Filmiholic Interviews Kal Penn; They Discuss This Here Blog

Wow, go Filmiholic — this week she has interviews with both Kal Penn and Jhumpa Lahiri coinciding with the imminent release of The Namesake.

She and Kal Pann actually discuss Sepia Mutiny in Part 1 of their interview, with regards to the SM debate over desis playing terrorists in hollywood, and specifically Kal Penn’s role as a terrorist in a recent episode of 24. I gather he’s sympathetic to the fact that people are having a discussion, but not entirely sympathetic to the “blogging = people yakking at each other endlessly” part:

The point that I was trying to make was that I’m glad that people are discussing it, why I’m glad that people are getting pissed off about it is that I think that one of the things that’s happened since September 11 is we feel like we don’t have control over our representatives in government, especially as people of color, and I think it’s important to take that back.

It’s important to write letters to your Senator, your Congressman, to the guys who are actually voting on the issues that come up fictitiously on 24. The things that happen on 24 are so far-fetched, but there’s an under layer of reality to them that applies to things like the Patriot Act and racial profiling.

These are things that I hope people don’t just blog on Sepia Mutiny and whine their asses off, I hope that they take that a step further and take the passions they explain in those blogs and send a letter to Hillary Clinton, send a letter to whoever your usual rep is and it does have a remarkable effect when you do it as voting block and I hope that it motivates people to take that a step further. (link)

(A little ouch there… two quick responses: first, it should be pointed out that in several instances — Power 99 and Hot 97 come to mind — SM has done a bit more than whine. Second, just watch what we do on the 2008 elections, mofo!)

Anyway, the question stands: on the question of whether to do something like “Van Wilder,” I have to admit I have no idea what I would do in his shoes — how can one make the best out of a rather limited array of options for an Indian-American actor? Especially several years ago, before we had Harold and Kumar, Lost, E.R., and Heroes.

Still, as a counterpoint, I would encourage people to read the recent New Yorker profile of Joel Surnow, the guy behind 24. I was especially disturbed about Surnow’s blithe embrace of the use of torture in the show, contrary to American law and all existing human rights conventions. Once one knows that justifying torture is a pattern in the show — or, put more forcefully, a specific ideology it is promoting — it might be easier to see where to draw the line.

30 thoughts on “Filmiholic Interviews Kal Penn; They Discuss This Here Blog

  1. To be fair to Kal I think more people get annoyed by the whining of some of our commenters than us bloggers and our posts. He could have been talking about them 😉

  2. Oh, and while it’s all well and good to write to one’s representatives, and while I’ve got nothing but love for the smart, funny, dare-I-say, handsome brother Kal, you can’t dine with torture-wallahs and expect people to applaud. That’s some smoke and mirrors shit. Good for your career, maybe, but baaaad for your soul.

  3. I feel responsible for Kal’s comment, since I’m the one who wrote the post on Kal and 24, and I also wrote this sentence:

    I’m not happy about the idea of brown people playing such two-dimensional, hateful roles.

    So I can see why he would feel defensive about the post. On the other hand, I don’t think I (or any of the commenters for that matter) said anything particularly harsh about his work, so I’m confused as to why it hit a nerve.

    Kal has a right to his opinion. I still stand by mine. But to suggest that I’m a “whiner” for simply discussing what I watch on TV is pretty low, IMO. I’m an active media consumer, and like anyone else I have a right to be critical of what I consume. Similarly, he has a right to take whatever roles he wants. There’s no harm in both sides having a discussion about it. Just keep it civil.

  4. You know, I see how Kal Penn may feel like he’s stuck between a rock and..well, a bigger rock. It seems that he is rather limited in opportunities as well – either playing the nerdy model minority type or the terrorist figure. Perhaps the responsibility should be with writers to create more nuanced characters – and maybe this is why I really enjoyed H&K’s satirical quality.

    At the end of the day, the man’s gotta make a living!

  5. Good points, Naina. I can’t really follow Kal Penn’s views on stereotypes in the media – sometimes he says he’s against them, other times he says we shouldn’t whine about them but we should write letters, etc. I kind of feel that he’s somewhat bitter (hey, I would be too) b/c he’s one of the few desi actors trying to make it in Hollywood, and these are the kinds of roles he is subjected to. Basically, he’s being hated on from both sides.

    BUT I think perhaps he and others who seem to equate criticism with “whining” should realize that there are “victims” out there who have it much worse i.e. the innocent men being detained at Guantanamo, for example. Or everyday innocent victims of racial harassment emboldended by the constant stream of negative images of Middle Eastern/South Asian people in the media.

    So yeah, it may suck to be a desi in Hollywood, but it sucks a lot more to be a real victim of racial violence.

    Not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course. Now THAT would just suck.

  6. I wish all the best to Kal Penn in his acting career, sincerely, but at the same time I will also say that “24” is fear mongering at its worst and Desis have to pay a price.

    Just yesterday in the news tab someone posted pictures of private party for a girl’s sweet sixteen party, where Peyton Manning made an appearance (for 200 grand fee) and looking at the Desi picture, someone in the comment section mentioned …”wait till some of her brother and cousins blow up the Sear’s tower” … where does that come from? Answer = “24”

  7. How interesting that he chooses to mark the projects he really cares about by making sure he gets into the credits as Kalpen Modi (from the full text of the interview).

    That seems to be one way of separating “career” and “soul,” as Mr. Kobayashi put it.

    I wonder if The Namesake will help him do less “Kal Penn” work and more “Kalpen Modi” work.

  8. Oh, BTW I also completely agree with Kal about him being an actor and not a politician. I dont think we can expect him to be “representing” us everytime he takes up a role. I would take up the role if it is going to be good for my career, I would leave the “representing” to the representatives.

  9. You go, filmiholic! How fine that Kal Penn is taking back his Modi. Is there any way to reply that there’s no point whatever whining to the Hillary? Her PR peeps will turn anything whichever way the wind blows, imo. KP should definitely endorse, as it were, Someone Else.

  10. He’s a bit of a rambler isn’t he? 😉

    I can empathize with him, because it’s not like he wrote the role or is famous enough that he can be picky about what message he’s sending out. If anyone should be nagged towards, it’s the writers/creators of 24 (and not just about this either, I’ve had so many “oh come ON!” moments this season I’ve had to invent new numbers to count them). If he didn’t take the role, someone else would step right in, get the money and the national exposure, and we would hardly hear or care about Kal’s symbolic protest.

    Still, I had to say I was disappointed when I saw that character. Previously terrorists on TV were mostly intimidating, bearded men with thick accents, and that’s generally the type of person that gets silently sized up or loudly thrown off of planes. Then Kal’s character comes along, the mid 20’s, clean-shaven, practically mid-western accented terrorist and…

    Oh crap, that’s ME.

    Except for the terrorist part, obviously.

    Or is it obvious, really?

    Now instead of the mental terror alert going from orange to yellow once people hear me speak, there’s a chance it may creep up to red instead … you don’t want to end up like those stupid liberal hippie parents on 24, right? Always Vigilant! Trust No One!

    Now the chances that I’ll actual be involved in an incident because of this, or have any sort of repercussions at all, is actually pretty slim to none, but that’s what went through my head, and that’s why I felt disappointed.

  11. Last time I checked you still have alot of movies where the bad guys are evil communist Russians and everyone favorite neo-nazi’s, more then any movie’s where the bad guys are evil brown guys.

    Before 9/11 there were movies like 1994 True Lies[Arnold Schwarzenegger], 1996 Executive Decision[Kurt Russell] and 1998 The Siege [Denzel Washington]. But I can’t off hand think of movie after 9/11 that had plot anything like these 3 movies.

    Also I blame the action of 19 men on the 11th day of September in 2001 for the negative views by some toward people who look south asian in the west, more then I blame Kal Penn for his role on “24”

  12. Last time I checked you still have alot of movies where the bad guys are evil communist Russians and everyone favorite neo-nazi’s, more then any movie’s where the bad guys are evil brown guys.

    24’s critics seem to have selective memories. During various seasons – Bauer’s opponents have included the Chinese, Mexican drug gangs, private companies trying to start a war in the Mideast on faulty evidence and, oh wait – last season the chief villian was the president himself. It was only after last year’s season – which as far as episodic storytelling goes, was terrific – and when the show actually won some Emmys, that the hit parade of negative press began.

    Somehow, those who lament that 24 engages in simple caricatures seem to exempt The West Wing, the darling of the left, where all problems are solved by earnest speeches in dimly lit hallways, where President Bartlett yells at God in the National Cathedral, citing his job creation figures and spending on prenatal health care as reason enough for divine approval. Where Indian-Pakistani tensions were eased by the dispatching of the son of the last viceroy. Yeah – that was grounded in reality. And yes, there was an assasination attempt – by the omnipresent neo-Nazis of rural Virginia.

    Rob Long, who used to write for Cheers, noted that the idea that Hollywood can influence American society at large is not borne out by any evidence. The generation that grew up watching Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best went on to Woodstock. The generation that watched Norman Lear’s leftist comedies of the 1970’s like All in the Family and Rhoda voted for Ronald Reagan.

    As far as the actual storytelling on this season’s 24 – not bad, but nowhere near as good as last year. Wayne Palmer does not seem as commanding a presence as David Palmer.

  13. Gerbiloser (n.): anyone who watches too much bad TV and then complains about watching too much bad TV.

  14. I say once Kalpin took an acting role that put him in the public sphere he became a de facto representative of our people. Yes, some may argue that in a perfect world this role would fall to a politician or some other idealized occupation that is equally ill-suited to serve as a “representative” of brown people (Bobby Jindal represents a lot of things that I hate). But the reality is that the roles that Kal takes on and that are disseminated through mainstream media outlets are going to serve as informational cues for all non-desi consumers of aforementioned media.

    So Kal is the only brown actor receiving roles of any note. Kal plays stoner. Kal plays terrorist. Kal plays stereotype of “fobby” Indian. Result? White people in bumfuck Iowa think brown people are stoners (okay, not so likely), terrorists (much more likely) or modern-day brown minstrels (ah, it’s a toss up). Yes, people are that stupid.

    When I see the types of roles Kal accepts, I’m disappointed as a desi. It’s just how I feel. And I worry about the 12-year-old who’s the only brown kid in his town who gets dubbed “Taj” by his classmates because they think the fact that he’s different makes him a walking joke. I feel like Kal’s acceptance of these roles hurts us as a people. And I wouldn’t want him to reject roles as some sort of symbolic protest. I would want him to reject roles because he found them undignified. I mean, is his motivation here the furthering of his art, or being on the receiving end of a bigger paycheck? Because if it’s the latter, we’re all going to have to pony up something so he can cash that thing.

    Feel free to stick the whiny commenter brand in the fire now.

  15. Well duh, of course no one likes to have their uncomfortable career compromises put under scrutiny by the wider judgemental desi community, so of course Kalpin won’t like it when what looked like a great career option for him, screw the consequences, is discussed as being all about the consequences. Actually he’s the one that comes across sounding a tad whiny and defensive.

    As for campaigning against the message in 24, the group Human Rights First launched a “Prime Time Torture” campaign, with the West Point guys interviewed in the New Yorker article, and they actually got Kiefer Sutherland to agree to go talk to West Point cadets about why they shouldn’t take that stuff seriously. It’s hard to fight self-reinforcing prejudice though, and public opinion polls showed a low US opinion of Muslims and increasing support for the use of torture before 24 came along.

  16. i for get if this is from rss feed reader or a tipster from SM, but on this link’s last paragraph kal said he was real pissed at his agent and the director he had to play a stereotypical indian with a thick accent.

    “this awful movie called Son of the Mask.” The character was named Jorge, not written as an Indian, but Penn says the director insisted he do a really thick Indian accent. There were meetings and arguments, but Penn met him halfway. Then after the film wrapped, the studio flew him back for what was supposed to be routine dubbing owing to incidental noise, only to inform him that he had to redo all his lines in a thicker accent. Penn made up a story about a meeting he couldn’t miss, did the routine dubbing, and got out. “I was livid in the car, like, Why the hell am I wasting my time being an actor if these doors are constantly going to be shut in my face?! I walk into my manager’s office and am just like, ‘Don’t ever send me back to that place again!!!’ Then I spouted off a bunch of profanities about, you know, the state of things. He’s just looking at me with this smug look, and he’s like, ‘Are you done?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ And he goes, ‘Good, because Mira just called, and you’ve booked The Namesake.’ ”

    see. there are worse stereotypical roles we don’t hear about that kal gets offered yet he turns down.

  17. KXB,

    24’s critics seem to have selective memories. During various seasons – Bauer’s opponents have included the Chinese, Mexican drug gangs, private companies trying to start a war in the Mideast on faulty evidence and, oh wait – last season the chief villian was the president himself. It was only after last year’s season – which as far as episodic storytelling goes, was terrific – and when the show actually won some Emmys, that the hit parade of negative press began.

    Well, at least in my post I didn’t single out the anti-Islamic tendency, just the show’s promotion of torture as an interrogation technique. (Read the Jane Mayer piece in the New Yorker — she’s fair to Surnow, I think) In fact, the particular role Kal Penn played wasn’t one that bothered me. My question is more, “would you want to be involved with something that’s promoting something so wrong?”

    Rah,

    So Kal is the only brown actor receiving roles of any note. Kal plays stoner. Kal plays terrorist. Kal plays stereotype of “fobby” Indian. Result? White people in bumfuck Iowa think brown people are stoners (okay, not so likely), terrorists (much more likely) or modern-day brown minstrels (ah, it’s a toss up). Yes, people are that stupid.

    I think the one role you would really want to remove from your list is “Kal plays stoner.” That role was a groundbreaking one precisely because it didn’t follow the terrorist/convenience store/taxi driver pattern in any way whatsoever. To this day, “Harold and Kumar” is one of my favorite “Indian diaspora movies” — I prefer it to all the low-budget, “serious” films (i.e., “ABCD”; “American Chai”; “Chutney Popcorn” etc) that have been made where young second-gens try and earnestly work out their identity issues.

  18. Amerdeep,

    True, your post focused mostly on the depiction of torture on the show, not ethnic stereotyping. I would say that the show does not glamorize torture – Bauer himself was tortured in Season 2. But I don’t get why some people jump all over Penn for taking the role of a terrorist – it’s a hit show, and would get him a lot more exposure. 24 helped launch the careers of a number of actors who have been acting far longer than guys like Penn have been alive – Gregory Itzen and Dennis Haysbert have had bit roles here and there for a number of years, but their work on 24 really opened doors for them. Penn’s role was not that substantial, but it had to have been better than Son of the Mask.

    But Penn’s ramblings aside, I will still enjoy Harold & Kumar, which I own on DVD.

  19. Amardeep, thanks for the pointer. I thought Mutineers might have been interested. I’ve put up the second half of the Penn interview today (Mira Nair is up tomorrow), which moves away from that question, and includes a funny anecdote about his Playboy magazine interview from several years back.

    Where I first brought up 24/SM with him was a few weeks earlier, I was interviewing him for a cover story for the March issue of the magazine Khabar, which is only available in hard copy initially, but which I think will be online later, after the next issue is published.

    It was there that I asked him “I don’t know if you’re online much in between work, or if you’re aware, but there’s been a whole debate roiling on Sepia Mutiny about whether or not you should have taken the role on 24” and he said that he was very much aware because his friends forwarded to him these posts/comments/links. In there, he talks much more about his feelings on the whole matter.

    I’m with you on Harold and Kumar. I rented it and a bunch of Penn’s other films as prep for another article (about the whole trajectory of the various “ABCD”-related movies) and I dreaded watching it, figuring it would contain unfunny asinine fratboy attempts at humor, but it was way better and funnier than I expected, and I liked the way it poked so much fun at so many stereotypes.

    Of those older identity-related movies, I was also pleasantly surprised by Penn’s performance in American Desi, and by the character he played, or rather, how the writers wrote his character.

  20. I guess to be fair to Kal Penn, he’s an actor and thats his job, if he gets a role in ’24’ we should support him. The only reason that i’ve was a little pertrubed by the fact that he’s acted in the show was because he’s the most high profile actor among many other desi’s that have played one. Anil Kumar his co-star in American desi was one of the first i recall. And i’m sure that its on the mind of many other mutineers hence the debate.

    Regarding the debate on torture, here’s a scenario. Suppose you were a federal official and on Sep 5th,2001 you had a key terrorist in your hands and he refused to divulge information on a certain ‘operation’ that was bound to happen in a few days and you had run out of all other options,

    “What would you do ?”

    if the conflict is protecting a terrorists rights against saving thousands of innocent lives, its pretty clear what path officials under the circumstances would do. Hypothetically speaking if i had a known terrorist in my hands and i knew he was a member of a death squad that would target 200 shiite pilgrims in Basra i would know what i should do (whether i would have the stomach for it in such a scenario is another story!)

  21. I wonder if The Namesake will help him do less “Kal Penn” work and more “Kalpen Modi” work.

    Speaking of terrorists… I wonder if one reason for maintaining the stage name is to avoid association with that other Modi. Narendra is not a well known figure in America, but that could change very quickly if the Sangh or some faction thereof decided to back up some of their anti-Western/anti-American rhetoric with action…

  22. To this day, “Harold and Kumar” is one of my favorite “Indian diaspora movies”

    Its a reification of the model minority stereotype. Despite antics, preternaurally smart brown man goes to med. school after all. Kal Penn must be deemed an enabler in all this. Hopefully, the netas were sensible enough to ban that shit in India.

  23. I think the one role you would really want to remove from your list is “Kal plays stoner.”

    Amardeep, my point in referencing the Kumar role was aimed at illustrating the effect that Kal’s roles have on the perception of desis by a non-brown audience. sarcasm alert Although speaking strictly as a former pothead I found that role completely offensive (what self-respecting stoner would eat at White Castle, that’s lush food). end sarcasm

    I believe we need to divorce ourselves from the notion that we should support all brown people regardless of the effect their actions have on the rest of us, simply because they have achieved a modicum of success in their field. That idea makes any critical thought on our part unnecessary.

  24. According to New York Magazine, Kal has been asked to teach some classes on Indian or South Asian media sterotypes or something or other for UPENN (Prof. Penn at Penn eh?). I think as a minority student I would find any of his progressive politcs and “damn these sterotypes” rhetoric from his pas record. The 24 thingi s the most eggregious and dangerous in my opine. Yeah the man’s gotta eat…but how fuckin much?

  25. i do feel bad for kal penn – he’s the only one who is really visible out there as a desi person in american media. in any case, a lot of stars have to put up with their lot of shitty roles before they get to the good stuff. on that note, i am so glad he was in H&K, where his desiness was relevant only to the extent that his name was brown.

    i must also confess that i once tried to stalk kal penn at a party in NJ, only to realise that he wasn’t even KP. and in hind sight looks very little like him. really, it was the fact that he showed up with an entourage of 10 people. ha!

  26. i just read risible’s mention of the whole desi doctor struggle in H&K. still, i’m not sure you can get more mainstream american than that movie, on the whole…

  27. Re the New Yorker, I found it rather disturbing that the US Army is focusing on the role of ’24’ as inciting soldiers to torture–rather than its own inability to inculcate the right values in its personnel. Shouldn’t a professional army take pride in overcoming the problems of the society it recruits from rather than blaming TV? Do doctors blame ‘ER’ for weird behavior in hospitals?

  28. so this actress jacinda barrett was just on craig ferguson. they introduced her with a brief clip (where she goes to gogol’s house) from the namesake and she came into the studio. after that, no mention whatsoever of the movie. the conversation was about her dogs basically. the host made no effort to ask her about the namesake and she made no effort to talk about it. so the question is: what was the point of this as a publicity exercise?

    it’s a fairly major movie by a fairly well-known director, maybe not mainstream but still well-known, but the way it was treated the audience was probably left thinking it was some nothing movie not even worth talking about by one of its actors on a talk show or its host. i doubt if this was a more “mainstream” hollywood movie the interview would have neglected to mention it at all. i found it a bit disrespectful and dismissive, even if unitentional.