By Rose Graner
Entertainment Editor
The recently-released television series “Outsourced” is a startling and distressing stereotypical portrayal of both Indian culture and American attitudes.
The half-hour NBC sitcom chronicles the experiences of Todd Dempsey, an American who is transferred to India to work as the head of his recently-outsourced call center. The show is a television adaptation of the 2006 film of the same name.
The show doesn’t offend simply because it acknowledges cultural divides. As early as the late 1970s and well into the early 2000s, television occupied a necessary place in race relations. From the (admittedly-formulaic) 1970s series “All in the Family” to the 1990s series “That ‘70s Show,” sitcoms have shown that one can acknowledge racial and cultural differences with grace, respect and, yes, humor.
Modern day television, though, seems to be growing increasingly less interested in promoting racial tolerance and more interested in selling a product that assures the masses that stereotyping and racism in television are acceptable as long as the protagonist seems to “learn a lesson” each episode.
This is where “Outsourced” comes in. Episodes of “Outsourced” portray Indian people as stuffy, prudish and generally silly. The primary American character is their boss and is essentially given power over them.
In the pilot episode of “Outsourced,” Dempsey (Ben Rappaport) snickers after learning that one of his new employees is named “Manmeet,” and things degenerate from there. Each episode implies that the values of Indian culture are ridiculous and highlights the supposedly inherent superiority of American culture, culminating in a demonstration of the Indian characters’ near-universal goal to be American.
A recent Halloween-themed episode featured Dempsey hosting a Halloween party for his employees. They all turn up in costumes that represent facets of American culture—unprompted, of course. Halloween is a time to be anything one wants to be—why would a crude Indian settle for being anything less than an American?
Dempsey’s love interest, Asha (Rebecca Hazelwood), is already engaged in an arranged marriage. She arrives at his Halloween party scantily clad and essentially throws herself at Dempsey, expressing a desire to be with him rather than with her fiancée.
Arranged marriages are a complex and much-debated topic in Indian culture and are often a source of internal conflict for all involved, but Asha’s direct rejection of her own cultural tradition isn’t considered remarkable. She is guilted by an old woman for it (alluding to the stuffy irrelevance of the older Indian generation and of tradition in general) but is not questioned by Dempsey. It is just assumed that anyone would choose an American lifestyle over an Indian one.
Dempsey himself constantly tries to introduce his Indian co-workers to American ideas and traditions and often begins sentences with the patronizing phrase “Well, in America, we…” Instead of engaging in discourse with his companions, he belittles them.
When he accidentally violates one of the basic tenets of Indian culture (he touches unmarried women in an overly familiar manner and mocks the physical appearance of a Hindu deity) his sheepish smile and generally apologetic attitude are considered a fair trade-off.
NBC has produced a show about an American who has been put in charge of a group of Indian people. Creators must have known that there would be sensitive issues to deal with and that they had the opportunity to make a point to their viewers about cultural relations. They deliberately chose to go another direction.
Blame for creating something so blatantly offensive can only be placed on NBC studio executives more interested in pleasing a “target demographic” than in creating quality programming.
The actors in this series should be pitied, not scorned. Rappaport makes his character as sympathetic as any actor possibly could, often transforming entire lines of dialogue that would otherwise be interpreted as snobbish and offensive into genuinely confused and open-minded diatribes.
The rest of the cast is, obviously, almost entirely South Asian. Being both an actor and a member of a minority group is extremely difficult, as most starring roles are reserved for Caucasian actors. To be a South Asian actor and to have one’s first large role be one that belittles one’s own race must be extremely frustrating. It is to the credit of the cast members that they perform admirably despite the circumstances.
Anyone interested in witnessing firsthand the “clean racism” of modern American culture can see “Outsourced” on NBC at 9:30 p.m. on Thursdays.
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