Outsourced: a mandatory review

Firstly, Happy belated Deepawali to everyone!  Sorry for the hiatus in posting but was travelling and working...have to earn my daily bread after all!

So...I've been watching this new US TV show Outsourced by NBC.  For those who don't know, it's a 30 minute sitcom about an American who gets sent to India to run an outsourced call center there.  It's based on a movie by the same name that came out some years ago.

I have to admit, I thought the movie was charming.  The characters had depth to them and the movie managed to hit just the right note of humour and romance while highlighting both the challenges and joys of cultural exchanges.  There were some of the expected jokes about the effects of eating street food on the unsuspecting traveller, the typical culture clashes and the requisite office romance.  But all done in a surprisingly balanced, funny, and cute way.  What I particularly liked about the movie was that it was not condescending towards Indian lifestyle and the point clearly was that once Todd learned to stop trying to push his own preconceptions and American ways onto an entirely different culture, and figured out that it has to be a two way street, he and his colleagues excelled.  It was a great lesson in cross cultural workplace relationships.

Ah but the TV show...so different...so disappointing.  I understand, of course, that NBC is catering to a different crowd than the small indepedent movie was.  They have to think of weekly ratings and have to keep an audience interested so they don't change the channel.  Well...it ain't working for me!

First the characters - I don't think there is a single character on the show that isn't a stereotype...although the saving grace is just that it's both Indians and non-Indians that are stereotypes...and I suppose that sitcoms rely on stereotypes to create humor.  But a little depth to the characters would not go amiss!  And more than just cliched jokes please!  And really really REALLY...couldn't they find actors who had real Indian accents?  Did the main female character really have to have the WORST indian accent ever?!  I mean, Apu on Simpsons has a better accent!

But the straw that broke the camel's back in my mind was the recent Diwali episode.  If you're going to make a show that is about a different culture, the one thing you cannot do is get one of the most important religous icons wrong...especially one as well known as the swastika.  The swastika used in the show is a left-facing swastika...rarely used in everyday Indian culture and religion.  While it has a place in Indian culture, it is not the primary symbol that we see in India every day.

And to top it off, on the show the swastika decorated wall hanging is up for about 3 seconds before Todd tells the workers to take it off because it is offensive.  They do tell him it is an ancient hindu religious symbol and was used in many other religious cultures well before Hitler ever appropriated it...but you can see in the background that even as this discussion is taking place, the wall hanging is being sheepishly removed and rolled up to be put away.  Isn't that exactly the wrong message?  Doesn't that allow evil doers like Hitler to win if we allow them to taint and destroy a beautiful, ancient symbol of all that is good in the world?  Of course we have to be sensitive to the Jewish experience and understand that the symbol carries with it a lot of baggage and negative connotations for many.  But does NBC really think that Jewish people will not understand and appreciate that just because Hitler used the symbol because it denoted luck, it is not a Nazi symbol in itself?  Should we not want to reclaim the symbol and bring it back to its original glory?  As the writer of this very nice piece on swastikas wrote "religious tolerance is the key to preventing future holocausts".  Read his complete post here:  http://www.luckymojo.com/swastika.html

But perhaps NBC is right.  Perhaps American viewers are stubborn, ignorant fools who cannot understand that the one group's evil actions should not penalize another.  That doing so is simply perpetuating more badness.  Perhaps NBC's way is the right way...

Or perhaps I'll stop watching a show that I find mostly annoying, often condescending, and occasionally really insensitive....even if it is the only show about (almost) Indians currently on TV.