Thursday, March 19, 2015

There's an indian in my tv - well kind of...

Yesterday I was reading an article about the television show "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" and its problems with race. 

This show has a cast with non-white characters.  Yay! 

It has a gay character. Yay! 

It even has an indian character.  Yay?

I decided to start the series last night... the indian character is played by a non-indian.  Given that this race switching is no longer ok for other races why is this ok for indians?  I realize that part of the story is that the character can "pass" as white and I agree that there is a lot that could be explored in that space, but given this issues that are raised in the article above it sounds like they are not.  And why not use an indian actor who could pass?

This show seems like a job for "Métis in Space" with some of their excellent analysis.  No mythical flute music in this one though.  I am going to watch some more of the show.  It is brightly coloured and had some funny moments.  I am interested to see where they go with things.

I really like the bit with wipàpà (father) who mentions coming to New York in the "iron eagle".  To which his daughter rolls her eyes and he replies "of course I know what a plane is.  I was in the air force."  I thought this was a really nice play with steriotypes on a couple of levels.

What are you watching?

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