Things Have Changed

The article by Ghosh was very interesting in its analysis of advertising trends surrounding Indian culture and society. One thing that stood out for me, though, was the fact that, at least from what I have seen, the portrayals have significantly changed since whenever this article was written. The first example that popped into my head was that of the stern patriarch who establishes strict rules for the family and high expectations for the son/s. Ghosh did not mention this now common stereotype that I think reigns supreme over most others, nowadays.

I also thought of this MetroPCS advertisement, however, because every time I see it on TV I can only think of how blatantly racist it is. I feel that the developers of the ad would contend that they are actually breaking away from the common stereotypes (strict doctors or turban-wearing cab drivers [I found that, at least in Chicago, most cab drivers were from Africa]) by featuring the eccentricities of these two men. This doesn't work for me for a few reasons.
1. They have extremely thick Indian accents: This is one area of Indian culture that media definitely plays up as a humorous object (listen to their accents! they're so goofy!)
2. They have facial hair and the sort of stiff look that are often presented as Indian traits
3. They are advertising TECH: This just fills in the newer stereotype of Indian workers as people who are inherently good with technology (outsourcing)

At the end of her argument, Ghosh asks for a change in media that recognizes the "poly-religious, polyglot amalgamation of principalities." I feel that, due to political and world events, this change actually has come, but it has simply changed to a new form of racism that fits more along with the black, asian, and hispanic portrayals in media. By that I mean, the media recognizes a demand/need to represent Indian culture physically, so new stereotypes have been adopted.

It Could Happen

As in the duel absence-presence of Indian culture, there is also that sense for gay and lesbian culture. There is no great voice or unifying figure for gay culture as there isn't for Indians. Until recently gays were not portrayed in mass media. Indians still don't really have any representation, voice, or figure. In the absence of a gay example or representation, other groups have been able to misconstrue what gay people support or want in greater society. This parody of a republican ad is an extreme of that misrepresentation. Although outrageous, after watching the "Fox attacks" series, I can see it happening. The unfortunate thing is that people would worry about it.

Ground Zero Mosque & Gay Wedding

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Slumdog Millionaire: A British film adopted by America

While reading Ghosh's "Con-fusing Exotica: Producing India in U.S. Advertising" and the absence of Indian culture within American culture, I immediately thought of Slumdog Millionaire. "Indians...have been systematically written out, silenced, and marginalized in any mainstream picture of America." (Ghosh, 275) Slumdog is a British film, but won the coveted Best Picture slot at the American Academy Awards. In the trailer for the movie, the song featured is by the Ting-Tings, a popular British group. This movie represents Ghosh's argument because although it was praised by American critics and audiences alike, it was not an American movie. Whereas Indians are the United Kingdom's largest nonwhite ethnic group (www.statistics.gov.uk), there are about 1.7 million Indians in the United States (www.garamchai.com/statistics.htm).

Exotica

In the article by Sanjukta Ghosh, “Con-Fusing Exotica”, Ghosh expresses the frustrations about the presence (or lack there of) of Indians in the US media. I was slightly confused by the article and had to read it more then once. I found Ghosh’s argument about the media’s portrayal of Indians to be slightly contradicting. At first he states that there is an “absence” of Indians and Indian culture in US media. Later he states that there is a large presence of Indian culture in the media, but it is “robbed”. There were some interesting points and examples in this piece, but I found myself a little turned off by the obvious bias present in the writing. That’s not to say I don’t believe what the author is saying isn’t true. I just think I might get a clearer idea of the situation from a more objective article. Other then that I found the points about the US incorporating Indian fashion as their own quite interesting. I was able to find a Vogue fashion spread that seemed to praise Indian culture and Fashion in a way. It displayed fashion trends reflecting Indian culture, yet it gave credit to that culture.

The War is Not Over Yet

I found “Nike, Social Responsibility, and the Hidden Abode” to be very interesting, especially considering the statement “compare the $130 million dollars Nike spent on advertising during the sneaker wars with the corporation’s paltry donation of $100,000 to Chicago schools.” Though I understand that much has changed since the early 1990’s, but I also feel that it is fairly obvious that many of the problems presented in this article are still relevant today. In the 2003 movie Honey, there is a scene where Bow Wow as a young boy steals sneakers from a kid on a subway to try to belong to a group of gang-oriented kids. Seven years later, here in 2010, we see Nike’s ever popular t-shirt line (seen above) sporting lines like “Welcome Haters” and “Size Matters: My Check is Bigger than Yours.” So it seems as if the idea of “sneaker wars” that Stabile mentions in her article didn’t just disappear. This is a perfect example of what Bordieu was talking about when he said that “cultural capital leads to violence in the community. There should be no surprise that there is a social hierarchy created and challenged when there’s text saying so on the shirts of the “socially blessed.”