Harshi Pannala Q2 #2: American TV
American cinema. It has long been one of the nation’s sources for cultural awareness. Films and TV shows shape how Americans see themselves and others, but also how the rest of the world sees America. In the past, cinema only reflected a fraction of American culture. It heavily focused on the stereotypical experiences of the white population, downplaying the experiences of minorities. In the case that minorities were showcased, it often reinforced biases and stereotypes. For example, I remember wanting to see an Indian Disney princess—and no, Jasmine does not count. Thankfully, the industry has embraced multiculturalism and individuality more in the last couple decades (to some extent).
I want to dive deeper into the TV show that occupies my home the most, Phineas and Ferb, which may seem simple, but is actually pretty insane. The show hosts a vast soundtrack that uses Bollywood sounds, reggae beats, classical tunes, and so much more, reflecting America’s crazy combination of cultures. The characters themselves reflect America even more. For example, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro holds a Mexican and Jewish identity, which the show celebrates by narrating celebrations like Hannukah.
Baljeet is another character on the show, who seemed to appear in too may of my conversations today. I was talking to some our fellow classmates during FLEX. We discussed how prevalent the underlying racism used to portray Baljeet is—you know, the exaggerated accent and the show’s emphasis on the overused, nerdy Indian stereotype. My family and friends talked about how they never paid much attention to it. In theory it makes sense, when they are surrounded by people who share some of the same characteristics as Baljeet, they see validity in the stereotypes. In Fremont, accents don’t jump out at me since I regularly hear a large variety of them daily, so I don’t dwell on thick accents much. This exposure has led me to never really question the underlying racism in the show. However, this quietness regarding the show’s racism normalizes racist remarks in media more.
Another show I enjoy is Fresh Off the Boat, which challenges the typical stereotypes of Chinese Americans. Although, I have to admit, the show simultaneously reinforces certain stereotypes too. Then, can non-whites be portrayed as Americans, without their ethnic roots being the character’s identifying characteristics? Or perhaps it shows that race and ethnicity play massive roles in individuals’ lives. Nonetheless, movies and TV shows change the concept of what an American is, therefore, media is not simply entertainment. The media defines what we view as “American,” but in reality we must look at each other to shape our views on cultural definitions. I don’t speak Hindi and I’m bad at math, but I am a real Indian and an American. America will divide us, saying certain people aren’t American enough, but only those people can define themselves.
Harshi, I think TV shows and movies are such an integral part of pop culture where we get so much of our biases from (since we’re all exposed to it as really young kids) that whatever one sees through media or pop culture might be an implicit bias we hold for a long time. For example, when all TV stations could cover right after 9/11 was the role of terrorists and the war on terrorism the US was going on, support for the 20 year long Afghanistan war and those in the Gulf increased by a lot, aside from all the xenophobia communities faced domestically. I can’t even lie I initially thought the first line of your blog was “Absolute cinema” instead of “American cinema” which probably reinforces the idea that pop culture has an impact to at least a certain extent on all of us (or maybe I need to throw away my phone: I prefer to stick with the first theory :). I think your use of anecdotes contributes to your highly personal and reflective tone throughout the blog, which personally hooked me, and your use of allusions helps point out specific examples from pop culture that your audience is familiar with that support your points. Overall, thank you for an amazing piece!
ReplyDeleteHi Harshi, I enjoyed reading your blog this week. As a huge fan of any kind of entertainment—movies, tv shows, kdramas—I was able to relate to every single example you inserted into your blog this week. Aladdin was a great movie, and while we can debate the merits of whether or not Princess Jasmine is an Indian Princess all day long I wanted to touch on the point you made on how living in Fremont has changed how you view racism and people with different accents. I think this is part of the blessing of living in such a diverse part of the United States because it allows for our perspectives and perceptions to be molded in a very open minded way. These classmates of yours sound very smart and intelligent to be having such deep and fruitful conversations during Flex (chuckle) because after a very similar conversation with classmates in Flex I have now come to partially agree that Baljeet’s portrayal on the show is a little racist on the part of the writers. His accent may be just a little too strong and coupling that with his outfit and the way he talks and acts, yeah it’s pretty racist. But we cannot let the way Hollywood, or a small portion of the American entertainment industry portray a group of people to become the prevalent sentiment or stereotype in how as Americans we view a certain group of people.
ReplyDeleteHello, Harshi! I really love how you linked two rather unrelated shows, a children’s cartoon and a sitcom together with your commentary. Film is certainly an important aspect of fostering stereotypes and shapes how we view other cultures as Americans. It always feels like whenever some film based in real life is released, it always seems to foster some sort of stereotype. I think that is because it is very hard for writers to portray different groups of people without resorting to stereotypes, and often, many of them just choose the easy way and decide to stick to stereotypes. Certainly more attention has been brought to the matter, however I agree with your assertion that stereotypes are still prevalent in the media. I think that some level of stereotyping is going to be unavoidable, as producers are simply uninterested in developing background characters too much—the most we can do is portray the main characters in a film more accurately and reduce the severity of how we portray stereotypes in film.
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