University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

When representation isn't enough: calling for Indian multiplicity in Hollywood films

(USC Thesis Other)

When representation isn't enough: calling for Indian multiplicity in Hollywood films

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content WHEN REPRESENTATION ISN’T ENOUGH:
CALLING FOR INDIAN MULTIPLICITY IN HOLLYWOOD FILMS
by
Rajvinder Singh
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ANNENBERG SCHOOL FOR COMMUNICATION AND
JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(SPECIALIZED JOURNALISM (THE ARTS))
May 2023
Copyright 2023 Rajvinder Singh
Acknowledgements
The following couldn’t have been possible without the patience, opinions and ears of my
professors: Willa Seidenberg, Oscar Garza, Paula Mejía and Priya Jaikumar. They instilled in me
the belief that people would care about this. Without the guidance of editors, past and present, I
wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have.
My resilience has been the product of some good friends: Jenell Rodriguez, Oliver and
Sebastian Chou, Ashley Chiang, Brandon Callanta, Ezekiel Buenviaje, Tiffany Yich, Joshua
Olivas, and Gabby Sto Domingo. Your friendships are some of the best things to ever happen to
me. Though interactions with many of my new USC Annenberg colleagues, friends and
professors have impacted me in some form or another, I’d like to give a special thank you to Eric
Lambkins II, Lynn Lambkins, Aadya Chidanand, Alan Mittelstaedt, and Britney Pollard for their
unbridled wisdom and support in my moments of doubt.
Thank you to the projectionists who play the film when I’m the only one at the screening.
Thank you to the filmworkers of the world, who let me dream and dedicate their lives to a craft
that often turns against itself. Thank you to the movies. Without you, I wouldn’t be here today.
To my loving parents, who pray for me at my worst and my best, and who’ve had nothing
in order to give me everything — you are my foundation, and the bravest people I know.
Lastly, a special thank you is in order to my cat, Ferguson, who kept me company
through the duration of this program and screenings for this thesis. While the weight of the world
and my doubts stood on my shoulders, this furry ball of everything pure did absolutely nothing
but distract me along the way.
ii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………. ii
Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………….. iv
Preface……………………………………………………………………………………………. v
Chapter 1: Dots or feathers?.…………………………………………………………………….. 1
Chapter II: The rise of starpower and a dusky peril…………..…………………………………. 6
Chapter III: Orientalism and the problem with critics……..…………………………………… 11
Chapter IV: The canon as it stands………….………………………………………………….. 18
Chapter V: When screens are mirrors…………………………………………………………... 24
References………………………………………………………………………………………. 28
iii
Abstract
Since their inception, Hollywood films have long mirrored America’s anxieties and
prejudice towards Asian Indians, and their lack of presence in film history has left the same
resonance. It has stunted the growth of countless potential Indian American performers, as well
as their potential to be leading performers across varying genres, despite the manner in which
Indian culture has impacted Western music, dance, culinary art, fine art, and cinema.
In the 1990s, stories of the Indian diaspora began popping up, but few would reach
mainstream status or be considered as a cinematic wonder. Though they’ve uprooted
Hollywood’s long-standing orientalist views, the mainstream slate of Indian-led Western films
are few and far between, with even fewer niche films achieving the artistry that the community
deserves.
Using my own experiences as an Indian American cinemagoer, supported by historical
research, interviews and film criticism, this thesis aims to interpret what comes after Indian
representation in Hollywood films. In doing so, the reader will understand the need for a long
overdue multiplicity of prominent roles for Asian Indians in Western cinema, as well as the
factors that contributed to Indian Americans achieving at least some proper representation in
Hollywood cinema.
iv
Preface
I had my first conscious ideation of an identity in the first grade, by way of a pair of twin
boys in my new school, circa 2003. They had piercing green eyes that seemingly looked through
you, skin the shade of red oak wood, wooly brown hair and wore matching sweater vests
(exceptions were made for the summer heat). One vest’s color palette was always darker than the
other, which represented their personalities to me and, in a way, helped me tell them apart from a
distance.
The twins were the first friends willing to play with this new kid in a predominantly
Hispanic neighborhood during recess. They even empathized with my pickiness and shared their
homemade lunches when the good cafeteria food was gone by the time my class got in line. Over
time, they were comfortable enough to confide in me and, one day, one of the twins pulled me in
close.
“Don’t tell anyone, but we are Muslims,” he whispered. Naturally, I looked to my Indian
immigrant parents to understand what this meant. I was met with silence, and the twins moved
away shortly thereafter.
v
Chapter I: Dots or feathers?
Considering how few films such as 2021’s “The Green Knight” exist, I asked myself, Am
I supposed to be satisfied?
The film’s source material, written by an unknown author, is based on a long-lost 14th
Century poem entitled “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” which was discovered in the 19th
Century. But what had made the film particularly noteworthy to me was David Lowery’s
decision to cast British Indian actor Dev Patel as Sir Gawain. He thought Patel would “look
really cool carrying a sword, wearing armor and riding a horse” after watching the actor in the
2016 Australian film “Lion,” Lowery told the Associated Press.
1
The film is an outlier for a few reasons. The role of a knight has been historically
reserved for white men, from “Excalibur” to “Lord of the Rings” to the seemingly infinite
reimaginings of the Robin Hood story. Secondly, taking into account Patel’s pivotal role, the film
still made a financial return amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2
Above all, Patel’s
ethnicity was separated from the story, even as the lead.
“You count people out until you give them a chance and then all of a sudden, it feels
ridiculous that we didn't do that before,” Hari Kondabolu, comedian and director of the 2017
documentary, “The Problem with Apu,” said on a Zoom call from the East Coast. “People do not
know that they like this actor, they don't know if they like the story until they see it. You can’t
tell me that when ‘Star Wars’ came out, they knew it was going to be a hit and this thing that
lasted forever.”
2
Cathal Gunning, “Why The Green Knight Did Better At The Box Office Than Expected,” S c r e e n R a n t,
August 2, 2021, https://screenrant.com/green-knight-box-office-better-expected-why/.
1
Lindsey Bahr, “Summer Movie Highlights from the Directors Who Made Them,” A P N E W S, May 19,
2021,
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-movies-sports-arts-and-entertainment-c7541932e41ad0a0bbf4a3ba5ae930
15.
1
Kondabolu was right. The studio, fellow filmmakers — Steven Spielberg being the
exception — and Lucas himself thought “Star Wars” would fail.
3
But films such as “The Green Knight” haven’t always existed for us. When author Toni
Morrison was writing her first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” she asked herself a series of questions,
she told TV talk show host Charlie Rose.
4
How does a child learn self-loathing? Wher e does it
come fr om? Who enables it? How is it infectious? And what might be the consequences? I found
answers in the early aughts when my Indian immigrant parents would run the gauntlet of 12-hour
shifts, leaving my older sister and I up to our own devices, i.e. a large and unsupervised
consumption of network television that aired films by John Carpenter, Brian De Palma, George
Lucas, Ridley Scott and Tim Burton, which were brimmed to the confines of our outdated
television set with Caucasians. In 2008, when my sister and I took a bus to see my first film in a
movie theater, “The Dark Knight,” nothing had changed, nor did the newly released films that
we’d rent from our local video store. My 11-year-old brain wasn’t conscious of this. By then, I
was accustomed to looking up to people who didn’t look like me in popular Hollywood cinema.
“That can be translated into internalized racism for those who don’t see themselves being
represented,” said Dr. Katherine Aumer, a social psychologist who studies the social and cultural
factors that contribute to interpersonal hate, on a Zoom call from Hawaii. Fueling the fire,
America had reduced differentiating us from Native Americans with a brilliant Western metric
system: “dots or feathers?”
4
Manufacturing Intellect, “Toni Morrison Interview on ‘Jazz’ (1993),” August 10, 2019,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsiETgcYM7s.
3
Kirsten Acuna, “George Lucas Was Convinced ‘Star Wars’ Would Flop and Refused to Believe It Was a
Hit until He Got a Call Telling Him to Turn on the News,” I n s i d e r, May 4, 2021,
https://www.insider.com/when-george-lucas-knew-star-wars-was-a-hit.
2
V oiced by white character actor Hank Azaria, a caricature of an Indian immigrant named
Apu from the hit animated series, “The Simpsons,” became a fixture in our lives, occurring
before many of us were even born, as if our humiliation was predetermined. Time magazine
called the series the greatest television show of the 20th Century, and a poll in Great Britain
revealed that the Simpsons were more popular than the Royal Family.
5
Debuting in January
1990, “The Simpsons” is currently the longest-running animated series in the West.
America still loves the tradition of an Apu cameo, judging by Rotten Tomatoes
comments in response to comedian Kondubalu’s documentary, which challenges the worth of the
titular character and other harmful Indian stereotypes — more or less the same reaction we tend
to see when someone attempts to revoke what certain Americans deem as tradition, such as
monuments to white supremacy.
6
Before watching Kondubalu’s documentary, I thought my experience with the stoner
comedy, “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle” — Kal Penn’s Kumar being an Indian
American and John Cho’s Harold a Korean American — was unique to me. In the documentary,
Penn recalls when, shortly after the film’s release, a drunk Indian man stumbled out of a bar and
told Penn that everyone calls the man “Kumar” instead of “Apu.”
“It’s better than Apu isn’t it?” Penn responded. “Yeah. Yeah!” the drunk man told Penn.
Released in 2004, “Harold and Kumar” became an instant cult classic and joined the
stoner comedy canon, which even surprised its stars.
7
7
Cary Darling, “The Stars of ‘Harold & Kumar’ Say They Were Surprised by the Original Film’s
Success,” O r a n g e C o u n t y R e g i s t e r, April 24, 2008,
https://www.ocregister.com/2008/04/24/the-stars-of-harold-kumar-say-they-were-surprised-by-the-original-films-suc
cess/.
6
Alana Abramson, “White Nationalists Carrying Torches Descend on Charlottesville Again,” T i m e,
October 8, 2017, https://time.com/4973738/white-supremacists-charlottesville-rally-richard-spencer/.
5
ABC News, “How ‘The Simpsons’ Has Stayed on Top,” A B C N e w s, January 6, 2006,
https://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123942&page=1.
3
Social circles that I had infiltrated with my clever Western guise throughout grade school
began referring to me as “Kumar,” an improvement over “Apu,” “Osama Bin Laden,” the
endless ISIS references,“terrorist” and “curry boy.” (I didn’t eat my family’s curry for nearly 20
years because of that last one.)
Kumar spoke directly to an entire demographic of Indian Americans when he rejected his
medical school offer out of pure disinterest. He wasn’t neurotic or an overachiever. Kumar got
the girl. Kumar was cool. “I think about it now, and it’s really sad,” Kondabolu said about the
monolithic impact of Kumar’s sliver of realism.
“The thing that was most shocking was that [Penn] was using his actual voice. That’s
how bad [representation] was. He’s not using an accent.”
Almost as surprising is the fact that the “Harold and Kumar” trilogy was written and
directed by two Jewish men, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who helped the minority
group contribute to the narrative through a comedy that reflected the anxieties and racism of
America back at the country.
Patel’s role in “The Green Knight” isn’t a totally isolated example of Indian actors
who’ve managed to detach from their Indianness. While Sarita Choudhury as museum specialist
Cleo in 2021’s “After Yang” and Priyanka Chopra as Sati in “The Matrix: Resurrections” also
from 2021 are also a step forward, these Indian actresses of dramatic prowess and longstanding
history with cinema are stuck with supporting roles that exist to serve the white or white-passing
lead of these popular and critically acclaimed films.
4
“What’s missing is the range of identities,” Kondabolu said. “This fight has not just been
about, I want a better depiction, it’s I want mor e depictions. I want a wider range of depictions.
It isn't as simple as, That’ s a bad depiction and this is a good depiction, because the community
is too diverse for that to make any sense.”
Roger Corman famously discovered and gave unknowns such as James Cameron, Joe
Dante, Sandra Bullock, Will Ferrell, Jonathan Demme, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro,
Jack Nicholson and many, many others the opportunity to work on his films. Sometimes I
wonder if people such as Corman can exist for us.
As the multi-hyphenated Indian American director Mehr Kaur told me: “All of America
needs to go to see a movie and see a brown person playing the lead. Then, over time that will
normalize this idea that we are Americans just like the white guy next to us.”
But while Indians are the second largest Asian population in the U.S. with 4.14 million
citizens (just behind the 4.15 million people of Chinese descent), we still make up just 1.4% of
the entire U.S. population.
8
If the much larger Black and Latino populations here can’t be
properly represented in films, what chance do we have? And why do we deserve that chance?
8
Lindsay M. Monte and Hyon B. Shin, “20.6 Million People in the U.S. Identify as Asian, Native Hawaiian
or Pacific Islander,” U n i t e d S t a t e s C e n s u s B u r e a u, May 25, 2022,
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/aanhpi-population-diverse-geographically-dispersed.html.
5
Chapter II: The rise of starpower and a dusky peril
Starpower made Hollywood, according to film historian and UCLA Theatre, Film, and
Television professor Jonathan Kuntz. “It’s the ability to boost the box office because you’re an
identifiable name that has attracted attention with the public,” he said over Zoom.
Kuntz waxed lyrical about a world before the movies, when familiar talent was used to
draw crowds to the opera and certain businesses, such as French stage artist Sarah Bernhardt and
Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso.
“It’s really when we see Hollywood get rolling with the feature film, with Mary Pickford
and then, of course, Charlie Chaplin, that we see the big startup that put stars up there for an
hour-and-a-half, and allowed us to get more involved with that person,” Kuntz said. “Then
Hollywood also built a system where they were regularly using the stars in multiple films per
year. They got those films out into the country and eventually into the world.”
The star system wasn’t yet in place when D.W. Griffith made the first feature-length film
shot in Hollywood, a silent western called “In Old California” in 1910, predating the cataclysmic
event of “The Birth of a Nation” by five years.
American history scholar Sean P. Holmes writes: “Contrary to such predictions, however,
efforts to sell individual movies on the strength of an engaging storyline and a good script proved
unsuccessful and by the late 1910s, actors had become not only the most important means of
differentiating one film from another but also the key to attracting outside capital.”
9
Throughout the 1930s and ‘40s, certain white actors had star power that ostensibly
justified their caricatures of Asian people.
9
Sean P. Holmes, “The Hollywood Star System and the Regulation of Actors’ Labour, 1916-1934,” F i l m
H i s t o r y 12, no. 1 (2000): 99, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815272.
6
There was Katharine Hepburn in 1944 as a Chinese villager in “Dragon Seed,” an
enraged Japanese neighbor played by Mickey Rooney in 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and in
1956, Marlon Brando standing in as an Okinawan local in “Teahouse of August Moon.” (Brando
was seen as exceptionally talented enough to also play Mexican and Asian Indian characters in
other films.) Specializing in Asian American representation in Hollywood films, sociologist
Nancy Wang Yuen identified these roles as a “cyclical problem” in which A-list white actors
would take roles meant for Asians, which ultimately prevented Asian performers from earning
lead roles and building their A-list status.
10
While the cultural imperialist buffer stood between Indian talent and star power that
granted multiplicity of roles in Hollywood cinema, Sabu Dastagir became widely recognized as
the first Indian Hollywood star during the 1930s and ’40s.
11
Sabu’s insignia of “Hollywood star,”
however, did not have the same resonance as Clark Gable in an industry that was inclined to
perpetuating otherness. Credited in films by only his first name, Sabu, with his boyish charm and
sun-kissed skin, rose to prominence after starring in Robert Flaherty’s British adventure film
from 1937, “Elephant Boy.” Yet, as Sabu garnered attention with Hollywood productions such as
“Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book,” “The Thief of Bagdad” and “Arabian Nights,” irrefutable
archetypes permeated his filmography.
Harkening to Hattie McDaniels’ career after winning Best Supporting Actress for her role
as the housemaid Mammy in “Gone with the Wind,” and the careers of other prominent Asian
performers such as Anna May Wong, Sabu’s filmography is an extensive chronicle of an
exceptional performer boxed into Western ideas of exoticism and colonialism.
11
Rob Buscher, “The Untold Story of Asian Americans in Early Hollywood,” P a c i f i c C i t i z e n, August 18,
2017, https://www.pacificcitizen.org/the-untold-story-of-asian-americans-in-early-hollywood/.
10
Y e l l o w f a c e : A s i a n W h i t e w a s h i n g a n d R a c i s m i n H o l l y w o o d, Streaming (Wichita Films, 2019),
https://tubitv.com/movies/685571/yellowface-asian-whitewashing-and-racism-in-hollywood?start=true&utm_source
=google-feed&tracking=google-feed.
7
Even after becoming a U.S. citizen, enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Force and serving in
World War II, Sabu continued to be typecast until his death of a heart attack at 39 in 1963. But
his impact doesn’t taper there. More than 30 years later, reinterpretations of the colonizer’s
racialized and sexualized frames of Sabu by a new generation of audiences have made him a
quiet icon of LGBTQ+ community, specifically the 1998 short film “Surviving Sabu,” which
identifies a gay subtext in his films.
12
But Sabu was still not as fortunate as the Anglo-Indian Merle Oberon, who, despite her
roots in Bombay (renamed Mumbai in 1995), which weren’t revealed until four years after her
death in 1979, became a Golden Age star. Mostly known for her lead role in William Wyler’s
“Wuthering Heights,” Oberon was able to traverse across westerns, dramas, period pieces,
musicals, and thrillers.
What weight does star power hold today when anyone with access to the internet can
trade the mundanity of their personhood for stardom and monetary gain? Andy Warhol was right
about everyone eventually getting their 15 minutes of fame. It just happened to materialize in the
form of hot takes, memes and TikTok clips. Cinema before the internet, as we know it today, was
a crucial window of opportunity for Asian Indians to build A-list status because it enabled us to
condition Western audiences with our on-screen merit through one of the few mediums that
influenced a large number of audiences before the internet and intellectual properties made
influence concurrently and widely accessible.
Hollywood denied Asian Indians the opportunity to build star power in its infancy, and
the industry’s orientalist model, or cinematic othering, carried on well after the 1960s and shaped
generations of Indian identities on behalf of them.
12
Priya Jaikumar, “Sabu’s Skins,” W a s a f i r i, May 9, 2012, https://doi.org/10.1080/02690055.2012.662326.
8
Racial order can be determined through a given era of Hollywood films.
13
Much of the
20th Century would be defined by a white America that didn’t take Indians seriously.
“[Studios] were completely beholden to the audience, and … were totally oriented toward
the audience,” film historian Kuntz said. “They were obsessed with pleasing the audience, and
they did what, today, we would call market research.”
I imagine that the overwhelming white population at the time would’ve felt
disenfranchised if movies began saturating stories with people who didn’t look like them, similar
to the resentment towards disco, a genre rooted in queer and Black music in the 1970s.
14
Or,
more recently, when Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Halle Bailey, a Black woman, was
cast as Disney’s iconic mermaid.
15
Conversely, the increasingly diverse Western audience prefers
diverse casting, based on UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report 2022, which remained consistent
with the previous report’s findings.
16
These moments of outrage underscore white America’s
contempt towards non-white performers adopting historically white intellectual properties in the
way that white Hollywood has taken roles from minorities over Hollywood’s history.
But long before the movies, long before Asian Indians were considered part of the model
minority and a rich source of appropriation, we were the “Dusky Peril” in America.
The Indian’s arrival for agricultural work in the early 1800s was eventually met with the
Asiatic Exclusion League and media frenzy.
17
17
Juan Carlos Gonzales, “Asian Indian Immigration Patterns: The Origins of the Sikh Community in
California,” I n t e r n a t i o n a l M i g r a t i o n R e v i e w 20, no. 1 (January 1, 1986): 43, https://doi.org/10.2307/2545683.
16
Hunt and Ramón, “Hollywood Diversity Report 2022,” 3.
15
Arwa Mahdawi, “Little Mermaid’s Racist Critics Pollute Magical Undersea World with Bigotry,” T h e
G u a r d i a n, September 17, 2022,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/17/little-mermaid-racist-critics-backlash.
14
Nadine Hubbs, “‘I Will Survive’: Musical Mappings of Queer Social Space in a Disco Anthem,” P o p u l a r
M u s i c 26, no. 2 (May 1, 2007): 232, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261143007001250.
13
Jason A. Smith, “Between Colorblind and Colorconscious,” J o u r n a l o f B l a c k S t u d i e s 44, no. 8
(December 24, 2013): 779–97, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934713516860.
9
Outlets such as Colliers, an Ohio general interest magazine most associated with the late
19th and early 20th centuries, once published a headline stating that 10,000 Hindus were in
California at the time, when in fact approximately 6,000 Asian Indians existed in the entire
country.
18
Similar to people of Chinese and Japanese origin, the Indian’s yearning for opportunity in
the supposed promised land was denied. At the federal level, factors such as the 1917
Immigration Act and the 1923 Supreme Court hearing of the “Thind Case,” in which an Indian
immigrant had his citizenship revoked because he couldn’t argue that he was Caucasian,
prevented Indians from, respectively, immigrating and obtaining citizenship, and assimilating
into American society, which left the Asian Indian population on the road to extinction in
America by 1940.
19
Quotas established by the Luce-Celler Bill in 1946 and liberalization of laws
by 1966 would ultimately give way to a rise in the Asian Indian population in the U.S. once
again.
20
The lack of Asian Indians entering the U.S., however, didn’t prevent Hollywood from
bringing them and India to the silver screen, with or without actual Indians.
20
Ibid, 47-50.
19
Ibid.
18
Gonzales, “Asian Indian Immigration Patterns: The Origins of the Sikh Community in California,” 44.
10
Chapter III: Orientalism and the problem with critics
The relationship between Indians and Hollywood cinema’s first 100 years could largely
be defined within the parameters of Palestinian American professor Edward Said’s 1978 book,
“Orientalism.” Before Said’s book, orientalism was generally associated with the innocuous
studies of the culture and religions of the East.
“Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the
difference between the familiar (Europe, West, ‘us’) and the strange (the Orient, the East,
‘them’),” Said writes. This “us” and “them” construct, and the timeliness of India gaining its
independence from the British Empire in 1947, were the North Star for many films starring
Indian talent or involving South Asian stories throughout the 20th Century.
According to Shilpa S. Davé,
21
scholar and professor of media studies at the University of
Virginia: “Although Americans derived pleasure and paid at the box office for the stories of
Gunga Din, Mowgli, and Arabian Nights, these narratives intentionally drew strong lines
between English identity and Indian identity that discouraged the crossing of cultural, national,
and racial boundaries.”
Similar to the yellowface roles that Brando, Hepburn and Rooney played, and as a
consequence displaced Asian talent, early Hollywood depictions of Indians in lead roles
managed without them in films from the first half of the 20th Century, such as “The Young
Rajah” and “The Green Goddess” — with, respectively, Englishman George Arliss as the title
character of The Rajah and Italian actor Rudolph Valentino playing a long-lost Indian prince.
21
Shilpa Davé, “South Asians and the Hollywood Party: Peter Sellers and Brownface Performances,” in
I n d i a n A c c e n t s : B r o w n V o i c e a n d R a c i a l P e r f o r m a n c e i n A m e r i c a n T e l e v i s i o n a n d F i l m (University of Illinois Press,
2013), 23, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt2ttc7z.6.
11
“In general, during this period, Hollywood produced few films that focused on South
Asia and instead made films associated with China, Japan, and Korea during the 1950s and early
1960s,” Davé added.
22
“While Hollywood was reducing its portrayal of India onscreen, the
Indian film industry was in the midst of the golden age of Hindi film (1940-60), but those films
rarely played in American theaters.”
Lionized for his roles in “The Pink Panther” and “Dr. Strangelove,” Englishman Peter
Sellers added to the list of damaging Indian caricatures. In Blake Edwards’ “The Party” (1968),
Sellers plays an Indian actor named Hrundi Bakshi who is accidentally invited to a high-profile
Hollywood party of colleagues who loathe him. To fit the part of the new wave of “model
minority” Indians arriving in the U.S. when the Immigration Act of 1965 went into effect, Davé
suggests, Sellers was painted in brownish hues, wore a thick “patanking” accent, exaggerated his
movements, embodied an asexual, sober and submissive fleshy vessel — and was less competent
or bearable than any of his white American contemporaries.
23
“The Party” has made an
undeniable cultural impact.
“This is what happens when you don’t nip racism in the bud, when you don’t shut it
down,” Kondabolu said. “It just morphs into something else. [‘The Party’] wasn’t chastised, it
wasn't seen as negative. All of a sudden, that’s an influence and a thing that can exist, and it gets
to Mike Myers and Hank Azaria.”
Azaria credits Sellers’ portrayal in “The Party” for the voice of his “Simpsons” character,
which Azaria stepped away from after 30 years in 2020. Myers, who played an Indian guru in the
2008 film, “The Love Guru,” likewise credits Sellers.
24
“The Love Guru” tanked, and its director
never made a movie again.
24
Ibid, 30.
23
Ibid.
22
Davé, “South Asians and the Hollywood Party: Peter Sellers and Brownface Performances,” 28.
12
“The brownface performance is how Americans want natives to act and has to do more
with the dominant group and how the minority group fits into the dominant narrative,” Davé
argues.
25
“However, brownface performance requires an exaggeration of racial difference that
includes different skin color, cultural mannerisms, and vocal accents. The irony is that in order to
portray natives interacting with Westerners on equal terms, the studio requires that the difference
between South Asians and Westerners be more pronounced.”
Even some of the greatest filmmakers of cinema have had their embarrassing moments.
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, disciples of famed Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, reduced
Indians to tasteless depictions of zombie-like and blood-thirsty people on a strict diet of beetles,
pythons, eyeball soup and — everyone’s favorite — chilled monkey brains, in their pro-Western
imperialist “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” from 1984. And why Spielberg allowed
Harvey Jason to play Indian hunter Ajay Sidhu in the 1997 Jurassic Park sequel, when the
director had worked with Indian talent in “Temple of Doom,” is beyond comprehension.
The late 1980s, when my own mother and father arrived in the U.S., also marked Fisher
Stevens’ breakout role as Indian engineer Ben Jabituya in the sci-fi comedy, “Short Circuit,”
which he would reprise as the lead in “Short Circuit 2.” Due to the sheer scarcity of Indian leads
in Hollywood cinema, “Short Circuit 2” especially meant a great deal to comedian Aziz Ansari
growing up — until he realized Stevens wasn’t Indian.
“Rather than cast an Indian actor, the filmmakers had Mr. Stevens sit every morning in a
makeup chair and get painted an ‘Indian color’ before going on set and doing his ‘Indian voice,’”
Ansari wrote in The New York Times.
26
26
Aziz Ansari, “Aziz Ansari on Acting, Race and Hollywood,” T h e N e w Y o r k T i m e s, June 8, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/arts/television/aziz-ansari-on-acting-race-and-hollywood.html.
25
Ibid, 28.
13
“As a child, I thought the villain of the film was Oscar Baldwin, the banker who tricks
Johnny 5 into helping him commit a jewel heist. As an adult, I thought the bad guy was actually
Mr. Stevens, who mocked my ethnicity.”
Ansari auditioned for the role of Indian American Harvard student Divya Narendra in
David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” an adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s 2010 book chronicling
Mark Zuckerberg’s rise to fortune, entitled “The Accidental Billionaires,” but the role ultimately
went to Max Minghella, whose parents are of Chinese and Italian origin.
Including Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan Noonien Singh in “Star Trek Into Darkness,”
Minghella as Narendra is one of the less blatant depictions of brownface focused on otherness in
the 21st Century, but it’s no less troubling considering the critical and financial success of “The
Social Network.”
For the past 20 years, Wes Anderson has had one of the most distinguishable styles of
filmmaking in Hollywood, joining the likes of such greats as Edgar Wright, Quentin Tarantino
and Tim Burton. In the aughts, Anderson traversed India in his cultural imperialist film, “The
Darjeeling Limited,” and brought with him the guise of his trademark storybook attention and
charm. In the film, three brothers travel across India in an attempt to mend their relationship after
their father’s death one year earlier.
In order for the brothers to redeem themselves and complete their spiritual journey,
they’re given the opportunity to be saviors, and this comes at the expense of a little Indian boy’s
life. The white person’s yearning for spiritual wholeness, however, is nothing new, as seen in
films such as “Eat Pray Love,” heard on the music of countless British Invasion bands, and found
in the yoga culture and chakra system obsession in Los Angeles.
14
Indophiles are people, typically non-Indians, who have a special interest in Indian
cultures or religions, such as “The Simpsons” and Apu creator Matt Groening, who said in The
New York Times, “I love Indian culture and Indian film and Indian music.”
27
Audiences respond to depictions done well, such as Ang Lee’s “Life of Pi,” Danny Boyle
and Loveleen Tandan’s British drama, “Slumdog Millionaire,” Garth Davis’ “Lion,” and “RRR,”
the Telugu or, Tollywood, film that inspired audiences to get up, mid-movie, and dance on the
stage of the TCL Chinese Theatre in the heart of Hollywood. But when it comes to the cinematic
canon, this adoration doesn’t go as far as a few arthouse filmmakers — a common point of
reference for Indian excellency.
The most anticipated list in the film community, Sight and Sound Magazine’s 100
Greatest Films of All Time critics’ poll, updates every 10 years. Roger Ebert once called it “by
far the most respected of the countless polls of great movies — the only one most serious movie
people take seriously.”
28
The publication’s most recent list, released in 2022, was formed by
“more than 1,600 of the most influential international film critics, academics, distributors,
writers, curators, archivists and programmers voting, almost double the number of participants in
2012,” according to the British Film Institute.
While the list’s harshest critics took to Twitter to express their frustration with the
number one slot going to Chantal Akerman’s slow-burning “Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du
commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” from 1975, little was said about Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali”
from 1955 as the sole film on the list (#35) directed by an Indian, and the only film with an
Indian lead.
28
Roger Ebert, “‘Citizen Kane’ Fave Film of Movie Elite | Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert,” R o g e r E b e r t,
August 11, 2002, https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/citizen-kane-fave-film-of-movie-elite.
27
Dave Itzkoff, “‘Simpsons’ Creator Matt Groening Says Debate Around Apu Is ‘Tainted,’” T h e N e w Y o r k
T i m e s, July 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/arts/television/simpsons-matt-groening-apu.html.
15
Meanwhile, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa, Howard Hawks and Jean-Luc Godard
have multiple pictures on the list. Many have argued on the internet and on podcasts that while
younger critics are opening up to inclusivity, they’ve also made premature judgements by not
allowing quality films less than 10 years old to sit with time, such as Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight”
from 2016, Bong Joon-Ho’s “Parasite” from 2019, and Céline Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on
Fire,” also from 2019.
Ray’s influence on white directors, however, is rather undeniable, inspiring the likes of
giants such as Francis Ford Coppola, Elia Kazan, Christopher Nolan and countless other
filmmakers. Ray also famously inspired Matt Groening to name the beloved Kwik-E-Mart owner
after Ray’s “Apu Trilogy.”
For a moment it seemed as though Ray would be burdened by having the only film with
an Indian lead or Indian director on such an important list, until critics at Sight & Sound added
150 more films in January, including Guru Dutt’s 1957 Bollywood classic, “Pyaasa,” Ritwik
Ghatak’s 1960 partition drama, “Meghe Dhaka Tara,” and Ray’s “Charulata” from 1964.
But my skepticism largely remained the same without the recognition of the more recent
outsized cinematic contributions from Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra or Yash Chopra —
Bollywood filmworkers of the latter half of the 20th Century and early 21st Century who
simultaneously coalesced and pushed the limits of spectacle, romance, comedy, melodrama, and
the musical genre beyond the works of Victor Fleming, Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli, and
Bob Fosse. After all, India has been making movies almost as long as the West.
Kondabolu believes that the Eurocentricity of these 1,600 prominent members of the film
community narrows the form when they don't consider Bollywood’s maximalism to be art and
instead routinely push arthouse giants.
16
“The only reason that [Satyajit Ray is revered] is because [Martin] Scorsese co-signed
[Ray] 30 years ago,” Kondabolu said. “To me, he needed a co-sign to even be seen in that light.
Would his work have even gotten the same amount of respect without that kind of push from
somebody who is so renowned?”
In a humorous dichotomy, these lists accept the task of reflecting a holistic view, never
pleasing everyone, while also annotating touchstones of influence and profound subversion of
on-screen storytelling. The Indian community stems from too rich of an artistic culture to not be
considered for a broader range of Western stories and roles. We just haven’t been successful in
every attempt that we miraculously earn.
17
Chapter IV: The canon as it stands
USC film school graduate and Indian American Mehr Kaur got her start in theater by
directing, producing and acting in plays. Now, she’s a department assistant at Netflix, producer
of an animated short, director of a play entitled “An Intervention,” and director of a short film
that follows a queer South Asian woman attempting to sell her childhood home that’s haunted by
her mother’s ghost — entitled “I’m Dead Right?” In her adolescence, Kaur tracked the
painstaking progress of Indians being given prominent roles and better stories.
“I was constantly looking for myself on TV and in movies, and not consciously,” Kaur
shared over a Zoom call. “My expectations were really low if I saw an Indian person on screen.”
A pleasant nostalgia blanketed her face when, as a child of the 2000s, she recalled
watching multiple Latinas in the Disney Channel original movie, “Gotta Kick It Up!” — the
first time she had seen brown people in a Western film, she said. But in the present state of
Hollywood cinema, Kaur said that Indian representation isn’t enough.
“We don’t have to say [a film is] amazing just because a brown person made it,” Kaur
stated. “We’re doing ourselves a disservice if we do that because it means that we’re satisfied
with what’s out there, and I’m not satisfied.”
“Definition Please,” written, directed and produced by Sujata Day in 2020 for Netflix, is
a film commended for the way it brought the discussion of mental health to the Indian American
community. It follows former spelling bee champion Monica Chowdry (Day) as she struggles to
outrun her own shadow while living with her estranged brother, Sonny (Ritesh Rajan, cousin of
filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan). Day, an Indian American, brought new shades of the diaspora
to the fore of Western cinema with a packed Indian cast, a new stereotype to address and
refreshing comedic performances by Indian Americans.
18
But they aren’t enough to save “Definition Please,” which is ultimately held captive by
reluctant directing, a script that needed rewrites for its dramatic beats, and Rajan’s lack of
dramatic conviction that the essence of the conflict and his important role requires.
“Good Sam” from 2019 is certainly a first for its willingness to put an Indian American
woman in a leading role that doesn’t require her to reassess her Indianness. An adaptation of
Dete Meserve’s book, “The Good Stranger,” and packaged on Netflix’s arbitrary conveyor belt of
films, “Good Sam” follows New York television reporter Kate Bradley (Tiya Sircar) as she
chases a story about a good Samaritan who’s leaving $100,000 on the doorstep of unsuspecting
people. Yet it is certainly not the first underwhelming culmination of plot points, nor the first to
feature a white savior or the first to pit one of the few key persons of color in a film as the true
antagonist. It’s clear that “Good Sam” was intended to be feel-good, sanitized family fun and not
a film that advances form or culture — fodder for Christmas reunion festivities. But that’s the
issue. It’s a Hallmark experience, at best, that will be lost in the sands of time.
“What should we actually be celebrating?” Kaur added. “What South Asian movie is
asking tough questions, and what South Asian movie is putting real amazing talent on screen?
What South Asian movie is done with finesse and creativity and artfulness?”
Not since Mira Nair have audiences experienced Indian American stories on the silver
screen with visual and literary poeticism and performances that remind the audience of their
pulse. While promoting his 1978 film, “Opening Night,” John Cassavetes expressed his disdain
for, what he felt, was the poor quality of films at the time and, as an audience member himself,
felt that all of us should be demanding, “C’mon, baby! Show me something!”
29
29
Loyal Opposition, “John Cassavetes Gena Rowlands Ben Gazzarra Full Interview 1978 Opening Night,”
June 1, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAbiE3HLoZs.
19
A pioneer of her medium and the first India-born filmmaker to portray Indian Americans
as complex and nuanced individuals in the way that she has, Nair had given us what Cassavetes
demanded early in her career. Though Nair is concerned with the immigrant story, she pays equal
emphasis on the children of the diaspora. But in an attempt to do so, she faced pushback from
financial backers.
Nair’s vision for “Mississippi Masala” from 1991 involved Demetrius (Denzel
Washington), a Black man from Mississippi, and Mina (Sarita Choudry), an Indian woman from
Uganda, falling in love despite protest over their racial differences. Although Nair’s 1988 debut
film “Salaam Bombay!” earned her the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival and a
nomination for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, financers still advocated for
“more white people” in “Mississippi Masala.”
30
Nair won that battle.
“When you think about ‘Mississippi Masala,’ it’s so groundbreaking because there still
hasn’t been anything like that,” Kondabolu said. “It’s talking about Brown and Black racism.
Granted, it’s a different era, and it’s talking about colonialism in Uganda. But the fact that it
weaves all those things together, I haven’t seen another film that tackles any of those subjects —
and that was 30 years ago. There’s too many stories for us to be good with what we have.”
In 2006, Nair revisited the theme of conflicting Indian values in “The Namesake,” an
adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel of the same name. With Kal Penn earning the lead at the
height of his career, “The Namesake” also showcased Nair’s consistent searing dramatic prowess
and visual language, Indian men relinquishing masculinity, and a diversion from white,
middle-class rebellion on screen — all in a commercially viable film.
30
Leah Asmelash, “‘Mississippi Masala’ Was Released 30 Years Ago. Here’s How It Still Resonates with
Audiences Today,” C N N, June 12, 2022,
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/12/entertainment/mississippi-masala-mira-nair-rerelease-legacy-cec/index.html.
20
Nair has never quite permeated popular culture to the degree of M. Night Shyamalan,
appealing to the niche culture of The Criterion Collection instead, but she filled her roles with
Indian people and audiences responded to them.
“There’s enough white people who are cast in things and the film bombs,” Kondabolu
said. “Are we saying it was a mistake to cast a white person? You don't know what people are
going to like. If the story is good enough, and the acting is good enough, people will buy it.”
Considering that much of Western cinema’s output of Indian-led films is saturated with
stories of the diaspora, my conversation with Kaur briefly touched on this reluctance to cast
Indians in more films that depart from Indianness as a crutch for stories, such as Denis
Villeuneuve’s “Dune,” or the films of Sofia Coppola. It’s impossible, Kaur says, to completely
detach the Indian ethnicity from a character played by an actor who carries certain ethnic
features or Bollywood star power.
“That brown person fighting aliens is still going to have a sense of self that is influenced
by where they came from, but it doesn't need to be front-and-center, and their transformation
does not have to be related to their parents coming to America from India,” she said. “But that
brown character is always going to be a brown character.”
“We have to be cast in more tentpole movies because there will always be niche groups
of people that are going to see ‘Chutney Popcorn’ by Nisha Ganatra,” Kaur added. “I’ve never
seen a South Asian person cast as a lead in a Christopher Nolan film. That’s what needs to
happen.”
In the documentary “The Problem with Apu,” U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy
said, “Stereotypes have a long half-life. They tend to last for a while unless we are committed to
and good at telling our own story.”
21
The mainstream landscape of Hollywood has long abandoned the reductive roles of the
cabbie, incompetent immigrant, housewife, convenience store owner and medical professional
because of Nair and Day, and non-Indian filmworkers such as David Lowery and Ang Lee.
They’ve detached us from stereotypes that stigmatized us as second-rate storytellers and
performers. But there’s simply not enough of these filmworkers to help showcase our true
command of the craft and on-screen talent in order to get Indians, non-hyphenated and
hyphenated, into a variety of stories and roles.
“Real progress is having a broad range of films where it’s not one or the other, where you
can actually criticize something and want it to be better,” Kondabolu argues. “Before, when we
criticized things, it was almost frustrating because it’s like, Stop criticizing it. This is the one
thing we have. Why ar e we complaining about the one thing we have? W e should be grateful. It’s
learning not to be grateful. Why should we be grateful?”
Kaur shared a similar outlook.
“I am really weary of this idea of embracing whatever the first thing that gets out there is
just because it's out there,” she said. “I don’t think that’s the way to celebrate South Asian
excellence and artistry.”
To Kondabolu, representation goes beyond the actors and falls on whether or not color is
in the meeting room. According to the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s 2021 report on the
portrayal of Asian and Pacific Islanders across 1,300 popular films from 2007 to 2019, off-screen
positions such as directing, producing and casting featured just 2.9% Asian and Pacific Islander
creatives.
31
USC film students Aniket Singh Solanki and Harnish Ambaliya collaborate with
cohorts who have a broad range of identities and stories to explore.
31
Nancy Wang Yuen and Stacy L. Smith, “The Prevalence and Portrayal of Asian and Pacific Islanders
across 1,300 Popular Films,” U S C A n n e n b e r g (USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, May 2021),
https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii_aapi-representation-across-films-2021-05-18.pdf.
22
They believe that these collaborations hold the key to the Indian community’s presence
across different stories. “It leads to better collaboration because then you have voices from
different experiences, and that leads to a different and good product at the end,” Solanki argued.
The same Annenberg report also found that Asian and Pacific Islander involvement leads to
better creative decisions.
But for students such as Ambaliya, a filmmaker who was well established in India with
numerous credits to his name before applying to USC, the lack of Indians leading Hollywood
films on-and-off screen have only negatively impacted his self-image. Ambaliya was even close
to dropping out of USC’s cinema school before a professor talked him out of it, but it’s not
enough to keep him in Hollywood. His classmates often ask him about his plans after USC. “I
want to go back [to India],” he says to them. “They ask, ‘Why? You have worked really hard to
be here.’ I tell them, ‘There’s no way people over here are going to let a brown guy direct white
people.’”
Solanki, another international USC film student, has his doubts, too. Upon the release of
Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” Solanki believed that he too could make such films, then, Solanki
says, he grew up.
“I was very naive, and now that I’m in the West, I’m like, Holy shit, is this what is going
to be like?” Solanki said. “I need to be a very, very big director to even be somebody, who is not
a white person, who makes a Batman movie.”
Kaur, Indian American and a queer Punjabi woman, meanwhile, remains a bit more
optimistic.
“I hope that I am able to discover new stories about people that are like me and look like
me who I didn't know about,” Kaur said. “Then I can help those stories have a platform.”
23
Chapter V: When screens are mirrors
Kondabolu regretfully said, “There’s still a sense of people getting to know us.” It’s all
the more poignant when Indian Americans make up just 1.4% of the entire U.S. population even
though we’re the second largest Asian population in the country.
“At the same time, there is a fast growing, U.S.-born generation of Asian Americans who
are navigating their own connections to familial heritage and their own experiences growing up
in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center finds.
32
Dr. Aumer, the social psychologist, considers the significance of representing the
majority at a time when the industry is trying to keep the business of visual storytelling afloat.
“It has to reflect a little bit, at some point, the reality that we’re living. Because, after a
while, people won't be able — even the majority to some extent — to identify with those stories
if they can’t see the world that they’re living in accurately reflected,” she said. “But in many
ways, a lot of the film industry is catering towards whoever is in the majority at that time
because a lot of it is sustainability, making profit, and finding a way to have the story succeed in
that way.”
It’s not difficult to conflate movies with simple entertainment for the masses because of
their money-making models, but the impact of this form of visual culture has historically proven
that there’s more than meets the frame.
32
Neil G. Ruiz, Sunny Shao, and Sono Shah, “What It Means To Be Asian in America,” P e w R e s e a r c h
C e n t e r, August 22, 2022,
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2022/08/02/what-it-means-to-be-asian-in-america/.
24
The release of David Fincher’s “Fight Club” in 1999 inspired frustrated men to take
ownership of their lives.
33
Steven Spielberg invented the blockbuster with “Jaws” in 1975 and
subsequently impacted the speculation of shark attack risks.
34
“The Day After Tomorrow” is far
from a perfect film, but a national study found that after audiences saw it in 2004, their climate
change concerns were raised.
35
Cinema’s ability to influence public perception of a community
was demonstrated early on with D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” which increased hostility
and reflected the attitudes towards African Americans at the turn of the century.
36
But are Hollywood filmworkers obligated to respond to a rapidly changing social
environment? They may not have a choice. Released in 2021, UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity
Report showed that diverse casts are profitable.
37
The film industry can’t afford to not offer
opportunities to new Indian talent.
38
“It comes down to money,” Kondabolu said. “Do [studio executives] think this person is
going to make them money? If they don’t see it, they’re not going to do it, and they’re
conservative about it. They think it’s a risk.”
Like film student Solanki, I empathize with filmmakers such as Indian American
multi-hyphenate M. Night Shyamalan, who, aside from casting himself as the lead in his debut
film, “Praying with Anger,” while he was a student at New York University, has never cast an
Indian lead in his films.
38
Caitlin Huston and Alex Weprin, “When the Numbers Don’t Add Up: Recession Fears Dent Hollywood’s
Streaming Ambitions,” T h e H o l l y w o o d R e p o r t e r, December 7, 2022,
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/recession-wall-street-streaming-cuts-hiring-123527658
6/.
37
Hunt and Ramón, “Hollywood Diversity Report 2021.”
36
Desmond Teck Chye Ang, “The Birth of a Nation: Media and Racial Hate,” S o c i a l S c i e n c e R e s e a r c h
N e t w o r k, November 23, 2020, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3740907.
35
Leiserowitz, “Day After Tomorrow: Study of Climate Change Risk Perception,” November 2004, 46.
34
Anthony Leiserowitz, “Day After Tomorrow: Study of Climate Change Risk Perception,” E n v i r o n m e n t
46, no. 9 (November 2004): 24, https://doi.org/10.1080/00139150409603663.
33
Peter C. Baker, “The Men Who Still Love ‘Fight Club,’” T h e N e w Y o r k e r, November 4, 2019,
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-men-who-still-love-fight-club.
25
Having the right to cast whomever and write whatever he pleases, and freeing himself
from the burden of being the spokesperson for a community, Shyamalan’s onus is the story.
Shyamalan is someone whom we admire both for his earnestness and the fact that he’s
the only Indian American filmmaker to penetrate American pop culture and consistently sign
massive studio deals since his big break in 1999.
“It is difficult because if it’s [Shyamalan’s] film and he believes that that actor is the right
person, then more power to him,” Solanki said. “But again, that brings us to that conflict, which I
personally deal with every time. I don't think there is one straight answer to this.”
But if one of our own people won’t cast Indians as leads in his films, then who will?
Multiplicity becomes an even greater necessity. The foundation for greater representation is
beginning to materialize in numbers. The aforementioned Annenberg Inclusion Initiative report
found that among varying degrees of on-screen Asian representation across regions, 36.3% were
Chinese, 15.9% were Indian, and 15.7% were Korean. There’s more Indian American talent at
the fore of Hollywood cinema than ever, but their numbers and impact are far less greater than
they could be. Those few can’t be monoliths forever.
The first Velvet Underground record only sold 10,000 copies when it was released in
1967, says ambient musician Brian Eno, but it’s said that everyone who bought it started a
band.
39
I wish the same for future Indian American filmmakers and performers, to galvanize
themselves with what does and doesn’t exist in Western cinema and attest our worth for the roles
and stories that have yet to be written.
39
Emma Jones, “The Velvet Underground: The Band That Made an Art of Being Obscure,” B B C N e w s,
October 14, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58876732.
26
Kondabolu still worries about the future of our community in the movies. Before
consolidation of streaming services worsened last year, he remembers a time when “it was a gold
rush” for companies that needed new material. That’s shrinking now.
“Whenever things shrink, I don’t think it’s good for marginalized voices because people
want to pick sure-fire things in the limited space they have, and we’ve never been seen as
sure-fire,” Kondablu said. “Then what happens?”
27
References
Abramson, Alana. “White Nationalists Carrying Torches Descend on Charlottesville Again.”
T ime, October 8, 2017.
https://time.com/4973738/white-supremacists-charlottesville-rally-richard-spencer/.
Acuna, Kirsten. “George Lucas Was Convinced ‘Star Wars’ Would Flop and Refused to Believe
It Was a Hit until He Got a Call Telling Him to Turn on the News.” Insider, May 4, 2021.
https://www.insider.com/when-george-lucas-knew-star-wars-was-a-hit.
Ambaliya, Harnish. Interviewed by Rajvinder Singh in California, December 15, 2022.
Ang, Desmond Teck Chye. “The Birth of a Nation: Media and Racial Hate.” Social Science
Resear ch Network, November 23, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3740907.
Ansari, Aziz. “Aziz Ansari on Acting, Race and Hollywood.” The New Y ork T imes, June 8, 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/arts/television/aziz-ansari-on-acting-race-and-holly
wood.html.
Asmelash, Leah. “‘Mississippi Masala’ Was Released 30 Years Ago. Here’s How It Still
Resonates with Audiences Today.” CNN, June 12, 2022.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/12/entertainment/mississippi-masala-mira-nair-rerelease-le
gacy-cec/index.html.
Aumer, Katherine. Interviewed by Rajvinder Singh in California, December 15, 2022.
Bahr, Lindsey. “Summer Movie Highlights from the Directors Who Made Them.” AP NEWS,
May 19, 2021.
https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-movies-sports-arts-and-entertainment-c7541932
e41ad0a0bbf4a3ba5ae93015.
Baker, Peter C. “The Men Who Still Love ‘Fight Club.’” The New Y orker, November 4, 2019.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-men-who-still-love-fight-club.
Buscher, Rob. “The Untold Story of Asian Americans in Early Hollywood.” Pacific Citizen,
August 18, 2017.
https://www.pacificcitizen.org/the-untold-story-of-asian-americans-in-early-hollywood/.
28
Darling, Cary. “The Stars of ‘Harold & Kumar’ Say They Were Surprised by the Original Film’s
Success.” Orange County Register, April 24, 2008.
https://www.ocregister.com/2008/04/24/the-stars-of-harold-kumar-say-they-were-surprise
d-by-the-original-films-success/.
Davé, Shilpa. “South Asians and the Hollywood Party: Peter Sellers and Brownface
Performances.” In Indian Accents: Br own V oice and Racial Performance in American
T elevision and Film, 19–39. University of Illinois Press, 2013.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt2ttc7z.6.
Ebert, Roger. “‘Citizen Kane’ Fave Film of Movie Elite | Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert.” Roger
Ebert, August 11, 2002.
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/citizen-kane-fave-film-of-movie-elite.
Gonzales, Juan Carlos. “Asian Indian Immigration Patterns: The Origins of the Sikh Community
in California.” International Migration Review 20, no. 1 (January 1, 1986): 40.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2545683.
Gunning, Cathal. “Why The Green Knight Did Better At The Box Office Than Expected.”
Scr eenRant, August 2, 2021.
https://screenrant.com/green-knight-box-office-better-expected-why/.
Holmes, Sean P. “The Hollywood Star System and the Regulation of Actors’ Labour,
1916-1934.” Film History 12, no. 1 (2000): 99. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3815272.
Hubbs, Nadine. “‘I Will Survive’: Musical Mappings of Queer Social Space in a Disco Anthem.”
Popular Music 26, no. 2 (May 1, 2007): 232.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261143007001250.
Hunt, Darnell, and Ana-Christina Ramón. “Hollywood Diversity Report 2021.” UCLA Social
Sciences. Entertainment and Media Research Initiative in the Institute for Research on
Labor and Employment, 2021.
https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/UCLA-Hollywood-Diversity-
Report-2021-Film-4-22-2021.pdf.
29
Hunt, Darnell, and Ana-Christina Ramón. “Hollywood Diversity Report 2022.” UCLA Social
Sciences. Entertainment and Media Research Initiative in the Institute for Research on
Labor and Employment, 2022.
https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/UCLA-Hollywood-Diversity-
Report-2022-Film-3-24-2022.pdf.
Huston, Caitlin, and Alex Weprin. “When the Numbers Don’t Add Up: Recession Fears Dent
Hollywood’s Streaming Ambitions.” The Hollywood Reporter, December 7, 2022.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/recession-wall-street-stream
ing-cuts-hiring-1235276586/.
Itzkoff, Dave. “‘Simpsons’ Creator Matt Groening Says Debate Around Apu Is ‘Tainted.’” The
New Y ork T imes, July 18, 2018.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/arts/television/simpsons-matt-groening-apu.html.
Jaikumar, Priya. “Sabu’s Skins.” W asafiri, May 9, 2012.
https://doi.org/10.1080/02690055.2012.662326.
Jones, Emma. “The Velvet Underground: The Band That Made an Art of Being Obscure.” BBC
News, October 14, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58876732.
Kaur, Mehr. Interviewed by Rajvinder Singh in California, December 14, 2022.
Kondabolu, Hari. Interviewed by Rajvinder Singh in California, January 9, 2023.
Kuntz, Jonathan. Interviewed by Rajvinder Singh in California, December 17, 2022.
Y ellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood. Streaming. Wichita Films, 2019.
https://tubitv.com/movies/685571/yellowface-asian-whitewashing-and-racism-in-hollywo
od?start=true&utm_source=google-feed&tracking=google-feed.
Leiserowitz, Anthony. “Day After Tomorrow: Study of Climate Change Risk Perception.”
Envir onment 46, no. 9 (November 2004): 22–39.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00139150409603663.
Loyal Opposition. “John Cassavetes Gena Rowlands Ben Gazzarra Full Interview 1978 Opening
Night,” June 1, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAbiE3HLoZs.
30
Mahdawi, Arwa. “Little Mermaid’s Racist Critics Pollute Magical Undersea World with
Bigotry.” The Guar dian, September 17, 2022.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/17/little-mermaid-racist-critics-ba
cklash.
Manufacturing Intellect. “Toni Morrison Interview on ‘Jazz’ (1993),” August 10, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsiETgcYM7s.
Monte, Lindsay M., and Hyon B. Shin. “20.6 Million People in the U.S. Identify as Asian,
Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.” United States Census Bureau, May 25, 2022.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2022/05/aanhpi-population-diverse-geographically
-dispersed.html.
Pergament, Danielle, and Zoey Grossman. “Jennifer Aniston Has Nothing to Hide — Interview.”
Allur e, November 9, 2022.
https://www.allure.com/story/jennifer-aniston-december-2022-cover-interview.
Ruiz, Neil G., Sunny Shao, and Sono Shah. “What It Means To Be Asian in America.” Pew
Resear ch Center, August 22, 2022.
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-ethnicity/2022/08/02/what-it-means-to-be-asian-in-am
erica/.
Sharf, Zack. “Quentin Tarantino Says Marvel Actors Aren’t Movie Stars: ‘Captain America Is
the Star,’ Not Chris Evans.” V ariety, November 22, 2022.
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/quentin-tarantino-marvel-killed-movie-star-12354397
98/.
Smith, Jason A. “Between Colorblind and Colorconscious.” Journal of Black Studies 44, no. 8
(December 24, 2013): 779–97. https://doi.org/10.1177/002193471351686.
Solanki, Aniket. Interviewed by Rajvinder Singh in California, December 22, 2022.
Yuen, Nancy Wang, and Stacy L. Smith. “The Prevalence and Portrayal of Asian and Pacific
Islanders across 1,300 Popular Films.” USC Annenber g. USC Annenberg Inclusion
Initiative, May 2021.
https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/aii_aapi-representation-across-films-2021-05-18.pdf
.
31

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Since their inception, Hollywood films have long mirrored America’s anxieties and prejudice towards Asian Indians, and their lack of presence in film history has left the same resonance. It has stunted the growth of countless potential Indian American performers, as well as their potential to be leading performers across varying genres, despite the manner in which Indian culture has impacted Western music, dance, culinary art, fine art, and cinema. In the 1990s, stories of the Indian diaspora began popping up, but few would reach mainstream status or be considered as a cinematic wonder. Though they’ve uprooted Hollywood’s long-standing orientalist views, the mainstream slate of Indian-led Western films are few and far between, with even fewer niche films achieving the artistry that the community deserves. Using my own experiences as an Indian American cinemagoer, supported by historical research, interviews and film criticism, this thesis aims to interpret what comes after Indian representation in Hollywood films. In doing so, the reader will understand the need for a long overdue multiplicity of prominent roles for Asian Indians in Western cinema, as well as the factors that contributed to Indian Americans achieving at least some proper representation in Hollywood cinema.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

One of us: exploring the relationship between Hollywood and disability

PDF

The perils of Black Excellence for Black women

PDF

Japan in transnational Hollywood: industry and identity, 1985-1995

PDF

A lost art: a history of miniatures in motion pictures. Do practical effects still have a place in Hollywood?

PDF

The revisionist West: placing the postwar American avant-garde

PDF

Flickers of Black: short films and the Black quest for social citizenship in America before WWII

PDF

Studios before the system: architecture, technology, and early cinema

PDF

Shadows of stardom: Latina actresses in the 1930's Hollywood produced Spanish language films

PDF

Pathway programs for HBCU students in television & film…

PDF

Eclipsed cinemas: colonial modernity and film cultures in Korea under Japanese colonial rule

PDF

A cinema under the palms: the unruly lives of colonial educational films in British Malaya

PDF

In a state of exception: political subjecthood in European film, 1990-2008

PDF

Unraveling countrysides: provincial modernities in contemporary popular Indian cinema

PDF

A feminist update for a Mexican folk music tradition

PDF

Screenwriting in the digital age: for the first time, new technology and distribution methods give feature film writers power to make a living outside Hollywood studios

PDF

Entanglements of the Asian identity: visibility and representation in the United States

PDF

The Hollywood left: cinematic art and activism in the 1930s

PDF

Under the olive-tinted limelight: five actresses of Middle Eastern descent on film and TV representation

PDF

A cinema of anxiety: American experimental film in the realm of art (1965–75)

PDF

What looked like cruelty: animal welfare in Hollywood, 1916-1950

Asset Metadata

Creator Singh, Rajvinder (author)

Core Title When representation isn't enough: calling for Indian multiplicity in Hollywood films

School Annenberg School for Communication

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Specialized Journalism (The Arts)

Degree Conferral Date 2023-05

Publication Date 04/18/2023

Defense Date 04/17/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Asian Indians,Cinema,film history,Hollywood,OAI-PMH Harvest,Orientalism,representation,starpower

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Garza, Oscar (committee chair), Mejía, Paula (committee member), (Jaikumar, Priya)

Creator Email rajvinde@usc.edu,singhrj300@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113038290

Unique identifier UC113038290

Identifier etd-SinghRajvi-11651.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-SinghRajvi-11651

Document Type Thesis

Format theses (aat)

Rights Singh, Rajvinder

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20230419-usctheses-batch-1025 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu