This week’s edition of Time Magazine includes a cover story about the world’s next great economic superpower: India (via the News Tab). The cover features a worker from the industry that Americans are most familiar with. She is a representative from the ranks of those much abused call center workers. Similar to Manish’s fine entry, The Anatomy of a genre, I thought I’d take a shot at examing the nuances of this cover picture.
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The next time a call center worker calls me about signing up with the Dish Network, I am going to pay a lot more attention…and flirt a little.
I’m a brown_fob and my reaction was…”oh well..not again!”. Every other day, we see such articles in newpapers and magazines…forward it to our friends on various yahoogroups (iit alumni grp, hostel grp, batch grp, wing grp and what not), and that the end of it. On seeing the cover, none of my FOB friends felt that it was misrepresenting India. The overall reaction was of casual disregard.
I see a little bit of baffling logic here.
This cover is deemed as stereotyping India and Indians, the girl on the cover as being a “call girl”, etc. But just over at the other post on the World Cup, there is a picture of an attractive Brazilian girl. No one there denounced that. Apparently, she’s “hot” and that’s all that matters. Here, a picture of an Indian woman has gotten some all hot and bothered. Maybe because she’s one of us, a Desi.
But the deeper underlying dynamic in all of this is that women are ornamental to marketing. Brazilian women are seen as sexy beach bunnies, Indian women as “exotic”, East Asian women as feminine, subservient arm candy, all American girls as bad girl, racy, Bay Watch types, etc. The truth is that women are 1) the objects of commercial marketing, and 2)they are stereotyped according to their ethnic background.
I asked jokingly (#10) what the cover of Time would be like if the person would have been a male. In my experience, all call center telemarketers and workers that I’ve spoken with are overwhelmingly Desi men. But women sell, not men. There is not a female edition of the Sports illustrated Swimwear issue. Playgirl had been created upon the assumption that bare skinned men would attract women the way men are drawn to visual images of naked women, and in the end, Playgirl got gay readership instead.
“The overall reaction (of FOBs) was of casual disregard” This is what i gather too. Which makes it even more intriguing why ABDs react so strongly. This protective attitude does not appear truly organic. It is a mystery.
Well…you had me with you Cheap Ass, until the bit about women not liking the sight of bare skinned men. Hot Stuff calendars featuring nude firefighters sell like hot cakes here – and they sell to women. I was initiated into the mysteries of the male body at age nine by a friend who had stolen a copy of Playgirl from her older sister. Lots of women read Playgirl, surf porn, drool at the sight of Matthew McConaughey’s bare chest, and just generally love the sight of the male body. But media/magazines etc. are still controlled by men, and women still have a long way to go before they feel the freedom to be as openly sexual as men are.
right on, Cheap Ass Desi.
From my personal experience, I feel that most of the FOBs (esp. students) regard themselves as sort of unofficial ambassadors of India. They’re always keen to answer any doubts/queries that a foriegener might have about India. When we’re faced with dumb questions (“Does India have cars/electricity ?), we do feel a bit(!) annoyed..but the main feeling is that of surprise at the other person’s ignorance and lack of knowledge.
CAD,
The problem is not with the fact that there is an Indian girl on the cover of Time, or that there is a “hot Indian girl” there either. Arm-candy, hot etc. are generic adjectives. I think the over-the-top Orientalism and exotification of the girl shown above is being flayed here. To borrow your analogies, it would be like having a Brazilian insurance-saleswoman in samba headgear or an Japanese geneticist in full Geisha pancake.
The fact that the folks over at Time still have an exotic notion of what India stands for, and are promoting the same with this blatant cover, is what is being called into question here. In many ways it undermines the very text below the graphic — ‘India Inc’.
Who said indian nerds aren’t photogenic or hott? I resent that.
Sure, there are women who like Playgirl, surf Internet porn, hubba hubba attractive pop stars, buff athletes and Bill Clinton, etc. I may have made a sweeping generalization, I now realize. But judging from my experience and knowledge, I think that women being objectified draws much more crowds than the other way around. Again, this is not to dismiss women who like naked men. But compared to men who drool at the sight of nude women and the manner in which men consume these capitalized and commercialized images, men are in the lead. In my opinion. (NOTE: I am not male bashing. I know plenty of males who do not regularly buy Playboy, surf Internet porn, and haven’t recieved lapdances. At least as far as I know).
I wonder if there are studies conducted on this: the reaction and reception of women to male nude bodies as opposed to vice versa, and how the conclusions play into marketing.
IMO, Indians (living in India) will like this cover. It captures the “old and the new” identities.
As an Indian in India, I am slightly concerned about the stereotyping (concerned – not irritated, mind you), but mostly happy that India is getting more attention in international publications.
10 years ago when I would travel to America, my Indian-ness was mostly a matter of curiosity at a very fundamental level (“why do women wear the red dot?”). Now, thanks to covers like this, that issue has been more or less settled, and the questions I hear are more sophisticated (“can India be trusted with nuclear power?”). So the attention, however stereotypical, has been mostly for the better. That is perhaps why we tend to welcome such articles in India.
PS: What really gets my goat, though, is the stereotyping in the Times of India. If an ABD kid somewhere in the American midwest as much as gets an A in Geography, she is hailed as an example of “Indians succeeding overseas”.
Good point.
Also, Its time the westerners start recognising the Narayan Murthys and Azim Premjis. Indian magazines already carry Bill Gates on the cover.
So, Is it right to say that non-ABDs care less about Indian-ness than do ABDs? And if so, is it because non-ABDs have a living, breathing India on their mind? Which no amount of misreprensentation -of the Time cover can be classified as such – can threaten.
Arguably, “exotic” can be just as generic as “arm candy”, “hot”. And a subservient, demure Asian girl who’s “arm candy” is not “orientalism”? A picture of a young, “hot” Brazilian girl in beachwear is not stereotyping either?
Time and other major mass media outlets also have a lot of stereotypes about others as well, not only about India and Indians. I don’t see why orientalist stereotyping is graver than other kinds of stereotyping and why all these engendered stereotypes shouldn’t be called into question.
I’ve read plenty of articles on Narayan Murthy and Azim Premji in US newspapers/magazines.
DesiDudeInGotham,
There is nothing wrong with the cover. Why would lone ike to showcase India in a vanilla way?
I think NRIs/ ABDs/ brown neo-intellectuals are obsessed with being Don Quixote fighting the dragons of exotization. Few weeks ago, I was trying to look India with a Wall Street like prism.
What I saw is Toyatos filled with 10-15 people with rural trappings and three generations in the car and maybe, their goat too.
India is not NYC, not London, not Kansas City, and shouldn’t be.
Cheapo: If you were to design the cover, what image would you have used ?
They never feature on the covers, only in articles. If Time wanted to honour the rising Indian economy, there are real people out there who are doing real work.
Neale:
I’m not so sure about Desis in the Desh, since there is no large scale, pan Indian opinion survey on Desis’ attitudes to similar images, at least to my knowledge. To be sure, there are plenty of Desis in the Desh who are critical of the way India is portrayed: witness the protests against the filming of “City of Joy”, and other movies and spectacles that concerned the discussion of how Desis are represented on the global stage. But specific to the US context, there are several dynamics at play: we are a brown minority, exposed to racism, susceptible to stereotypes about who and what we are, and raised with the politics of multiculturalism and representation. Seeing that we are a minority, we are aware of the lack of the power of self representation, and we are accutely aware and sensitive to this. And so ABD’s are much more ready to object to certain depictions, etc (I know I am generalizing, which is problematic).
Re: #69 (oohh, a dirty number!!)–
Especially given the fact that we ABD’s are citizens of this freakin’ country, and we have the right to protest the depiction and portrayal of the land of our ancestors and our people as manufactured by The Man and The System, goddamit.
Cute lady on the cover. Dish Network, indeed.
52 – Ok – I guess my “call girl” joke was not understood by this crowd. Call center – pretty girl, hence: call girl. She is pretty – get it? As for your comment on brazil, if you put that picture on the cover of Time in talking about the Brazilian economy – there would be something seriously wrong. Again, would there ever be a photo of a attractive Israeli girl – who is in the army, deceked out as GI barbie on the cover of time – if they did a piece that was centered on Israel.
CAD, I agree that stereotyping in general is bad. But there is ethnic stereotyping, and there is generic stereotyping. Putting TMBWITW would be generic stereotyping — all our women are beauty queens, or putting a geek with a pocket protector would be geneic — all desi engineers are geeks. And both would be accurate to an extent. Bharatnatyam dancers with earpieces is not accurate. That’s the point. It’s a lazy visual shorthand.
Incidentally, all my Brazilian friends were quite ok with the hot woman. And the reason is that it prompts hicks from BumbleF, Idaho to ask inane questions like “are all brazilian chicks this hot dude?” (a stereotype no doubt). Whereas, after this cover, these same bumpkins will look straight at you and ask you earnestly if “Indian women wear that fancy gold shit in their hair to work.” And then proceed to cite Time Magazine.
Kush, I am all for Indians projected in the
S&MSM way 😉CAD: You make a good point, but not quite enough. What i miss in these posts is a gripping, personal take on the ABD experience. Which would help me understand the outrage. Talking of racism and a Time magazine cover in one stroke is not enough. And the dollops of cynicism do not help.
That is really it – would Time ever put on the cover an Israeli Girl decked out as G.I barbie, on the cover of it’s magazine if it did a piece on the Israeli Military? I don’t see that happening, she is way too beautiful for the cover, this is Time – it is not maxim or a men’s magazine.
Neale:
|..where your credit-card details may be stored–or stolen
i don’t know.
I showed the cover to my parents. They were thrilled and proud that India is getting more good press on a serious issue. They couldn’t see past its obvious intention to be positive.
I suspect the reaction of many on this site is not a result of being Indian, but rather being educated in a very western multicultural way… which encourages hyper sensitivity to all stereotyping, and to look for deeper, structural sociopolitical meanings in the stereotype.
Sometimes I think all this sophistication just blurs the simple truth.
Pankaj and DD in Gotham:
I see the distinction that you two are pointing out, ie the Time cover is about “India Inc” vs. Brazilian girl and soccer matches, so I’ll totally concede that you two are right on this point. BUT, soccer is also an industry that is a part (albeit a small slice) of the economy, and they are being used for marketing as well. Furthermore:
I don’t see such a clear line between “generic stereotyping” and “ethnic stereotyping”. First, your examples here– super nerd Desi engineers, Desi beauty queens– are these not stereotypes based within the context of a given ethnicity? Second, Bharatnatyan dancers with earpieces being inaccurate– forgive me, but I think you are nitpicking here. Desi computer geeks and Desi beauty queens ala Aishwarya and Sushmita are not accurate stereotypes either. Yes, they represent a certain segment of India. But they are by no means precise stereotypes of Desis at large.
This case– regarding the military of another country– shouldn’t be compared to a cover regarding another country’s economy, I think. It’s not like Time did a cover on the Indian military in Kashmir, and had an Indian GI Jane barbie type with her boobies plopping out of her uniform with an AK 47 suggestively holding them up.
Pankaj, she’s not semi-naked! If she were, then you could say Maxim or another Men’s magazine.
haha… nicely done! I’m new to sepia and loving it so far!
Pankaj,
While I understand your concerns in your posts, which collectively add up to “Why this image with this topic?”, I think you give too much credence to the publication. Time is infotainment at best now that a whole host of other more serious, more intellectual, less pretentious publications are available and would treat this topic more intelligently. The same with Newsweek.
But she is a little too pretty for a piece on India’s economy. Forget about Gi. Barbie, how about just a pretty Israeli girl on the cover of time for a piece on Israel’s military. Would that ever happen? Call center workers don’t go to work like that, and Israeli women in the military do not wear mascara. that is it for me on this thread – It is getting silly, do not want to lose my credibility.
how do you people find so much time to be continuously dedicated to commenting here? Why do you all seem so passionate about these inane issues? 🙂
Manju:
Or perhaps, underlying modes of power, its projection, its tendency to feed circular reasoning and its role in shaping psyche are better understood.
Vait ek minute: I agree with you about using this ladkhi on the cover when discussing the Indian economy; it’s messed up. However, the issue also discusses the “biggest, messiest, sexiest city–Bombay”, Bollywood and among other delightful treasures, the favorite Western motif when discussing non Western societies– the overlap and struggle between the old and new, the traditional and modern, as in the words of Nair in this issue: “a place that has always lived in several centuries at once”. Juxtapositions of Bombay stockwallas riding on elephants, swamis meditating but answering their cell phones etc (I am lampooning). Though its main focus is on the the Indian economy, it does touch on other aspects as well.
Just for the record, I’m not defending Time. I’m just saying that this cover is part and parcel of a larger, general trend of the stereotyping of peoples and societies, objectification of women (like semi nude women in car, watch, alcohol, and sports commercials and advertisements) and that it is not strictly confined to the portrayal of Desis and India. But this cover doesn’t piss me off enough to mobilize a grassroots movement, or launch a letter writing campaign to Time.
In the meantime, I’m going to fantasize about the Desi male call center worker counterpart of this Time cover above. Like Abhi, I will now be much nicer and gentle when speaking with “Bob”, “John” and “Henry” calling from Delhi and Banglore. Might even engage in a bit of chhi chhi talk…
Did anyone else notice this in the first paragraph of the Time article.
” He’s right. If you want to catch a glimpse of the new India, with all its dizzying promise and turbocharged ambition, then head to its biggest, messiest, sexiest city–Bombay. Home to 18.4 million people and counting, the city, formally known as Mumbai, is projected by 2015 to be the planet’s second most populous metropolis, after Tokyo.”
IS that bad fact checking for a major news magazine. Mumbai was formerly known as “Bombay” not vice versa, as the magazine says. As one reads through the article, there are numerous obvious facts that are incorrect. amazing!
Nonsense, Abhi, don’t lie. Everyone knows there is no such place as Idaho.
But if there were to exist, I’m guessing Time would not be unheard of there. “Time magazine was created by Henry Luce so that people living in areas where national and world news coverage was scarce could keep up with the events of the day.”[link]; indeed, it’s even had a somewhat sordid role to play in this fictional state’s private history. Sure it’s in decline, but it is, after all, the original and still the largest news weekly.
She says, not quite loyally.
Check out the MediaKit. Skinheads and Polar Bears and Aunties, oh my!
http://www.time.com/time/mediakit/
VJ:
You’re confusing “formally” with “formerly”.
Pankaj, yaar, you are too obsessed with this idea of an IDF soldress on the cover of Time. Moreover, the references and analogies as to why Beach Bunny Brazilian women are not gracing the covers of Time which discusses the Brazilian economy is flawed as well, because it takes things out of context. Let me try to put this Time cover into perspective in very, very crude terms: Currently, the political, social, and economic climates have their stereotypes and objectives cut out. So: First, Time would never publish an attractive Israeli female soldier when the focus in on the IDF. This would discredit and potray a significant geopolitical ally of the US in bad light. One of the justifications as to why the US provides practically unconditional political, economic, and military support to Israel is that Israel is a vulnerable prey at the hands of a bunch of Palestinian terrorists who want to “drive the Jews out to the sea”. The IDF thus must be portrayed as an honorable, courageous army protecting Israel and its survival. Newsweek, another “infotainment” mag like Time, has done this consistently. Secondly, Brazil presently is not a major economic investment objective for the US. Brazil is more associated with soccer and Rio de Janiero, and Sexy Brazilian Beach Bunnies are ornaments which help this image. India, on the other hand, has become the principal goal and most promising case of investment: it is a potential market of supposedly 200 million middle class consumers, almost the same size as the entire population of the US put together. Collective imagination of India is exotic, traditional, and home of Bollywood and arranged marriages with an emerging class of techno warriors that is going to bring India towards integration into the global capitalist economy. For Time, Bharat Mata/Natyam Dancer is an attractive– and exotic– woman to invest in. “India Shining” it is, and all the gold jewelry she’s wearing underscores that point. And the fact that she’s a call center worker: well, this is one way to deflect the public outcry at outsourcing, framing the issue in a positive, affirmative way.
Think about it: Time is marketing an economy that has recently liberalized, and has tremendous potential for US investment. India Shining has become the poster boy/girl for Third World countries that have liberalized. Time’s touting India and this cover is an advertisement. If thought in this context, is it suprising that they have chosen a cover like this? How eye pleasing would it have been if they had featured a Bombay stock broker on the floor of the BSE, or a REAL call center worker?
Or maybe I am reading too much into this cover…
A couple of points from me:
I agree that there is some stereotyping at play in the Time cover pic, although they may be some other factors involved as per CAD’s comments in post #90. Or maybe it’s just showing that what used to be regarded as a fairly “traditional” society (as per the model’s jewellery, general appearance, and the rest of the imagery in the pic) is now becoming part of the globalised techno-economy (as per the headphones and mic she’s wearing).
Personally, I think showing a female model in a more slick corporate setting and wearing the associated business attire would have been a better way to go, a la Bipasha Basu in her new film, er, “Corporate”.
I think Pankaj is massively overreacting to the fact that they used a pretty model on the cover. No offence, Pankaj.
And regarding the hypothetical bikini-babe in stars and stripes swimwear being used to represent the US, the Indian media already does that all the time anyway, as depicted in numerous Hindi films and music videos with white models. I’m not saying that two wrongs make a right, of course, but I think this is a valid point. In any case, the analogy would only hold true if the Time cover model was wearing some kind of racy temple-prostitute outfit or a barely-there/about-to-fall-off sari, which obviously isn’t the case here.
Jai,
You’re right, a slick corporate woman in a suit would have been better for the cover, but then she would just have looked – American.
What bugs me about many of these posts is their assumption that a beautiful girl necessarily represents an airhead or a bimbo, and can’t possibly represent something ‘serious’ like the economy.
I can understand the issues with exotification (which are definitely present) – what call (center) girl actually comes to work looking/dressing like the Time picture? I would guess zero. The issue with her being pretty seems a little over the top as a protestation, in my opinion. Given that one of the other major female representations of “India” is Aishwarya Rai, I don’t think going after pretty women on covers is the best place to spend our energy.
Neale, et. al: For a discussion of the gendered use of (tech) women as the new symbol of Indian nationalism vis-a-vis the economy, and for some ABD analysis, there actually IS a Ph.D. dissertation on exactly this subject. It should be published via UMI by now and should be on file at UC Berkeley’s library in the next few months under Sociology, and it’s by Smitha Radhakrishnan (of Desi Dilemmas fame). 🙂
Yes! It’s an outrage, this vile prejudice against beautiful people.
It is funny to read the responses from a FOB perspective.. For all those who are against seeing this image, tell us about your alternatives.. (i.e what image would you want on the front page cover?).. That will give us a better idea to comment..
Personally I think it is a good one trying to mix tradition with modernity.. (I’d have liked someone doing a yoga pose with the headset..) that’s even better.. Couple Yoga with IT, you create a great “brand India”..
Ugly, Get with it. It’s a vile prejudice against beautiful WOMEN.
Word to our mother. The Great Mother India, that is! She is both doe-eyed AND ambitious, seductive AND industrious, ready to perform a Thillana AND tricked out to work the dressing room at Old Navy (Ugh. Could they have made that headset any more 1998?).
I saw this post then came across the June 19th edition of TIME Asia featuring the cover story, ‘India’s New Dawn’. If you were provoked by the American cover, definitely check this out.
When you click on the link, the thumbnail cover to the right of Jim Erickson’s article is what is being published under the TIME banner on this side of the world. It’s a little small, but you can probably make out that it’s a generic looking city scape and an equally generic brown woman and man. They look like they just graduated from an IIM / Wharton. They look like they just stepped out of Cafe Coffee Day / Starbucks. They look (oh shit…) like you and me.
So here’s a thought – maybe the Amrikan editors of TIME have got our back. Those of you amidst the upward mobile sepiaed masses can now deflect questions about whether you’re planning to steal Joe Idaho’s job by saying, “Didja see the June 19th TIME? Do I look like her? I don’t think so”. Meanwhile, as far as the Census Bureau is concerned, you’re still safely ensconced in the demographic with the highest incomes in the country. BWAAAA HA haaaaaa… ~ As far as the Asia version, I think: (1) it’s an ugly cover, though… (2) they bear a much closer resemblance to the true face of upwardly mobile India than the Bharathanatyam lass, and… (3) at least it’s not an exotified India, but… (4) it is also guilty of the lazy design problem that the American version of the magazine suffers from.
Then again, TIME isn’t especially known for showing nuance in their cover design – didn’t they just do one featuring Zarqawi’s face with a big red ‘X’ through it?
I guess one could argue that this woman does not represent a typical woman who works at a call center in India. From the few videos I have seen on call centers, the women are dressed either in Western casuals or mostly shalwar kameezes with a few saris. Most of them do not wear over the top make up like the woman in the cover and are certainly not loaded with nose rings and elaborate gold head bands. I guess the reality is too dull to be put on the cover of Time magazine.
As for the person above who was wondering why are some people upset at the cover, the answer is pretty simple. We all want to fit in the societies we live in. We all want to be treated as regular normal people who just happen to have a different skin color. Covers like this one perpetuate the image of Indians being foreign and different.
Part of me thinks the Asia cover version wouldn’t have worked here just cause Indians can look American (the reverse does not hold true) – and if there’s no (sometimes stupidly) obvious signs screaming ‘I’m Indian’ (aka bindi, mehndi etc.), no one would think the story was about India.
The other part is thinking maybe Pankaj of the erstwhile paranoia may have had a point…the pretty exotic call centre girl is so terribly nonthreatening, whereas the two generic people look like businesspeople, are strong, active etc.
Um, I’d be calling bullshit if some story on Japan being an economic force had a kimono-clad woman wearing that headset, too. It’s rampant exotification. “Look at them weird furriners and all that funny shit they wear.”
And Neale, if you can’t figure out what American-born desis think after reading an entire WEBLOG devoted to such things, written BY and FOR ABDs, surf elsewhere. No one owes you more than what is painfully obvious.