Not really new news, but new to me news – In January, comedian Aziz Ansari premiered his Comedy Central stand up special: “Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening.” We’ve talked about Aziz plenty of times on Sepia Mutiny in the past as the latest up and coming funny man. He can also be seen on Parks on Recreation on NBC Thursday nights, otherwise known as ‘every show has a Desi sidekick’ night. The clips from his Comedy Central special are up [NSFW] and I wanted to share. (h/t Channel APA)
Russel Peters is the only other Desi person I know to have had a Comedy Central special, though I could be wrong on this one. What I do find interesting though, is how different Peters and Ansari’s comedy styles are from one another. I could be snarky and say style differences reflect a Canada vs. U.S.A. thing, but that could just be the residual Olympic effect speaking. In reality, it seems that Peters relies on his Desi background for his jokes, and Ansari has moved away from that, using Desi references more as seasoning than crutch. But maybe, that really is reflective of a Canada vs. U.S.A. thing.
More from an ‘Intimate Moment for a Sensual Evening’ after the jump.
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| Aziz Ansari – Cold Stone Creamery | ||||
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This is the point where I encourage you to go online and buy Aziz Ansari’s DVD where you can watch the whole show. But, if you are proficient in google, I’m sure you can find a way to watch the whole thing online. I would never encourage you to do that though. Never.
Whaaa? Parks is an ensemble show with Aziz being one of the real popular characters on the show. no need to be so defensive/dismissive.
Not “dismissive”! I think it’s cool that there are desis in every single show on Thursday nights. BUT, none of them are “lead” characters – they are all just “supporting roles,” you can’t deny that. As for the ensemble cast of Parks and Recreation, I’m pretty sure he’s not getting as many lines (or money) as the lead actress.
pretty darn defensive then.. ansari’s character has only become a more important part of the show season to season.
oh my god, Aziz is so funny – hilarious clip!
Arj Barker(Arjan Singh) also had a special on comedy central. He is on “Flight of the Conchords”, however his special kind of sucked.
Aziz is an awesome comedic actor. I just dont feel his stand up. Aziz’s act feels like a guy telling a funny story at a party and not real stand up.
Peters does rely on racial humor, while Ansari focuses on pop culture. I like the fact that they are different. I don’t think either one would want to be considered the same as the other.
Chris Rock and Bill Cosby are both black, but have different styles of stand-up. Look at Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno – a lot of ink has been spilled on how two white guys had very different styles of comedy.
Sidekicks or not, I’m just happy to see more brown people on network television. How many seasons did they air ER without a single South Asian on it?
I abolutely love Aziz Ansari. I swear he IS Parks and Recreation! I also don’t think of him at all as a sidekick on that show. He’s one of the main characters on the show and has a story line dedicated to him.
Other recent notables not just in sidekick roles….Arj Barkar from Flight of the Concords & Kunal Nayyar from The Big Bang Theory. Love both of them too.
It does helps that Ansari can bring the funny. Most desi comedians wouldn’t have an act without those convenient ethnic stereotypes.
Love Aziz’s work. I’ve been following this guy back since he worked the underground comedy circuit in NYC. FWIW, he’s considered a bit of a hipster comedian. He’s a bit of a regular at SXSW. Wish him nothing but the best.
I met Russel in real life after a show. He makes fun of Desis, but he doesnt consider himself one. He is funny, but he really does think he is superior and that scared me. He has that Indian personality where Indians from abroad go to India and treat the locals like crap. I loved his comedy until I met him in real life. He sees himself as an “Anglo-Indian”. If you look at other Anglo-Indians and him, he looks hardcore Madrasi and barely any Anglo in him. He is Canadian by heart, and there is nothing wrong with that. But he has forgotten his roots and is infatuated with the belief that he is Anglo-Indian, and that Indians are below him.
i really do like ansari the more i see his routines (totally feel bad for that little cousin harris!). on the other hand, p&r is one of those shows where the main charcter is such by a plurality, not by a majority – besides amy poehler’s character, i think most of the other characters get pretty equal attention, and increasingly more as the show has progressed. and that show would def. be missing a certain element if aziz were not on.
i don’t even know what this means, but i sincerely hope you were using the terms ‘madrasi’ to refer to someone actually from madras/chennai and not generically for e.g. someone from one of the 4 southern states
Isn’t he an ‘Anglo-Indian’ though? What’s wrong with seeing himself as an ‘anglo-indian’ if that’s what he is?
“i don’t even know what this means, but i sincerely hope you were using the terms ‘madrasi'”
yes I’d be interested to know what it means also. Aziz was also a member of improv everywhere, the ‘public prank” group.
most cats dont know this about him.
given that peters’ dad is from bombay and mom from calcutta, apparently pretty much all indians look madrasi.
wait a minute…. I am a bit confused about the term Anglo-Indian… I originally thought it meant someone of part English and part Indian origin… but is it also used for someone of Indian descent who is a citizen of England (or possibly other western countries)? Seems like an awkward term to me…
the whole peters comment is troll-bait.
the fact that ansari is southern got my attention. american that is. not indian.
he kind of looks like one of my brothers.
Peters grew up in Brampton,a very diverse suburb of Toronto. As another product of the suburbs of Toronto I can confirm that racial jokes are basically a staple of our upbringing. Peters doesn’t consider himself ‘anglo’ anything, but brown people crack on other brown people all the time in Toronto. He is getting less funny though, overexposure and repetitiveness I guess.
Ansari grew up in one of the Carolinas, probably in one of 3 brown families in the country, I bet he did everything he could to keep the attention off his ethnicity and on other things. I like him on Parks but the DVD was really underwhelming, he’s funniest as part of a cast. He sort of sucks when the focus is on him.
you probably meant county 🙂 he has stated in interviews that he was went to an all-white school until he went off to the south carolina school for science & mathematics, when asians showed up. he also stated that he didn’t feel that his race was that much of an issue. see the terry gross interview on fresh air; sure it’s archived.
Ok – i need to jump into this one 🙂 was rather late on the ennis post a few days ago.
Anglo indians in India normally ask ‘is he anglo’ or ‘is he indian’ when talking amongst themselves. Having had many Anglo friends I must say that although it comes across as demeaning it is not meant to be. Just a minority community trying ot hang on to their cultural values which are at variance with the rest of the nation. Dating is one norm – not very common in india till the last decade. Membership is only by birth – natives need not apply 🙂 Anglos can look desi – often do but also can look quite European. The ones who migrated to Australia post WWII had to prove that they had European blood (British preferably). The derogatory term in Chennai for Anglos from the natives is “Aapa karan” “Aapa kari”. My biggest regret is never having had a chance to date an Anglo chick 😉
AK – are you still single ?
Anglos can look desi – often do but also can look quite European.
as i have stated many times, when you admix two parental populations, you retain the full range in phenotype of the parents, you simply change the distribution.
more concretely, imagine a population of bengalis and a population of bavarians. if they are of equal size, and you mix them together, the average appearance will be the median & mode. but many, many, people will deviate from the average, and in later generations there will be a significant number of people who look “fully” bengali and/or fully german. in popular parlance these are called “throwbacks,” but really the underlying principle is that traits are not what is mixed between parents, genes are, and the information in the genes doesn’t disappear, it simply gets rejumbled.
nerd out.
Yes, that’s what it means and Russell is Anglo-Indian.
the original comment on peters was verging on incoherent, and was pretty obviously troll-bait.
Word. Can we please focus the thread on Aziz Ansari, please? And stick to the topic of the blog post here?
very funny indeed. only seen him on the flight of the concords.
Why does he shout everything?
yeah, i hope madrasi isnt being used as a put down. otherwise this wil make the puli angry. he will hurl peanuts at you and rain tamarind and chilies from above…
the original comment on peters was verging on incoherent, and was pretty obviously troll-bait.
thx for saying that…too many of comments like this make no sense – here is an interview with npr that Russell did, entitle “Comedian capitalizes on Indian roots” —–
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123131827
I’ve really gotten to like both of them and yeah they both have varying styles of comedy; Aziz’s comedy I can really relate to – I too grew up in the south, love to make fun of my younger sibling/cousins, and for the most part race was less an issue in dealing with the outside world, than what my ethnicity meant to my familial roles which I was supposed to play for my parents.
The difference between Peters and Ansari is that the former is funny, and the latter is funny looking.
So when does Mindy Kaling get her own special? She’s brilliant and could blow BOTH RP and AA out of the freakin water.
ugh – after her comments on the roman polanski issue, i am totally turned off by her.
melbourne – yes, but happily so
puli – you forgot the curry leaves. and the chutney 😉
i never forget..they will bubble up from the ground. my mutant powers are “like that only”…
Wrong. They are both funny looking.
rusell peters is in Melbourne next week.
ak -the american boys must be blind. if only i were up over rather than down under ….. 😉 my email is listed – if you want to write…..
You know that’s his schtick. It’s all about the delivery and it goes with the character he portrays. He comes across so goofy and aloof but at the same time it’s sort of a very “southern emphasis” way of speaking. I have a friend from Arkansas who speaks his sentences with that shouting emphasis so I suppose thats part of it.
Aziz’s bit about gay rights was one of the funniest things i’ve ever heard. Aziz brings the funny. On P&R, i’d say he has just an important role as everyone not named Amy. The last episode pretty much focused on him moving out and having a man crush on Amy’s boyfriend. I like how he’s just another guy on the show and during his stand ups. The fact that he’s desi has nothing to do with his role on the show.
The fact that he’s desi has nothing to do with his role on the show.
I love that too and also with Mindy Kalings – yet every now then, since they are Indian and their character’s culture still does influence them, the indianness (or south asiannes) comes out, like Kelly’s Diwali celebration.
I remember watching ER with a girlfriend, and we were both astonished that the Indian dr. character on the show (the girl from bend it like beckham) got married to a nondesi and w/o her parents and nothing was said about it on the show. I thought it was weird, b/c sometimes they’d bring the ER characters cultural influences out and sometimes, even as important as weddings are to desis, they just seemed to ignore it.
hope that made sense…
RUSSELL PETERS < RAAAAAAAANDY < AZIZ ANSARI
NO QUESTIONS ASKED
BROWNSTAR OUT
what the above comment should have displayed is…
RUSSELL PETERS [less than sign] RAAAAAAAANDY [less than sign] AZIZ ANSARI
stupid html…
Awwww…your waaaahmbulance is on the way!
may she joke about the sexual abuse of your child.
razib, he is also southern indian :]
i think sometimes aziz puts too much build up for a joke that isnt that funny. Just my opinion. He’s pretty cool though :]
sigh its been so long since ive written on here….
The last minute of the R. Kelly bit was pretty funny. Other than that, it was meh. And poor Harris, haha.
“the girl from bend it like beckham”
Parminder Nagra.
Anyways, does every Indian (well, technically she was British as well) HAVE to have the same story? Maybe her character Neela was estranged from her parents. Or they were dead. Or who knows.
has SM covered Sugar Sammy yet? Samir Khullar? He is also canadian and very similar to Russell Peters. I used to think that he copied everything from Russell Peters because i thought he was new, but apparently he’s been around for a while too.
“melbourne – yes, but happily so”
ak, I dont know you. but this usually translates to ‘haven’t found the right guy yet’
razib, he is also southern indian :]
yes, i know. that’s not exceptional in the USA. most of the south-brownz i’ve met grew up in atlanta, houston, dallas. i.e., not the real south. aziz ansari grew up a gold-old-brown-boy.
not in this instance.
“Anyways, does every Indian (well, technically she was British as well) HAVE to have the same story? Maybe her character Neela was estranged from her parents. Or they were dead. Or who knows.”
Actually, I remember the episode where her parents (played by the awesome Anupam and Kiron Kher) came to Chicago from London (or another city in US?) to talk some sense into her cause she wanted to switch careers. I also remember an episode where she was explaining to one of her colleagues how much her family depends on her financially, especially as she’s supporting her younger sibling through college. And FYI, her marriage to the black doctor was a secret from everyone, even the other doctors.
And despite what many may think, Russell Peters is not overrated.