week 7 notes
Mississipi Masala
- Indian kids playing cowboys and indians
- (someone says “send them back to the reservation” )
- Comparison to The Debut – the two parties, the Indian family party, and the black night club
- Someone asking Mina if she’s Mexican
- British brought Indians to Africa to build railroad
- Ethnicity and home – Demetrius saying he’d never been to Africa, Mina saying she’d never been to India
- Recurring theme in some of the movies we’ve seen: Mina’s father wanting her to go to college
- Africa’s dismissal of Asia and the stereotypes they used in broadcasts to justify it to the people
- “Your brother thinks he got a white chick” – referring to Mina
- Mina saying Demetrius’ family felt more home-like
- Demetrius saying that Asians come in to the US and act white but in the US there is no difference between brown and black
“South Asian Representation in the Media + US Pop Culture”
- Muslim Bengali peddlers first arrived in New Orleans
- integrated with communities of color in Detroit (and other cities)
- Targets of anti-Asian sentiment, many of these early migrants left Canada for the US, communities along the Pacific coast
- Model minority idea- linked to assimilation
- Yogananda
- crossover with beatnik movement with South Asian philosophy (+ Dylan, Beatles, Jobs)
- Fascination with mysticism (which Yogananda sort of perpetuated)
- Influenced sci-fi
- Hindu philosophy influential on media, but often not referred to outright
- Misrepresentation (since the 70’s)
- Associated with cultural artifacts or practices
- a source of comic amusement
- Peter Sellers and the Indian character trope
- Effect of 9/11
- Rise of Islamophobia, hate crimes rise against South Asians
- Moved from more mystical/orientalist stereotypes into more menacing ones
- Confusion of Sikhs with Muslims
- Malala attacked by Al Qaeda – US cultural icon as opposed to the girl attacked by the US who was largely ignored
- Norah Jones + Freddie Mercury (downplaying of South Asian ethnicity)