacha Baron Cohen as a person (he’s treated Romani people particularly horribly), but I can’t deny that King Julien would not be as memorable of a character if he didn’t have that accent
The ara from the barbie movie 12 dancing princesses, the Bird species comes from south america but why the indian accent??
I have a couple of speculations here.
One is that it reflects the experience of the white creators of this shows. Due to the nature of South Asian migration to the USA, until recently the sex ratio was skewed in favour of males. White Americans who only had incidental encounters with Indians living here were more likely to interact with Indian men than Indian women and that determined what they had to draw on when creating characters.
Another is that female nerd characters seem to be rare in general. If the main character has a nerdy friend, they're almost always male. Since the go-to Indian stereotype of the time was "nerd", it's going to take more thought to make them female than the creators were willing to put into the character.
@@danielvonbrighoffor the agenda was simple the "desexualization of asian men"
Thanks for the "Doctor enchilada" as a mexican... I LMAO
HAHAHA I was contemplating cutting that part out...thank you for watching!
IT WAS SO FUNNY AJHSJA
Your ‘proving your indian’ bit at the top of the video nearly took me out. You are very talented and I hope you keep making videos.
As an African-American I do think there is some validity to comparing the Indian stereotype to the Minstrel Show in America. The popularity of the stereotypes were so pervasive many black actors were only able to make money as performers by performing within the stereotype, black face and all. Many a black performer added blackface to their own face just to work during the height of the Minstrel Show which isn’t too far from Indian Actors being trained to put on an accent. Even after the extreme make-up stopped being as pervasive early hollywood basically had the echo of Minstrel stereotypes for years and years. There’s a movie called Origin which explores caste systems and I think a lot of what you’ve dissected fits well into what that film was exploring.
A very interesting perspective! Yes I do agree in that there is some merit to Hari Kondabalu's claim of Minstrel shows. I did not know that even black actors had to do "blackface" themselves just to get work...there is so much nuance to this topic and we've barely even scratched the surface here. Thanks for watching!
“I can prove it too” had me rolling 😂
SID: I'm mixed indo-caribbean and white British.
On your point of "it's okay to make racist jokes if they're funny" I'd point to Chabuddy G in the BBC show People Just Do Nothing.
The actor Asim Chaudhry who played him justified him as "taking the piss out of that one indian uncle everyone has" which really made me feel better about him. He's not meant to be a racist caricature for non-brown folks to look and laugh at for talking in an OTT accent and playing silly scams, he's meant to be FOR brown folks to see as their weirdo family member who's always up to shit. He's a stereotype of a specific type of Indian guy that british-indian folks are familiar with. The same way that you have white nerds and white jocks and white whatever groups, he's your nutty brown uncle.
It's not a racist joke/character, it's a character who's joke relies on you understanding race/culture-specific stereotypes.
I'm not sure what point I'm making but I just wanted to shout out my boy Chabuddy G
Edited for typos. Probably missed some
Very interesting, I can't think of an equivalent to that character in American media. I have never heard of this show, or pretty much any Desi character in a non-American TV show/movie. Makes me wonder about how much I'm missing out on
@@KarraMeansSpicyYou should try and find a way to watch “Goodness Gracious Me”!
It’s a BBC sketch-comedy show from the late 90s/early 2000s, and all the main cast are British Indians. It’s a landmark show tbh.
Shout out to Chabuddy G, definitely a character for us lol
Also got love for Goodness Gracious Me. It was groundbreaking for British Asian representation. Still funny as well.
I have never clicked on a video so fast. Hope this video blows up, girlie.
Same I was SURPRISED that this only has 31 views.
You are too kind!!! Thank you for watching 👁👄👁
Told you so.
I have to bring up Guru Pathik because even though I love ATLA to death, I have to ask why? Like the show has clear real life inspirations for all 4 nations and then there is just a walking Indian sterotype who's just there. It makes me ask but why not just make him from Earth Kingdom who studied Airbender culture before the war instead of the sterotype?
I always wondered why he randomly had an Indian accent when India doesn't exist? None of the other characters have any noticeable accents even though they're all from different parts of the world. Where'd the accent come from? We've literally traveled the whole world, and there are no accents.
i like him as him as character but the exaggerated accent? nope. i don't understand what on earth they were thinking
@@Aresofthevoidyea totally, like him except his accent
I really enjoyed hearing your take on all of this. What I found particularly interesting and saddening is how "surface level" society is. Like not just with the people writing these characters, but the way people project them. The "being called Kumar is better than Apu" argument is awful because (regardless of Kumar or Apu) it shows that society is more keen to identify someone based on race than any personality traits. For example, I bet nobody has ever nicknamed a vegan friend "Apu" in spite of that being a character trait of Apu. But countless people have nicknamed an Indian friend (or stranger) "Apu" because... skin color. It's sad when someone's race is the only thing perceived.
This effects kids so much. I was mistaken for being Indian as a kid (js bc I have a red dot on my forehead that's a birthmark) and was treated like I knew everything about idea even tho I didn't even know what an "india" was😭
this is crazy. i'm brazillian, so i've watched these all dubbed in my childhood and they had no accents whatsoever in the brazilian version.
Dan Povenmire, creator of Phineas and Ferb, has actually gone on record apologizing for any hate that resulted from Baljeet and admitted that early on in the show they relied on tokenizing before developing him out more.
I always thought these characters were really messed up. Looking back on Jessie in general, all of the characters of color were stereotypes. Ravi, Zuri, Luke. I’m actually so thankful that they at least didn’t make Zuri a huge African stereotype, but making her a black American stereotype is almost worse.
I think some of Zuri’s negative traits just come from the fact the she was spoiled on the show. but the stereotypes got worse as the show went on for her
@@quangamershyguyyz7166 you’re just racist
Fez from That 70s Show will always be an enigma because we don't know which country he's supposed to be stereotyping 😂
You don't even know his name. He's a Foreign Exchange Student. F.E.S. aka Fez.
Doesn’t he also voice handy manny?
I'm a 16-year-old boy in the USA in an Indian family and to this day, literally 16 years after Baljeet's first appearance on Phineas and Ferb, I'm still mocked for it. Also I have the glasses and I'm skinny. Yay! Racism! Luckily, I'm going to be a filmmaker in Hollywood when I grow up and I'll definitely fix all these issues for sure
Growing up, I used to watch this really obscure Canadian show with an Indian lead called How to Be Indie. I'm not sure how well it holds up today, but I do remember that the main character was treated as a normal teen. It was my Never Have I Ever growing up.
thanks for unlocking that memory
As a degrassi fan, it’s not as obscure as you think 😅
Weirdly enough, getting Australian television meant we got Canadian and British shows. I've seen at least 2 tween/teen shows from the late 2000s about Indians immigrating to English-speaking countries with most of the conflict being around adopting the local culture vs. celebrating the culture their family was raised in, usually with a balance of the two being considered the best option.
The entertainment industry plus Hollywood have no idea on how to write a normal human character, they always use the most ridiculous stereotypes.
@@quangamershyguyyz7166 true but humor is very subjective, especially stereotype humor, it only works well if you also make fun of yourself as a psychological balance.
This video feels relatable to me as an autistic person. We are often depicted as nerdy, socially awkward people when we can be just as diverse as anyone else.
Oh my god yes. We get dehumanized and infantilized, and thats just so horrible. Autistic people are human, not some weird awkward jokes.
I also think freedom of speech in America should be taken with some more "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" than it is
When I was younger, the character representing India that I grew up with was Raj from Camp Lazlo on Cartoon Network in the 2000s.
I haven't remembered that much from Raj until the UA-camr Uncle Al made a parody of Camp Lazlo.
I related to Raj a lot due to him being very analytical, but also the one character in Lazlo's friend group that says "No, we should not do that," akin to Double D from the show Ed, Edd, n' Eddy.
Buuut, Raj was a slight people pleaser at the same time while trying to do and say the right thing, causing conflict with himself, his friends, and his fellow camp scouts.
So yeah: Me and Raj were a bit too alike. Lmao.
Jessie is so much more racist than I remember. I distinctly remember when Jessie threw zuri an “African themed birthday party” to “remind her of home”. THE WHOLE CONTINENT. like I know Jessie grew up on military bases and was sheltered or whatever but WHAT
@@quangamershyguyyz7166Africa is a continent, treating an entire continent as a country and assuming that their cultures and traditions are interchangeable is in-fact very racist.
I looked it up, and i’m kind of surprised that Baljeet was actually voiced by an Indian guy
This video really made me think. I knew Indian people being nerdy and awkward was a stereotype but it was this video that made me realize how egregious that would be having that as the only representation. I’m glad you made this video for people like me (non Indian) to be aware of this stuff.
How did I never notice the music in the background when Baljeet is on screen???
They do the same thing to characters of other ethnicities in the show - Stacy’s grandma gets an oriental tune, Isabella’s mom gets a Latin tune, and almost every episode opens up to Phineas and Ferb’s house with a western guitar strum. It’s an artistic choice, not meant to be offensive.
@oofcloof I've been noticing it a lot for Asian characters specifically on most shows but I guess that's nice if they did it more evenly for characters on Phineas and Ferb
@@anaiyahluther even so, is it really a bad thing? I can't imagine the intent would be negative, if anything it's more for comedic effect and storytelling purposes. I wouldn't have a problem with an anime playing a Western guitar every time an American character showed up. it also establishes non-visual context for a character's traits that may not be picked up on sight alone.
As a Sikh, the only real representation i saw growing up was the character of Vikram Singh in Spike Lee’s Inside Man. I always found it interesting though, when sitcoms tended to have ethnic background characters (taxi drivers, shopkeepers, doctors, etc) that were meant to be Sikh but tended to be non-Sikh actors in terribly wrapped turbans mixed in with some generic Arab stereotypes. One of the worst offenders is in my favourite sitcom, Scrubs, but even today I noticed it when rewatching an episode of Ugly Betty.
YES!! The amount of ignorance it shows when Hollywood throws a turban on a brown actor and calls him Indian/middle eastern, then proceeds to get virtually everything wrong about their culture... While i havent seen Inside Man, i believe the same actor, Waris Ahluwalia, is in a handful of Wes Anderson movies. It is so refreshing to see a Sikh actor play Sikh roles
I remember hearing Karan Brar speak in his actual voice for the first time as a teen and feeling icky. it gave me second hand embarrassment for everyone involved-including myself for not realizing he was probably faking it & so are a majority of Indian actors
Yep, this is what it is , all of them are payed to fake the accent
Forget Indian Americans, no one here in India speaks in that annoying accent..
India is like a second language for most Indians because India was ruled by British and with so many languages here, English actually often serves as a connection language being equally alien to all
This video has been long needed. Me as white person was aware of the ‘nerdy Indian guy’ stereotype/trope but didn’t realize truly how prevalent it was til you started listing the characters which then prompted me to start thinking of even more characters and I was like daaaammmn.
Prismo from Adventure Time. He’s voiced by Kumail Nanjiani who has a bit of an accent just naturally but it’s not over the top, he’s not putting it on and just is there pretty neutrally. But I definitely think Prismo falls into like the ‘princess & the frog’ type category, in the sense that his main form that he’s shown in throughout his screen time isn’t human. We only see his true human form briefly 2x and he very clearly isnt white he’s a middle aged brown guy with like a crazy huge beard but otherwise while his human form is asleep & dreaming he’s a huge pink shadow. Overall tho I think Prismo is pretty epic, he’s liked by most fans me included, and he’s one of the main characters- Jakes bestie so.
Connie Maheswaran from Steven Universe. She’s voiced by a non Indian actress which is super unfortunate (I thought the actress was white up until this point but I looked it up and apparently she’s mixed but still not Indian). Im not an authority to say if her portrayal falls into stereotypes or is just rep so I’ll just say the facts are about her character and you can decide for yourself. Connie is introduced as a girl the main character as a crush on and throughout the series plays the role of his best friend and later love interest. At first she’s very lonely and doesn’t really have any friends except the main character because her mom is very strict and academically focused. Her mom, Priyanka is a doctor and her dad, Doug works in private security. Im not sure if both Connies parents are intended to be Indian or just her mom. Both her parents are voiced by non Indian actors. The ark she goes through in the series is going from sorta meeker type character to a very self assured one as she secretly learns soft fighting, is involved with magical adventures, and develops and heals her relationship with her mom who eventually becomes less strict and more emotionally available. Personally Connie is one of my favorite characters in the series and was as a little girl was a role model for me as she majorly a badass.
Firstly, I was unaware of both of these characters' existence until this comment, so thank you for that!
This kinda falls into the category of characters where they're Indian/Pakistani, but anything that makes them Indian is completely removed from their story/character...but then again I have not seen Adventure Time or Steven Universe, so what do I know lol
@KarraMeansSpicy for context of Connie's character she's shy to start because she mainly reads by the beach by herself. She meets steven gets a sense of adventure with him and they become friends, her parents are strict but not too bad, her moms a doctor (not sure what her dad is). Connie acts as pretty much a main character also since she's so close to steven and she ends up breaking the strictness with her parents standing up to her mother respectfully and trains to fight with steven and the gems. I have no say in this but I didn't see anything problematic it's not very representative in terms of culture but they don't really talk about any culture to my knowledge what rubbed me the wrong way was a song called "do it for him/her" where she's basically trained to think her life isn't as important as Steven's and she's disposable In a nice package "deep down you know you weren't built for fighting but that doesn't mean you're not prepared to try. What they don't know is your real advantage when you live for someone you're prepared to die you do it for him" that shocked me because I was like 15 watching a show encouraging a brown girl to fight and die for someone, when everyone around her has powers and could protect her.
@@kaylalezine2295To be fair, I think “Do It For Him” was never meant to be a healthy lesson for Connie, Pearl was just projecting her own feelings of protecting Rose over her own wellbeing (which is also portrayed as unhealthy thing for Pearl to feel). That’s why Pearl had a freudian slip saying “do it for her”, she was still stuck in the mindset that Steven was a stand-in for Rose. Later episodes show and encourage that Connie is an independent person even while in a relationship with Steven. Like when Steven proposes to Connie in Future, she says no because she still has dreams she wants to pursue, and Steven has to learn/accept that Connie needs that space.
I'm a hispanic male, so i can't speak on the offensiveness of any of these potrayals. But for what its worth I've always loved all these Indian characters, how much Chirag was nerdy like Greg, and how much Ravi loved his culture & Mrs. Kipling. Again I'm not Indian, but i enjoyed seeing these happy, nerdy characters that i felt i could relate to
Update: I'D LOVE DOCTOR ENCHILADA
Come think of it, the only non- stereotypically portrayed Indian characters I can think of from the early 2000s are Sav and Ali from Degrassi and CeCe from New Girl. And to be honest I can't remember if these characters were debuted before 2010 😬
Sav was introduced in 2007, i can't remember if Alli was the same year, but if not, then it was 2008
Family Guy had a gag about Indian people with Bollywood and how if you press the red button on their forehead, it's a bomb. Oh and Cheetah Girls had a movie that took place in India. Let's not forget Scooby-Doo, I think they had Scooby-Doo dressed up like a Swami and Shaggy was throwing his voice to make it look like Scooby was talking.
Correct that's from season 1
That bomb joke is pretty funny ngl
I don't see the fault in the cheetah girls if you can explain that perhaps? I just saw it as mixing dance styles and love stories
Doesn't Scooby-Doo do similar things in almost every movie?
This video is going to blow up
On the Suite Life on Deck, London Tipton had a roommate temporarily who’s name was Padma Srinivasanviswanathan.
I can’t remember the name of the episode but it felt very stereotypical.
And that also means that the Suite Life trilogy had at least two stereotypical Indian Characters.
And she was only in one episode because she was getting out of school.
Before I read the part about how you thought the episode was very stereotypical, I could already tell by that last name. Srinivasan and Viswanathan are already last names on their own, but because I guess there's this stereotype about Indians having long names, they mashed the two together to make it ridiculous which was apparently funny.
The suite life I’m hilarious but UNHINGED, partly hilarious because it’s so outdated. Londons Thai and she goes to visit her grandma who lives on an island with a rice field and a fucking elephant
That was the Suite Life on Deck. And she gives up her spot on the boat school for a few million dollars.
Ironically, the only reason London Tipton wasn't a complete cliched Asian stereotype was that she was written to be a white character (Parody of Paris Hilton) but they ended up casting Brenda Song (who they were originally going to just make a stereotype character for) instead as the same originally white character. Then she ended up being one of the few Asian characters of the time that wasn't just playing a stereotype character. The 2000s was pretty rough, for underepresented POC characters to not be default casted.
Thank you for this video! I am white and live in predominately white country, so any education about race is very valuable to me. I would say I agree with your statement that it is okay to make racist jokes, but once again I am white, so it is not my place to say it. For me personally, if I make a race-cased joke it is only with my closest friends whom I know won’t take the racist part seriously and just appreciate the punchline
Why do you think that your not allowed to have an opinion on certain things because your white? That’s just silly, and I say this as someone who is not white.
It’s no one’s place to tell you what you can and can not talk about or to silence you because of your race. People are allowed to talk about whatever they want. There is no rule book dictating otherwise.
Why do you think that your not allowed to have an opinion on certain things because your white? That’s just silly, and I say this as someone who is not white.
It’s no one’s place to tell you what you can and can not talk about or to silence you because of your race. People are allowed to talk about whatever they want. There is no rule book dictating otherwise.
If people get offended by something that’s their problem.
Great video, I’m Mexican, so maybe I’ve never seen it, but it’s kinda crazy how I’ve never seen a bigger backlash towards Disney’s Indian characters, because even I could tell that the portrayal felt very…. Wrong to put it mildly, so it’s nice to see a video address it. Also maybe it’s cause I saw Courage as a kid and haven’t seen much since, but I didn’t realize the doctor was meant to be Indian, I feel kinda dumb noticing it now. Anyway again awesome video
I’m glad I’m seeing this now and wish I saw it earlier . Spot on !!! Not just spot on I’ll go one step further … there were two Punjabi Sikh students in my high school who I (among other students of Indian descent ) just did not associate with because they were straight from India and wore turbans to school . They were constantly talked about in ignorant ways and the “blending in “ Indian students stayed quiet out of fear of association and further discrimination. I’m glad you did this video because Indian Americans are constantly reminded by their parents and Indians from India of “how easy they have it “ (including me) .
I look back and wonder why I never spoke up against the ignorance … and I remember now … I was SCARED … my nephews too likely have this complex as well
Thank you for making this video... Im not indian, but im puertorican/pakistani... I know that we arent exactly the same, but i think we very much share similar experiences. In puerto rico theres a very big problem of casual racism.
Cant tell you the amount of times ive been called things like "baljeet" or other insults/jokes that are typically directed towards indian people (which is definitely due in part to blatant ignorance, and how we are all portrayed in the media. They like to lump us all in one category, its easier for them). I see people making fun of hinduism and hinduism practices, gods etc. more often than i think i should, especially on tv, including portrayals of islam. It hurts to know that these portrayals affect how people percieve me and people who are similar me.
I think you did a very good job highlighting all of this, i really hope we get more and better indian representation in media in the future.
I think with Gandhi what people were missing the point of the show. And was that these are clones. This isn’t the REAL Gandhi they are making fun of. The REAL Gandhi doesn’t have ADHD and goes around shaking this ass. But the CLONE Gandhi does. That’s the point of clone high. These clones are NOTHING like the person they are cloned to be. That’s why the characters try so hard to be like their original but fail miserably.
They should make a clone of Mohammed and put him in the show. If they do that then no Indian will complain about Gandhi. I wonder if they will do that or is it a double standard
@@debodatta7398 Dude you know that's not happening.
@@debodatta7398I think that would cause OTHER issues homie 😂
But yes sadly Clone High is a genius show about what if we could hypothetically clone and make a historical figure live under a new environment of the modern American social construct, they would turn out completely different cause everything that made them so amazing is gone.
None of the clones are supposed to make fun of the original people cause the point is that modern American society ruins them and makes them all goofy. If there was a way to make this more clear then maybe it could work but even then people just see the appearance of a figure and lose their minds without understanding what it’s about. All of these clones are completely new people and commentary on the US more than anything.
I'm always so fascinated to hear about the history of how various non white groups were portrayed in media over the years. Thank you for making this. Honestly while I'm not Indian, as an Arab I've noticed a lot of similar trends over the years regarding media I grew up with and even seen aspects from Indian culture injected into Arab characters and vice versa because the people writing these characters couldn't be bothered to do the research. Even though it's shitty it's also so fascinating to me how different non white characters have been historically portrayed in largely western media and I wish there was more discussion around it.
the character Samir Nagheenanajar from Office Space comes to mind (he should've gotten a shoutout in this video too, but oh well, too late). He's an Indian actor but in the movie he has an Arab accent...
Congrats on this video POPPING OFF!! Im not Indian, but i love hearing multiple perspectives, especially the perspectives of the people something effects the most.
Thank u for posting this
I internalised a lot of these dynamics and ideas and it led to a lot of problems in my life and how I viewed myself
Hearing u compare it to minstrelsy was hugely validating
It's hard looking back at my past and seeing memories of me minstrelising myself in a lot of ways
It hurts
Your video is healing
Thank you for posting
Thanks for watching! If it makes you feel any better, I think we've all forced ourselves to laugh at cringey Indian jokes for our friends, and sometimes even do a silly accent, just for the sake of being accepted. But nowadays, if someone tries to make jokes at my ethnicity's expense, I shut that shit DOWN!!! Here's to a better future for us 🥂
I used to have a big crush on Prince Naveen he definitely broke the mold and is less talked about😭 He is voiced by a white actor though…So close.
Bruno Campos is Brazilian
yes but Prince Naveen is Indian which many people dont know@@inter_esting
I don't agree on having strictly only Indians voicing Indians in cartoons / ONLY casting people for voice roles based on race. I think this only becomes an issue when people put on a fake accent. Voice casting should have creative freedom and should fit the character. Of course that also means if the character is supposed to have an accent cast someone with an actual accent, otherwise the person casted is not the right person for the role.
an an indian that lives in the UK, i think it has to be said that British media has far better South Asian representation - bend it like Beckham especially!
NOW IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS, TURN IT UP!!!!
the craziest thing is as a kid I remember feeling proud of characters like Baljeet and Ravi because there was such little representation of South Asians. Even though it made me sightly uncomfortable I was just so happy to see people of my race were finally included since we're so used to getting nothing
Surprised no one has mentioned Kevin Gnapoor from Mean Girls, I’m not Indian so I don’t wanna judge how good/bad he is as representation, but I loved him & thought he was so funny in the (‘04) movie although he does kinda fit some of these stereotypical attributes that other Indian male characters in the 00s had that you mentioned. But that rap scene was goated fr
Gandhi's portrayal in Clone High is historically accurate though. Yes, they over-emphasize his sexuality but Gandhi was slightly overly sexual irl. As an example, he would sleep naked with younger women or even girls, in order to resist the temptation or giving in to his urges.
His own grand-nieces. He got them to sleep in the nude, alongside him, while they were teenagers. Gandhi was not a nice person. At all.
I dont feel like this is something new i bring to the conversation, but (white male) really feel how indian characters evolved in my consciousness. Like i had only known baljeet and the jessy one and didnt have mean spirited thoughts about them, i just saw then as quirky guys. But with people like Devi, Kingo and spidey it hit me, that i've never seen any indian thats not like baljeet.
I think Dave from Flight of the Conchords is a good example of an Indian character being given a level of unique and funny characterization that’s often only reserved for white actors… which is my long winded way of saying I love Dave, I think he’s hilarious, and it’s cool to see him in a show from the 2000s.
Yesss I was thinking about him through a lot of this video a great counter to these more stereotypical portrayals-- he's FAR from being an awkward science nerd, that's for sure. On the contrary, he's the "cool" guy the clueless main characters look up to, and he knows more about american customs than they do. One of the characters of all time for sure
YESSS
I wish there were more videos like this on UA-cam. I’m Ivorian American, but love to hear from other experiences from different cultures.
Unrelated but I love your channel picture!
Soy Peruano y tú quieres a experienciar culturas diferentes, inmigrantes que fueron asimilados entre los Estados Unidos no es una buena dirección para ir.
*Master of None* Episode 4 "Indians on TV" was a great moment (for me personally, South Africa: Zulu man) because I felt that things were getting better
The writers were gonna reveal that he wasn't even Gahndi's clone the entire time, but it was cancelled and season 2 had to delete him.
I’m an artist who is obsessed with my own characters, and even though I am white, I enjoy adding diversity to my characters when I can, so a lot of them aren’t white. One of my main characters is south Asian (Indian and Pakistani) so It’s always very helpful for me to find videos/articles about stereotypes to avoid with my characters. I found this video informative :) I hope you have a lovely day and can create more awesome content!
Good for you!
This was an interesting vid, gave me a lot of insight and perspective into an issue I'd been a little skeptical about before. Something interesting when it comes to Raj from Big Bang Theory can be applied to other non-caucasian characters as well, not just Indians. It's pretty common to see them portrayed as emasculated sexless introverts who can't speak to women, a lot of the same attributes of Raj can be found in characters of other ethnicities too, like Fez from that 70's Show or Abed from Community. I think there's a real problem with how Hollywood other-ed or type casted non white folks. Stuff like comparing Apu to bIackface made me skeptical, but hearing you talk about it cleared up any skepticism I had. This is a really rational well thought out vid. One lil note tho, I think adding some lo-fi beats or something would really make the vid flow and pop a lil more! Great vid tho, I'm excited to see where your channel goes in the future!
There's clearly a need and desire for these videos. Thanks for posting.
This is something I learned from Film Crit Hulk: I think it's more helpful to think of comedy not as "punching up vs punching down", but as, "Who do I want this joke to be FOR?" I don't know Russell Peters beyond this video, but his jokes seem to land well with the Indian audience because they come from a place of shared experiences. Excellent video, btw!
Okay, I can see how an Indian accent can be offensive but I wanna defend it and say that an Indian accent is one of the cutest accents I’ve ever heard. Never looked down on a character just because they sounded different:)
true
i think the problem isnt showing an indian accent. it's more so the fact that EVERY character has a SUPER EXAGGERATED version of it.
most indians who live in america dont have an insanely strong accent the same way indians who live in india have for example.
also altho i appreciate liking the accent :) the shows are obviously not trying to make it a "likable" trait 😭
it's not a bad thing really but they just don't do it very well. like i'm indian and none of my relatives who moved to america really sound like that! especially not the kids, who usually grew up here, with english as their first language. a better indian accent would be slightly choppier and more monotone in my opinion. maybe mixing up long and short vowel sounds every once in a while. and a different delivery, because dialects tend to differ greatly in sentence delivery. for example, american accents tend to go quiet at the end of sentences, while indian accents tend to give a little more energy to the last word.
Thank you SO MUCH for making this video. Growing up, I felt insecure about being a South Asian person because I thought the portrayals of people like me were how other people saw me. I 100% agree with everything you said in this video.
I loved Hapu from the Simpsons but I wished they would’ve made him a doctor or an engineer, because as an Indo-Canadian I like the fact that Indians are high-achievers. Doctors and engineers are just normal professions in India whereas meeting a doctor or engineer in Canada is like spotting a bald eagle or a humpback whale.
Courage the cowardly dog is a great show. I completely forgot about dr.vindaloo tho 💀
Would love to know your opinion on Connie and her family from Steven Universe. Its definitely another case where I wish they got Indian actors instead of white people, but its even weirder cuz its a bunch of white voice actors big in the anime voice scene so they're an indian family who the parents sound like really popular classic anime characters (the mom does the voice of Ghost In The Shell's main character and the Dad is Alucard from Hellsing). Wild
I'm from germany and I very recently watched the Simpsons in the original english
Needless to say my perception of Apu changed dramatically when I heard him with an overexagerrated accent.
In german he just rolls his Rs but otherwise speaks normally.
To me Apu was a university graduate, ladies man, small business owner, passionate about many things, wise about others.
The idea he was a negative depiction only came to me when I heard how the creators decided to have him speak
I found your video rather interesting......My first response happens to be in the early 2000's , my ex and I went to the movies and saw a movie called " Bend it Like Beckham ". I enjoyed this movie to the point I sought other movies by the director such as " Monsoon Wedding ".... I am sure you are aware of this movie focusing on an Indian girl balancing life between western and traditional culture... A POSITIVE portrayal of the Indian community... As for racism.... In 2014, I visited my mother in North Carolina at which point my mother introduced me to her yard man... The yard man told my mother that I looked either South Asian OR Middle Eastern; even though I am not EITHER... I informed my mother to tell her yardman THANK YOU for Middle Eastern and South Asian individuals are VERY attractive people....Due to my Poly Racial appearance, I have experienced the unwelcomed racist issues especially after 9/11...... I took a Holiday to the Middle East and experienced a relaxed welcoming entry into Dubai, UNLIKE the stressful, interrogated , and unnecessary detainment that I received when i returned back to my own country USA....BTW I am a FORMER Police Officer.. Over 20 years after the " EVENT ",certain individuals that look a certain way are still judged and harassed without an end in sight even though most of these individuals are a benefit to this country. Have a nice day.
This video got recommended to me and I have to say thank you to the algorithm, I checked out your etsy and saw the bloodywood patch!!! We stan bloodywood so hard
I didn’t realize that Karan Brar’s accent in the Wimpy Kid movies and Jessie wasn’t his natural accent. I had just assumed it was, since he had it in both.
Edit: Good video, btw. I thought this was an interesting perspective to hear as someone who isn’t Indian.
Wow I’ve never took time to look at a lot of these characters as wrong. Thank you! This was very interesting and informative video for me. Raj, Baljeet, Chirag, Ravi. All characters I grew up watching and honestly loving. I literally had crush on Ravi. I knew not all Indian people were like that. I thought that Ravi just loved his culture and wanted to show it. Looking back on it now though, Now that I know, the idea of him growing up faking an accent, his loss of Cam, depression and substance abuse is devastating. I hope to see him in better roles as himself. And I can’t believe Whoopi has this weird collection? Great vid.