Kal plays Ahmed Amar, a teenager living in suburban Los Angeles. A suicide bomber has just blown up a bus downtown. We meet Amar when the FBI arrives in the suburbs to take his father away for reasons unknown to viewers. A drunk neighbor, Stan, watches Amar’s father being taken away and proceeds to attack Amar, calling him a terrorist. The kind liberal Mr. Wallace, who lives across the street, witnesses the attack and intervenes, gently saying, “Stan, he’s no more of a terrorist than you or me.”
The Wallace family takes Amar in. Ironically, Amar then receives a phone call from (gasp) an evil Muzzie terrorist, Fayed, the cartoonish archvillain of the show. Amar proceeds to hold the family hostage, demanding that Mr. Wallace deliver a package to Fayed. (He can’t do it himself, because he’s injured from the hate crime.) When Mr. Wallace’s teenage son asks, “Why are you doing this? We’re friends,” Amar responds, “We’re friends?! You can’t even pronounce my name. It’s not Aw-med. It’s ACCCCCCH-med.” (And it’s not Kal Penn, it’s Kalpen Modi.) Mr. Wallace later proclaims, “Stan was right. You are a terrorist.” Mr. Wallace then leaves to deliver the package. A little while later, counter-terrorist agents enter, killing Amar and saving the Mrs. and younger Wallace. But it’s too late. The delivered package helps set off a “suitcase nuke,” presumably killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. So what are the morals of Ahmed Amar’s story? You can’t trust brown people, even the ones living in posh suburbs who speak with American accents. If they ever correct your pronunciation of their names, call the FBI right away. And if you happen to witness a hate crime against an Arab-looking person, let the attack continue. Don’t interfere. Chances are, the victim was about to help detonate a nuclear bomb anyway.
In addition to the improbable storyline, the characters were poorly developed. We never understand why someone like Amar, a teenager who lives in a ritzy neighborhood, would be a terrorist. All we know is that he’s a brown Muslim and that he’s in cahoots with some very bad people. And that he shouts in Arabic before he fires his gun. When Amar’s hostages ask him why he wants to be a terrorist, he replies, “It’s not because I want to. It’s because I have to.” Well, that still doesn’t tell us anything.
I get that it’s just a television show. I get that Kal Penn is just paying his dues, and doing what he has to do to get paid. I get that it’s very easy for me to sit behind my computer and rail against shows like “24” and go to my cushy job in the morning while some of my college friends have been trying for years to make it into Hollywood with little success. I get it. Nonetheless, I’m not happy about the idea of brown people playing such two-dimensional, hateful roles. My worst fear is that some crazy person will watch this show and think, Hey, if Kumar Patel could be a terrorist, maybe that Desai kid across the street could be one, too. Even though he’s basically a nice guy, I know deep down that they’re all the same. It’s possible. I saw it on “24.”
I caught some of this and also wondered what the point was.
I think shows like 24 are so caught up in the need for constant action — and disasters big enough to require calls from the president, etc. — they fail to pause to explore anything in detail.
I want a show just about firemen who climb up trees to rescue cats in rural Arkansas. And I want Kal Penn to play the cat.
Nice post; well-written.
Mispronounce brown names at your risk; Sepia’s newest blogger is sure to develop a post around it…
But what about this depiction issue in ’24’? Crude as some of it can be the assorted Muzzies in the show have also been pretty glamorous or cool . There were some Iranians a few seasons ago, and now Mr Modi. Also Republican Guard poster boy Naveen A in ‘Lost’. How is this an advance? It’s getting to Cold War levels now, and although the Commies were always bad, they were kind of groovy, and we didn’t really hate the Russians, did we? So perhaps we’ve come to a point where Muslims are transformed from frenzied, hairy fanatics into suave, good-looking evil-doers? Is that progress? Of sorts??
Granted that the presentation of Kal Penn played into the (brown person = terrorist) stereotype, there’s a good chance that Ahmed’s character will be developed in future episodes, as he remains to be interrogated by the likes of Jack Bauer and company at CTU.
24 does have a history of perpetuating negative stereotypes, which I personally have some problems with, but one can argue that they have to do it to create the fictional political climate that provides a basis for the plot. On the other hand, the show has also done a great job of showing the very dangerous slippery slope of a xenophobic America in previous seasons. Whether they’ll make up for Kal Penn’s role this year remains to be seen; they do seem to be focusing on Islamist terrorists so far.
hey! look who’s joining the show. all we need is russell peters and we’ll have a full house. maybe because their jokes have been bombing lately – hehe-
I think the blame lies squarely with the brown people for not being proactive. I’d start my day off with a Turkish Shave. It might be painful and scary, but, it will make you look less like a terrorist. Remember: facial hair is our enemy. Also, brown folks should ditch the traditional backpacks for these. You can’t blame people for being paranoid if you’re constantly hiding stuff from them. Peace
UMM, priceless advice as always 🙂
Yeah, backpacks don’t seem to be the way to. You don’t want the British police to pull a Menendez on you and just shoot because you run when they randomly start chasing you.
Tried commenting on your earlier post Naina but my computer was a bit stuffed…just wanted to say I really like your writing style. Gutsy choice of subject matter without veering off into being polemical or polarising.
I saw an arthouse film called My Son The Fanatic with Om Puri and Rachael Griffiths which followed a slightly similar storyline except it was set in England. Although the subject of terrorism was sensitively treated it was still very unexplained…this liberal Pakistani guy’s son just dumped his white girlfriend and became a terrorist.
Maybe it’s just easier to explain terrorism in countries with highly visible conflicts – Palestine, Sri Lanka – rather than in immigrant communities living in the affluent West… I’m so glad the name hypocrisy was pointed out though. Kal Penn? His real name isn’t even hard to pronounce. Look at that guy on Heroes…where’s the name pride?
Well, it IS on FOX….
Bullshit, Tash. I usually agree with you, but not on this.
Mr Penn, like all Americans, like all people actually, should be free to reinvent himself as he sees fit. We should stop forcing these tribal loyalties on people. Kal has done some really good projects recently, and he’s going to do many more. His desiness doesn’t need proving.
I think we’ve got to have some tolerance for the differences people adopt. Some of it strategic, some of it is performative, but it’s all good. Else we’ll soon start complaining that DJ Rekha doesn’t wear khadi.
More than anything else I was disturbed by Penn’s unusually poofy hair.
In terms of South Asian actors, I think the man who played the ambassador last night looked vaguely familiar too (possibly a man who used to do voiceovers for some ads and emcee one of the Saturday/Sunday morning Indian movie shows). No time to look up the credits right now, but I think it was him, ‘cept he used to wear a moustache.
I was thinking about the motivation for the bad guys in 24, I’ve only been watching for 2 or 3 seasons, but don’t the No. 1 guys usually have some personal quest for vengence that they hide under some cause so they can get people to follow them (e.g. Fayed getting even with Jack for his brother’s death)?
More than the “you can’t pronounce my name” line (imagine if they ever do a storyline involving the LTTE!), I liked when Kal Penn’s shaggy friend said “It’s like the world’s gone crazy” and Mr. Modi replied “It’s been crazy for a while and you’re just noticing now.”
Meh. If someone is crazy enough to take their geopolitical/cultural assessments from 24, they’re probably not worth taking seriously in the first place. I mean, previous villains on 24 have included white surpemacists, evil neocons (though it appeared to be Arab terrorists at first), Mexican drug dealers, Chinese intelligence, and Russian terrorists, and I don’t it’s spawned any incidents. Arab terrorists were probably next on the “enemies wheel.” I imagine next season will be evil corporations, and after that maybe aliens. And even now that Arab terrorists are getting their go-round, they’ve got Dr. Bashir as the repentant terrorist who wants to make peace, and Jack even offed Curtis to protect him. So cut 24 some slack. I don’t need people loading me up with liberal guilt issues while I’m trying to keep track of the Bauer body count. 🙂
Speedy
I’ve got to side with Mr. K on this one. People have been using stage names forever (See: Marylin Monroe, Ringo Starr, Rock Hudson, Jamie Foxx, Martin Sheen, etc.). It has nothing to do with cultural pride, but has to do more with marketing. Let’s not fault Mr. Penn for doing what actors have been doing for generations.
This show is on FOX, does anyone expect any different? But what I’m slightly disappointed at is the rehashing of storylines, this same plot point was visited in the Behruz character of the previous season, at that was at least dealt with in a nuanced way.
–SPOILER ALERT–
Oh, and the by the way, Kumar died at the end of hour 4, just before LA went up in smoke, so unfortunately we won’t get to see Jack Bauer torture Kumar by making him smoke a burrito-sized reefer and then refusing to drive him to White Castle.
Speedy
Ajay Mehta
Naina just echoed my thoughts as I sat through the entire episode hoping there is was twist in the tale. To my horror I spotted another brown guy Shaun Mazumdar playing a terrorist in the same episode.
What Mr. Kobayashi said.
I personally can’t stand the timesucker discussions on my triple hyphenated 11 syllable name. I used to give castillian pronunciation points but got tired of the timesucker discussions like: “The ‘A’ is said ahh, like Ahhnna. Not like the ‘A’ in Ass.”
I don’t understand how Kal Penn could do a movie like Harold and Kumar that mocks racial stereotypes and then turn around and do this. I actually would understand if it was an early role for him–then it would be “paying his dues”. Now he’s established enough that he could take a moral stand, at least once. Or maybe he’s turned down countless other, more anti-brown roles and he can’t keep turning down more.
desiskiksa-I don’t understand why Kal Penn would be taking some sort of “moral stand” bhy not playing this role. I would understand it more if for example he played some kind of Hindu BJP fanatic. But he’s playing a Muslim terrorist. He is not Muslim, how do we know he doesn’t agree that the role is a spot on depiction of a Muslim terrorist?
24 was good for 1 or 2 seasons, but after that kept getting more ridiculous and unbelievable. Also, as a viewer, it just wasn’t satisfying on an emotional level…for example you’d have a terrorist (Marwan?) who wreaked havoc for like 18 episodes, destroying lives and families, torturing people…and then he’d be suddenly killed in one second, almost before he had time to even realise his game was up. It just didn’t give you that satisfied feeling you would get if you saw that the villain suffered, and realised all his fancy plans were about to come to naught. I chalk that up to very poor writing, and lack of effort on the part of the team who makes the show. And Jack Bauer…the guy saves the world over and over, and doesn’t so much as get any thanks or recognition…in fact others take credit for all his work, and the guy just keeps on suffering silently. I found that so poorly done that I haven’t watched the show after the 3rd season.
Totally unrelated:
I hope Kal Penn does a good job in the upcoming movie The Namesake. It hasn’t been released here (I think it comes out in March) and I really want to see it.
Speedy (#11):
Problem is that this could confirm some people’s suspicions. And people who watch 24 and take it as gospel need to be taken just as seriously as anyone else in the sense that they have an equal vote and have as much say in guiding policy in the US.
I love 24 and don’t particularly care for the merits of how plausible some of it sounds. I’m still in shock over Curtis and LA …
OK so I heard that Kal Penn is on Law & Order SVU tonite as unfortunately a rapist!
I’m not convinced he has established himself yet or for that matter not playing a high profile stereotypical role that could open many doors for him as an actor has anything to do with morality. We are just getting emotional about it.
ds, let’s face it, no one in their right minds atm would turn down a role on 24.
I’ve no problems with Kal Penn’s name. I wouldn’t do it, but it’s his thing. besides, I think he’s gotten enough name recognition by now not to revert.
24, whatever its faults, is tv of the first order. and yeah, this isn’t the first time it’s propagated stereotypes. and IMO people who take their life’s lessons from tv aren’t worth listening to much anyway. either way, it’s fun to kill an hour or two (or four). I’ve got to say that I watched the premiere more for Alexander Siddig (yet another name change alert, people!) than anybody else. DS9 rocked while it lasted!
Meant to add this to the previous comment:
FOX (in my opinion) has some good shows, like House MD and Prison Break…and watching the last episodes of American Idol (when it’s narrowed down to two or three people) is my guilty pleasure. 😀
How “moral” can one be while acting in a fictional movie?
I think you’re right on your last line. I’ve met at least one or two actors in LA who wouldn’t take the kind of roles that KP took early on (Van Wilder, Malibu’s most wanted, etc..) but how they paid their rent.. is beyond me. KP told me himself for Van Wilder he changed lines in the script because they were far too derogatory (lines referring to Kali and Ganesha, etc..)
Let’s keep things in perspective, this is an industry that had John Wayne playing Genghis Khan, As for taking a “moral stand”, it needs to be done cryptically. Hollywood doesn’t want to be lectured, it wants to make money. KP’s “established-ness” was achieved through certain means, if all of a sudden he were to do a 180 and contradict those means on an ideological level, his position can (and most likely would) be yanked as quickly as it was established.
I still consider the first season of 24 to be one of the most gripping exercises in TV storytelling. I was disappointed with the ending of Season 2, and did not catch the following seasons until the last one with the traitorous President, which almost matched the first season in its taut narrative. Those posters who are focusing on the alleged stereotyping of browns seem to be rather selective. While browns are featured as terrorist foot soldiers, the bigwigs are usually Hollywood’s stock-in-trade – white corporate type guys.
It’s not like brown terrorists are unheard of – whether its Delhi shoppers at Diwali, Bombay commuters on a train, or Londoners in the Tube – some horrific acts of terrorism are committed by brown people.
Considering that the second main storyline is the abuse of civil liberties and the profiling of Muslims in the U.S., it seems to me the producers are trying their best to not give only one side of the issue, unlike some David E. Kelly piece of crap. The FBI is shown as a rather brutish bureaucracy, incapable of exercising judgment. In the current issue of Time, James Ponziewonk address how writes that it is foolish for people to try to label 24 as a “conservative” show:
“The Evolution of Jack Bauer”
“ But beyond that, things get more complicated. As the war has dragged on and become less black-and-white, so has 24. In 2003 it featured a conspiracy to provoke a Middle East invasion using bogus WMD evidence. (Yellowcake, anyone?) Last year’s villain was the President, who had his predecessor assassinated. In the new season, a string of suicide bombings has led, chillingly, to federal “detention centers” for Muslims, much like in the liberal pre-9/11 movie The Siege.”
“Unlike James Bond, who just gets younger and tougher, by the new season Bauer is tired, disillusioned and wondering how much longer he can fight the Long War. His scars are not only physical; his work has cost him relationships and perhaps some part of his humanity. He has been changed and damaged by every compromise he has had to make. By extension, he forces us to ask if we have too.”
“On 24, there are a few very good people, a few very bad ones and in between, a lot of question marks who can upend the plot (and the political analogies). That may be the biggest lesson of 24 in the Iraq era: don’t stubbornly hang on to your preconceptions when the facts on the ground change. [I]f conservatives and neocons think 24 is working for them, they don’t know Jack.”
Forgot the link, sorry.
The Evolution of Jack Bauer
I’m afraid you haven’t done your research right Naina. If you watched any previous seasons of ’24’, you’ll remember that in Season 4, the brown owners of a gun shop actually help out Jack Bauer’s fight against the enemies.
And about Kal Penn being an established actor- I’m sorry, he’s only an established actor within the desi community. To Hollywood – he is still proving his worth.
Naina, your excellent explication of the “kind liberal Mr Wallace” set my thoughts off in another direction.
Now, I’m just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if there’s a larger trope at work. Kal Penn’s role in 24 is an extension of the idea of the young, ethnic man who’s polished, likeable, “not like the others of his race.” He provides philosophical comfort for people like “kind liberal Mr Wallace.” It permits Wallace to exercise his open-mindedness, and to congratulate himself for it. However, the young man (it’s almost always a man) turns out to be like the others anyway. His likeability is a veneer, and his ethnic malevolence, vaguely suspected from the beginning, eventually outs.
This was at work in John Guarre’s play Six Degrees of Separation. You might have seen the film version with Will Smith. He gains the confidence of rich white couples by claiming to be Sidney Poitier’s son–he turns out to be a liar and a confidence man (no pun intended).
A variation of the idea can be seen in an early scene in the film Crash, when two young black men discourse intelligently, and humorously, on the fact that they’re getting suspicious looks in a certain swanky LA neighborhood. A moment later, the smiles vanish, and they draw their weapons and rob a white couple.
A variation on it is in John Updike’s recent novel Terrorist. In that case, it’s the young man’s father, when he was a young man himself, who came to America as an exchange student, from Egypt. The elements are similar though: the generous invitation, and the eventual fallout from that naive act of trust.
The moral: don’t trust them, don’t let them in, no matter how articulate they are, no matter how clean cut–the apple never falls far from the tree.
The entire western white media needs a ‘thapar’ in the face with a ‘gandha’ ‘juthi’ or suffocated with a ‘gandha’ ‘katcha’ and for those damn brown fools who want to be a “star” in Hollywood playing those same lame ass maf!#*ing stereotypical roles hoping one day for equitable movie or television roles…It’s never going to happen!!! Wake up bitches!!! African Americans who have been in Hollywood for a damn long time are still struggling today in television and film. (Listen to the song Burn Hollywood Burn by Public Enemy) From minstrel shows to stereotypes, to tokenism to more stereotypes and sub-dominant roles, to more sub-domiant roles, more tokenism and covert racist assumptions to even more minstrel shows (Like Flava Flav’s stupid ass show) etcetera etcetera and so fourth. Even with whatever “progress” is made there is always a manifestaion of more bullshit, it just becomes more elusive to detect. The better character and the better roles will always go to non-coloured people. And the sub-dominant roles, stereotypical roles etcetera will always go to……drum roll please…..COLOURED PEOPLE!!! YAY! And speak of progress??? Let’s talk about awards given to actors such as the Oscars. For instance, look at the roles that Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won best actor/actress for in 2001 oscars I belive. Denzel a black, stereotypical crooked, nasty, thug, corrupted cop, Halle, a Black Woman who “submits to the powerful white man’s penis” who executed her husband. I wonder what role will Kalpen Modi receive an Oscar for? Will it be a role in which his character is not tied into cultural or racial implications or will it be for his superb role in the Namesake??? Hmmmm what a question… Desi people will be messed up even more in Hollywood! Desi people are even messed up in their own Bollywood! I think Kalpen Modi should realize it’s over, leave it, and make his own independent films where he can make (hopefully) a piece of art…unless of course he stills wants to be the full-time Desi Minstrel show wearing “a huge comedic Turban saying gandi, gandi, gandi, gandi I love curry” in some white teen high jinx, masturbatory film and a part-time serious Desi character in a movie drenched in racial and cultural implications and about terroism. And if he still has that hopeof making “progress”…then I AM GOING TO GO SMOKE A BIG BAG OF WEED in order to not become obesessed over trying to bitch slap the brown of his damn face! And if he makes progress and opens the door for other desi people then….ahahahahaha that’s not going to happen…come on people…come one!!! But seriously if he does then big up to him!!!!
lol, i like 24. The show is on FOX, what do you expect? Besides the blatant fact of making all the terrorists dark skinned because white people are too stupid to tell the difference between light skinned arabs and themselves.
Kal Penn – seriously awesome, glad he did this role, he’s breakin out of the typecasted goofy roles.
desishiksa – do you know anyone in the movie industry? I doubt it, ya you know you can have your morals, and guess what you’ll end up a washed up actor because you can’t get any roles. My cousin was out in hollywood for 20 years, still there, now a producer, but back in his acting days couldn’t get a role that wasn’t a terrorist, servant, quikiemart attendant, you might have seen him on growing pains and murphy brown, lol. Point of the story is that Kal penn is almost famous, his roles have all been identical, he’ll end up being typecasted for his entire life. I guess what i’m saying is you don’t know what position he’s in, Rise of Taj, failed.
In all seriousness tho, i like this show, it shows that america is in trouble, a NUKE went off in LA. I think that its still american gov’t fodder to increase patriotism and also make racial profiling easier, errr more like racism.
i like it when white people are scared of people of color
so… how many of you are planning to boycott tv or ’24’ or whatever? no, dont all stand up at once.
I openly admit that I have never watched “24” before. And yes, there are other non-threatening brown characters in the season premiere as well. But I simply wanted to focus in on Kal’s character. That is all. This isn’t meant to be a fair-and-balanced critique of all six seasons of the show.
why is it so important that they develop every character before the writers off them? Face it, Kal Penn wasn’t that important in this series of 24. Anyways, for those of you who care, I started a support group on facebook for those who are mourning Curtis Manning’s death last night. People, please get over yourselves, Mr. Penn has no requirement to be loyal to Indians. I really hate that attitude among Indian-Americans.
Um. Wow.
Denzel is a great actor.
And by the way: Russell Crowe won in 2001 for best actor for the movie Gladiator…and best actress was Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich. Here’s your proof.
You’re missing the point. I’m not saying brown people shouldn’t play terrorists on TV. I wouldn’t have any problem with him playing a terrorist per se. This particular role, however, from Naina’s description at least (I haven’t watched 24 since the first season) sounds like it vindicates those who are suspicious of their brown neighbors, however innocuous they might seem, and mocks the “kind liberals” for their foolish faith in humanity.
People who get their ideas from TV shows like 24, and their news from Fox News, should be taken seriously. Those are the people who influence policy in America today because they have the power of the vote.
…two points
1) i’ve been surprised and heartened by the lack of american born muslim terrorists since 9/11.
2) that being said, i suspect that a large number of future islamic terrorists will be ‘homegrown.’ if you read profiling works like marc sagemen’s you note that many of the young men caught up in these movements are ‘modern’ and well educated, and more than the norm are converts to islam. this seems like it will be more a problem in europe where the muslim subculture is more adversarial than the USA.
Why, so you can be the victim of a hate crime, or you can be accidentally shot on the subway because the cops thought you were a terrorist? That’s what people do when they’re scared–they lash out.
i like it when white people are scared of people of color
Yes, because their fear gives you power, right?
Someone’s just a smidge insecure.
that being said, i suspect that a large number of future islamic terrorists will be ‘homegrown.’ if you read profiling works like marc sagemen’s you note that many of the young men caught up in these movements are ‘modern’ and well educated, and more than the norm are converts to islam.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this will be the case. I’ve been hearing from my friends in law enforcement that some really odd, divergent versions of Islam have been developing in the US prison system.
Denzel a black, stereotypical crooked, nasty, thug, corrupted cop,
Uhh, that is probably the only the second villain he’s played on film (first was in the excellent A Soldier’s Story). In Hollywood, the meatiest roles are often villians. Anthony Hopkins was an unknown before Silence of the Lambs – that movie launched his career. I preferred Kal Penn as terrorist against his performance in American Desi.
Second, in 24, the producers and writers do not tell the actors what will happen until the day of shooting. So when Penn signed on, he was given just a bare outline of his character – no one knows when they will die.
Oh – and ditto on those mourning the death of Curtis. I thought that was shocking enough, until the bomb went off.
Perfect example Omar Sheikh
I didnt see the show –but I at the very least hope he says “you can’t even pronounce my name!!” in kal pen type humorous way. I guess given that it is a prime time fox show, and while there all types of people who watch it, it is primarily going out to that mainstream white America audience who seriously can’t pronounce “Ahmed.” But it actually does bring up another interesting issue:
“In addition to the improbable storyline, the characters were poorly developed. We never understand why someone like Amar, a teenager who lives in a ritzy neighborhood, would be a terrorist. All we know is that heÂ’s a brown Muslim and that heÂ’s in cahoots with some very bad people… When AmarÂ’s hostages ask him why he wants to be a terrorist, he replies, “ItÂ’s not because I want to. ItÂ’s because I have to.” Well, that still doesnÂ’t tell us anything.”
If it weren’t 24, and if it were something with a little more thought put into it, focusing on that Ahmed character–this could be an extremely interesting plot segway. If any of you has seen the Daniel Pearl documentary that came out recently, you would know that they did sort of a comparative biographical analysis of Pearl and his captor Sheik Omar. While the Pearl story was obviously heart wrenching and tragic-the Sheik Omar story really got me intrigued. Here was this typical desi guy from the UK who went to a ritzy prep school, the london school of economics and CHOSE to go not only fight for al qaeda but become a leader within the organization. This was not a case of “it’s because I have to.” This was a man who took his “im a confused desi surrounded by white people” psychology to a whole new level. The life he was afforded and accostumed to was not too different from many of our lives here. Although intellectually I know that in general “revolutionary” leaders supposed to empower the lower rungs of society is hardly ever an actual member of the low rungs of society-but usually members of the upper middle class and have very high levels of education–it was wierd seeing this phenomenon occur with a desi guy born and raised in the West (from a personal standpoint). It makes sense on an intellectual/sociological level, but I was so fascinated as well as horrified by his story because his upbringing wasn’t too far off from my own.
Anyway, I would never expect this level of analysis from 24 so the fact that they took it half way by casting Kal pen kind of pisses me off, bc it clearly sends the wrong message–just taking a young desi guy with an American accent and not taking the time to show that there might be some nuance to his terrorist ways is obviously not going to enlighten or challenge anyone’s preconcieved notions. But I would be curious to see if that dualism and indentiy crisis is more carefully addressed on some other medium.
Personally, I think anything that gets people to pronounce my name correctly is a plus, no matter what the means. (You’d be surprised how many people can’t say “Ennis” !)
Silly wabbit, everyone knows it rhymes with p!nis.
Oooh, that’s biting, great insight Mr. K.
desishiksa – LOL, you crack me up. First of all, i’ve been a victim of hate crime, if i was a typical desi i would have probably tried to apologize and cry/run and ended up in a SM article. Note the ‘if’; i got beat pretty bad(5 v 1), but i did stab one of the kids in the throat with my keys which caused enough blood that they freaked out an ran off.
Point being, is that ya it sucks, but playing the victim card is bullshit. Friends of mine who grew up in the bronx had to worry about getting shot from the bus back to their apt. So ya, people lash out all the time, deal with it, or just do what lots of other desis do.
Move to a gated community where everyone is rich.
Given Bollywood’s influence, the progress we see in films like “Guru”, and the relative affluence of the Indian diaspora, does Kal Penn really need FOX? Or, conversely, do desis need Kal Penn to be their pioneeering actor in Hollywood? I don’t think so. We need our own framework. Then let us see how KP does against other desi actors.