PART 3: Progress Isn’t Good Enough, We Want Change

I should acknowledge that I’m actually luckier than the generation that came before me; the Mindy Kaling’s, Kal Penn’s and Hasan Minhaj’s didn’t have even a fraction of the Brown representation I saw. I was three years old when I saw my parents watch Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Yes, WILDLY inappropriate for a three year old, my parents really didn’t give a care, and I love them for it. I saw them laugh hysterically at two stoners, one Chinese and one Indian. It was so impactful because they knew Harolds and Kumars growing up in Toronto, they were friends with them. And it was funny! The stereotypes of Asians being geeks was flipped on its head. Nevertheless, IT WAS WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY WHITE PEOPLE. Also, let’s pay respects to our brother Kal Penn who had to whitewash his name to be brought into casting rooms more. He also had to play an Indian exchange student named TAJ MAHAL in Van Wilder with Ryan Reynolds. I really don’t understand how Kalpen Modi couldn’t have booked the role for TAJ MAHAL (!!!) but Kal Penn did…

What Hari Kondabolu brings up in the film which both infuriated and enlightened me was that Apu is an example of minstrelsy. Examples, think Blackface, Redface, Yellowface; the exaggeration of ethnic features and stereotypes portrayed as a costume and comedic performance by a white person. Apu is voiced by a white person and exaggerates all the stereotypes of South Asian immigrants. In his speech at the XOXO Festival in 2018, Hari comments on this by addressing how minstrelsy is derived out of the Black experience in America and how ours is not the same but that there is a common thread showing that “it’s this weird kind of hazing that all people of color have to go through until they get accepted”. Yup. BIPOC people basically get publically hazed by white people in entertainment until another white person finally complains that it’s racist.

Some white people I know with decades of experience in Toronto’s film industry were discussing why they haven’t auditioned half as much in the past year. Keep in mind, we’ve been in a global pandemic. One of them, who I’ve looked up to for many years, said that an explanation for this is the newer emphasis on diversity and prioritizing casting people of colour. He said that most white actors are sort of on the wrong side of history right now. Both of them expressed how great this is for people of colour and how important it is to see our society reflected on screen, though this statement was always followed by a but, and a comment about how it isn’t the best for white people’s careers.

I had to give them the benefit of the doubt, they were trying their hardest (I think) to be polite and inoffensive but this pissed me the hell off. One side of me was thinking “WELL I’VE BEEN ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY MY WHOLE LIFE AND SO WERE ALL MY ANCESTORS YOU SON OF A COLONIZER”. The other side was thinking “this is their dream too, they have to pay the bills, I understand their frustration.” However, there is still so little that has changed for us. I still audition for the “best friend” too many times to count and watch a white girl get casted in it 9 out of 10 times, despite the role being casted “open ethnicity”. I still see hundreds of new movies and series released each week and notice 90% of them led/created by white people.

If I have a message for white people working in this business, it would be to remember our struggle. Your struggle may be now, but ours has been forever and is ongoing. You might have to grin and bear a tiny bit of what we’ve had to for a much longer time. The opportunities for you still come much faster and easier than they do for us. There’s no such thing as a token white person in a film or series. Even Martin Freeman had a significant role in Black Panther.

We’re all in this together. You are helping us and our fight. Keep your privilege in mind, because your privilege is the problem. If entertainment is a mirror, we have to see ourselves reflected, not just a mashup of all the things you think of us into one character. I need to see a Tamil character get their own show, a Bengali character, a Sikh character, a Nepali character, an Afghani character, a Pakistani character, one that’s first generation American, one that’s second generation Canadian, one that’s gay, one that’s transgender, one that marries within their culture and one that branches out, one that just happens to be the lead because they’re a human being without making the entire movie “an Indian film”, one that’s a doctor, one that’s a hippie, one that’s a teacher, one that’s a dog trainer for all I care. This is actual change, not just your idea of “progress”.