“Kind of like the Indian Robert Redford and Brad Pitt, only crank up the handsome and rip off the knob.” That’s how Stephen Colbert described Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan in a segment Tuesday evening making fun of celebrity feuds. (Apparently there’s some ruckus about Big B not turning up at SRK’s New Year’s Eve party.) Trump v. Rosie and Angelina v. Madonna were the other two targets, but with a full half of the segment devoted to Bollywood clips and mangled names of Indian stars (“Let me tell you something: If Pree-etty Zinta is there, you better fucking show up”), the item — which wasn’t all that funny to begin with — came out in a weird space between derision and, ultimately, a kind of respect. Watch for yourself, but to my eyes this was a more sophisticated intro to Bollywood than anyone in the studio audience might have expected. I suspect we have an alternadesi mole somewhere on Colbert’s writing staff.
As you might expect the Indian press is all over it. “The short spoof may also have been aired keeping in mind the fact that the show is extremely popular amongst Indian Americans,” this report speculates.
I thought this bit was hilarious, if he could have pronounced their names correctly would have made it a lot better.
More here.
Saw this too. He mangled all the names horribly amd his tone was at times condescending — he seemed to be in mild disbelief that he was actually doing a bit about these stars with unpronounceable names. And they could have picked K3G — lots more scenes of Big B and SRK together. But I’m not complaining. The Preity Zinta line was classic.
The way he pronounced ‘Amitabh’ is exactly the way people (non-desis) have pronounced my name my whole life. Welcome to my world.
Rip off the knob? Is that a joke based on the condom thing?
Actually the whole Bollywood portion was very well done… I couldn’t believe the Dilip Kumar-Raj Kapoor reference. And it has to be said…Preity Zinta’s photo looked HOT.
I loved this segment! Too bad they didn’t compare the two “Don”s! Then again, that bow-tie might have not been so great for Amitabh. But I immediately assumed Colbert was mispronouncing names on purpose – another riff on how badly most right-wing pundits pronounce names in any non-English language, another little layered dig at how those guys pretend to be all internationally savvy but actually don’t have a clue. Those pronunciations were so over-the-top wrong, that it just had to be on purpose.
Funny! 🙂 There is no such thing as bad press, I look forward to seeing more bad examples of anything brown!
I think the pronunciation was intentional. Colbert kills the names on purpose, take for example Iranian President Mohammed Ahmadinejad. Truthiness or Factiness, What do you want?
I actually felt the opposite. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he killed them on purpose to stay in line with his “America Rules” schtick. As for it being condescending, isn’t that what satire is all about?
I bet they would have if they had done a little more research. Funny nonetheless.
I saw this last night and thought it was hilarious! Was also very pleased that the Indian community got that kind of attention – you know, funny, casual humor. For once it wasn’t about accents or Appus or call centers.
My new favorite Colberism since “truthiness” is “bhangrameter“.
Come on fellas — the pronounciation was just fine. Unless one learns the language or takes voice coaching that’s as good as it gets. And the humor was in the same vein as for any of the other skits — I didn’t see any desi persecution/deriding whatsoever. It was a cool segment!
My bro and I spent way too much time dissecting this segment yesterday and came to the conclusion that it works simultaneously as
(1) a parody of melodramatic Bollywood atrociousness
and
(2) by virtue of Stephen Colbert’s whole schtick, as a more subtle acknowledgement of the fact that outside of America, a far larger swath of humanity would recognize Big B and SRK over Rosie, Donald, Robert Redford and Brad Pitt.
And I don’t even know who Dilip Kumar / Raj Kapoor are, but the aplomb with which Colbert dropped that reference made it the highlight of the segment, in my not-so-informed opinion.
WHAT!!! Steven says “War-torn country of Malawi”. Thats BULLSHIT! Malawi has not had a war….ever!!! Steven LIED!!! OMG!!!
Exactly. 🙂 I have had a number of funny conversations with Americans where when they are presented with that point, they either don’t really believe it, or, if liberal, accept it as yet another sign of the deterioration of America’s ascendancy [when of course it has nothing to do with that at all].
that was a sweet touch, something like a high school girl would say about a crush. Turn up the hot (like a volume button) and rip off the knob! But now I’ve over explained…
i nearly died when i saw that clip– i LOVE stephen colbert and jon stewart. it was so totally on point– especially when they had the two scenes from mohabbatein next to each other– oh my god. i was scream-laughing and i think i woke up my entire apartment building.
My brother and I saw this two nights ago and we were dying! Honestly, one of the funniest Colbert skits ever, and the Raj Kapoor/Dilip Kumar bit (combined with the bhangrameter) had us rolling
I thought “rip off the knob” was referring to Shah Rukh Khan’s big nose.
No no… he just meant rip off the knob of the crank you turned up.
mispronounced but going from strength to strength all the way… terrific editing!
I agree. And anyway, if you absurdly insist on spelling “Preeti” as “Preity” what do you expect?
Even if it wasn’t on purpose, it’s not that big a deal, especially since lots of desis, both ABDs and 1st gens mispronounce their own names. Or maybe mispronounce isn’t the right word; they pronounce them quirkily.
But anyway, Stephen Colbert rocks. I’d say he was even funnier than John Stewart, if John Stewart wasn’t so much better looking.
I beg to differ; I think Colbert it the hottie ;).
In their usual delusional fashion. From the link:
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/big-b-srk-feud-on-us-comedy-show/top/30925-8.html
“The very fact that Indian celebrities were featured for two-and-a–half minutes on a US comedy shows that Indian cinema is making huge inroads abroad.”
Whadda buncha idiots….
No doubt there is at least one bollywood-savvy desi writing for that show.
Desishiksa, I am with you, Jon Stewart is hot! Who doesnÂ’t love funny, witty men with fabulous smiles!
Way to rain on our parade Truthseeker. Bah!
John Stewart: Intelligent, left wing, wears a suit, hot looking, successful, own hair, check, check, check,check, check, check, hmmmm… but does he watch bollywood movies??DARN!! I guess Colbert has it then.
Why is the Indian media making a big deal out of this? This is not the first time Bollywood bits have been featured on the Daily Show/Colbert Report. Unfortunately, much of the videos have been taken down from YouTube due to copyright violations. But John Stewart had a whole segment about two years ago when the whole Sanjay Dutt and Abu Salem was in full swing. After that he has had other small bits as well.
Colbert had incorporated a little Bollywood mention in a segment about Indian Restaurant or somthing. But this may be the first bit that was truly about Bollywood on The Colbert Report. But it definitely has been featured a handful of times on The Daily Show.
OK I change my vote. John Stewart, Bollywood guru, check. He wins.
A lot of the segments are a bit rusty when introduced and then they find their pace. That in mind, I thought this was funny and indeed a snarky tribute. The real Colbert is geeky enough that I wouldn’t put it past him to have at least passing interest in Bollywood. The bhangrometer line was great.
“Those pronunciations were so over-the-top wrong, that it just had to be on purpose.”
I couldn’t be more convinced that it was on purpose. Say what you will about his sense of humor, the man is a genius. Every mispronunciation was calculated in staying with his conservative, arrogant, Bill O’Rielly-esque character. Not that I think he would have naturally known how to pronounce the names perfectly, but if he were trying to be respectful instead of offensively hilarious he would have learned how to pronounce them in an acceptible way.
For example, every time he tries to pronounce the president of Iran’s name he throws in some ridiculous word in the middle of it…like “Iranian President Ahmene P Diddy jad,” or he’ll just say giberish like Ahmeniiiiigklfdjkdf jad.
I uploaded it on Google video if anyone wants to skip straight to the bollywood segment.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4787996060115144337&q=colbert
I can’t believe some of you people think the mispronunciations were deliberate…to me, it sounds like he did way better than the average American would if reading those names off of cue-cards, and I think he probably rehearsed them a bit before saying them on the segment. Come on…he said ‘Mukherjee’ pretty damn well, ‘Oberoi’, ‘Dilip Kumar/Raj Kapoor’, even ‘bhangra’ was not too far off. The only thing he really messed up on was ‘Mohabbatein’ but please…how would you expect him to say that? And as I said before, his pronunciation of ‘Amitabh’ is exactly the way I’ve grown up hearing my own name pronounced by Americans (to the extent that watching the clip freaked me out a little for that reason).
Amitabh:
Colbert is a character. A spoof on conservatives. He behaves the way liberals think conservatives behave. So naturally he’d mispronounce foreign names…everyone knows conservatives have no interest in understanding foreign cultures.
I liked that whole segment. Colbert picking Madonna over Angelina Jolie was hillarious too. Loved the whole Bollywood segment too. There has to be a Desi guy in his staff or a Bollywood fan in his staff. I mean how would a regular guy know about Shah Rukh and Dilip Kumar thing. I think he did the pronounciations good. Better than most Americans can do any ways.
I love Colbert show. Every time he said Mahmoud Ahmedinijad, he deliberately mangles it with funny sounding words.
Anyone see what he did in that dinner George W. had invited him to speak? He really went after GW in that, which I thought was over the line.
“He really went after GW in that, which I thought was over the line.”
After the way the mainstream media had been handling GW until then, his take was a funny and ironic way of bringing Bush back to reality. Bush literally had a look of “What some guy is actually mocking me … I thought I was always right”
Just saw the clip. I thought it excellent and I was impressed the easy way with which he pronounced the names. Heck…my gora husband says it pretty much the same way and I have been coaching him for years. My husband cannot hear the difference between the closely related harsher guttral sounds like d, dh, g, gh, th in Hind.
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I liked the segment. And the Preity name alawys drives me crazy too.
And with the tazaa football news…Victoria tattoed in Devangiri on Beckham’s forearm should push the bhangrameter to the red.
Do those of you posting negative comments about the segment watch Colbert regularly? I do, and this piece was brilliant.
The mispronunciations are what made the segment so hilarious. It’s the idea that Colbert really has no idea what he’s talking about, but he’s pretending to be an expert about it.
As an Indian guy who knew most of those actors’ names, but could care less about all the drama, it sounds like a mountain-out-of-a-molehill story. So one guy didn’t go to the other guy’s party. Who cares. It’s just amusing to hear their names mentioned by a white person acting as if this is the biggest news in the world.
And fyi, I’m pretty sure he does know how to pronounce Ahmadinejad. He says it wrong to be funny. Here, he really had no clue how to pronounce any of the names, which was why they made him say so many different ones.
There’s nothing harsh and gutteral about them at all. They are unaspirated vs aspirated, that’s all…and your husband doesn’t have an ear for them (and can’t pronounce them) since he didn’t grow up with them, simple. I think they sound great. The original proto-Indo-European language had aspirated sounds (like ‘bh’, ‘dh’, ‘gh’, ‘jha’, etc.) but out of all the Indo-European languages today, only the Indo-Aryan languages of India retain them (except, interestingly, spoken Punjabi has lost most of the aspirated sounds, and replaced them with tones…which is why instead of ‘dhol’ the word is pronounced ‘tol’ with a tone, and instead of ‘ghar’ the word is pronounced ‘kar’ with a tone).
‘sup.
I was quite surprised by the rather sophisticated references to bollywood stuff in that segment. Of course he got a desi who understands his brand of comedy and got him to give him the right names, way to pronounce them, and add the stories. And the pronounciations were just fine. that is to say they were about the best as I would have expected from a slightly uninitiated firang.
“that the show is extremely popular amongst Indian Americans”
Are there published stats? Where do they source this from?
Agree. Also, the segment is funny because no one in the nation (and I mean the US) cares or knows about Bollywood yet Colbert gives it the Hollywood treatment.
In the beginning, Colbert pronounced the name correctly. But then there was a show where he showed a clip from Fox News where the “reporters” were mispronouncing Ahmedinijad name on purpose (showing their professionalism), or because they lack the basic verbal abilities of real journalists.
Since then, Colbert mispronounces Ahmedinijad to hillarious proportions.
This is depressing. You guys adore them just because they’re funny. Where is the outrage, where is the wordiness. Colbert was ignorant by calling Malawi a “War Torn Country” and you all lounge around pining for his affections!!!
You’re attitudes are shocking and disturbing. These folks are supposed to set an example in terms of knowledge about the world. For gods sake a 5 year old can google Malawi and see that its not a war torn country.
I’m dissapointed in Colbert and all of you. For shame. So I will not now or ever again watch the Colbert Report.
Hilarious segment. Am I the only one though who thought the names were pronounced about as accurately as one can reasonably expect from a non-desi? The Preity Zinta name-mangling was obviously deliberate over-enunciation for comic effect but I was actually quite impressed by the Colber effor in general with getting the names right enough so they were actually recognizable. If this was really targeted to a growing desi component of Colbert Nation, maybe we’ll see Lallu in the hot seat next. That’ll be priceless.
Maybe I’m giving Colbert too much credit, but was he purposely over-butchering those names? He seemed like he was trying too hard…Maybe that’s just me…
Ha ha nevermind, someone answered that.
As for the Stewart/Colbert hotness…
Stewart’s cuter, but Colbert wayyy more creative… and that’s extra points for a woman like me 😉
Compare the positive comments regarding butchering names on this blog to the negative ones regarding the same topic here http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004092.html#more
Is it because Colbert is a media figure that it’s welcomed in this case or what?
I would think the fact that he is making fun of these names would make it even more annoying (possible offensive) than the innocent mispronounciations of Mrs. Bradshaw next door.
That’s what I was wondering…Was he making fun of people that butcher the names? or was he himself butchering the names…
I don’t really have problems with making fun of Bollywood, but I hope that he is smart enough to realize that Bollywood isn’t representative of South Asia, or at least hold desis in that regard.