Constructing South Asians On-Screen

This article is an adaptation of my research with South Asian men in 2019 about Western television representations of South Asian masculinities and the consequences upon self-perception and identities. ¹

There has been a slow emergence, and even slower recognition, of the South Asian presence in Western film and television media, which has met with a contemporary boom of South Asian faces and stories in the industries due to the crisis of (self-)representation. Somewhat missing from this ongoing public discourse around representation, however, is the reality of the ‘constructions’ underlying visual media representations.

Western imperial knowledge production – of wanting to know, study and classify minoritized groups – has persevered within the contemporary era. Driven by such a ‘knowing’ gaze – and perhaps a self-inflicted ‘burden’ of representing formerly colonised migrants – industries of representation, such as Hollywood and other Western media, generally construct and represent minoritized groups as Other, as unbelonging, as different. ‘Not one of us’. Since the imperial formations of Us (white, Western or Global North nations) and Them (people of colour from ‘Eastern’ or Global South nations), South Asians have been constructed as an identical racialised mass. Any ethnic or cultural distinctions – such as between Punjabis, Bengalis, Tamils – are erased. They are reduced to being ‘Indian’, ‘Asian’ or, more literally, ‘brown’.

An important issue is the on-screen construction of South Asian masculinities. Simultaneously unsexual and hypersexual, constructions of South Asian masculinities suggest undesirability and an uncomfortable excess. From Kunal Nayyar’s characterisation of nerdy Rajesh Koothrappali in The Big Bang Theory as unsexual when sober and overly sexual when drunk, to Dev Patel as the “goofy” and “sex-obsessed”², Anwar in Skins now being viewed as a ‘heartthrob’, this reductive binary is unmistakable. South Asian masculinities are constructed as two polarities – unsexual, unmasculine, and feminine; and hypersexual, hypermasculine, and predatory – which can be imposed upon even one individual in different contexts. These constructions perpetuate ideologies of racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. This may not always be intentional but with such deeply entrenched ideologies, there is no denying the racist nature and outcome of these media representations that construe South Asians as “immigrant foreigners”. ³ For example, where South Asian men have been associated with grooming gangs and predation of white women and girls, the emphasis has been placed particularly upon race. ⁴

Why is this worth highlighting? When white-majority Western media repeatedly others and dehumanises ethnic minorities, the underlying biased ideologies become normalised, being uncritically consumed on a mass scale, and therefore go unquestioned. With repetition and (over-)representation of such imagery and constructions, the associations of certain groups with certain actions or crimes can become greater and allegedly more believable – as though innate or inevitable.

A wider audience comes to allegedly ‘know’ South Asian men, their masculinities, and their cultures. This resulting hypervisibility and supposed ‘knowability’ creates dangerous implications regarding how South Asians are viewed, how they view themselves, and, further, how they can navigate under the watchful eye of wider Western society, being treated with suspicion and blame. Equally, these stigmatising constructions can deem South Asian men and communities as ‘unknowable’ which can perpetuate their simultaneous invisibility, further marginalising these racialised communities.

This could lead to inadequately addressing or ignoring community-specific issues, due to undertaking an impersonal universal approach in social policy and welfare. For instance, the healthcare concerns of South Asians in Western general medicine may not be taken seriously and there may be a greater focus upon, or downplay of, physical symptoms such as stomach issues and chest pain, not recognising that they may reflect underlying mental health conditions. Thus, diversifying or increasing the frequency of South Asian representations – such as in Starstruck which portrays Nikesh Patel as a movie star – does not dispute the malicious nature behind these constructions but seeks to mask that they comprise a broader system of racialised oppression.

Anglophone Western nations that are racialised as white – such as the UK, US, and English-speaking Canada – are deemed ‘ocularcentric’, where visual modes of knowledge are privileged above the other senses.⁵ When this vision-focused knowledge is used in the racialisation and othering of ethnic minorities, it is a bias, and can explain how and why minority communities are visually associated with the values, meanings and images that are repeatedly represented on Western screens.

Let’s break this down. A representation of black hair, brown skin, and any reference to the Indian subcontinent – perhaps even some ‘Eastern’ religions, such as Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam – may represent a South Asian character, with the black hair and brown skin serving as physical markers of racialised Otherness, different from white skin and white people in Western nations. Further, the exaggerated ‘Indian accent’ – an audial representation of a racialised ‘Brown voice’ – drives home the effects of visual constructions through emphasising sound.

Brown voice refers to one recognisable yet unrealistic stylisation of speech, likened to mimicry ⁶, to represent South Asians as a homogenous group, disregarding the numerous languages and dialects spoken within and across South Asia. These heavily accented vocal performances are often amplified with representations of ‘broken’ English or interchangeable use of ‘v’ and ‘w’. For example, “To where you are going?” or “[V]here are you going?” may be asked instead of “Where are you going?”. Western audiences may often reproduce these biases when interacting with South Asians by making reductive assumptions about their cultures, families, sexualities, and ‘homelands’. For example, many Indian call-centre workers ⁷ are required to undertake accent-reduction programmes to support their employment prospects due to being shunned by American customers as speaking unintelligibly.

This serves as a reminder that colonial mindsets and constructions persist in the contemporary era and shape wider social understandings, as the “visual ‘truth’”⁸ of South Asians is masked by racializing processes of ‘knowing’ and representing the Other. Therefore, the conversation should not always surround who does or does not look like ‘us’ on-screen but, perhaps, how and why historical constructions continue to shape the present, and the very real implications of this ⁹, to encourage more broadly an improved quality of life for migrant and marginalised communities.

References

¹ Chaudhuri, A. (2019). ‘An Exploration of Western Television’s Racializing Representations of South Asian Men and the Impact on Their Awareness of Their Perception in Wider Society’. Unpublished undergraduate thesis. University of Bristol.

² Reese, A. (2021). ‘Dev Patel Hasn't Forgotten Being Called the 'Ugly' Character on Skins’. Available at https://jezebel.com/dev-patel-hasnt-forgotten-being-called-the-ugly-charact-1847388124, accessed 18th February 2022.

³ Davé, S. (2005). ‘Apu’s Brown Voice: Cultural Inflection and South Asian Accents’ in Davé, S., Nishime, L., and Oren, T. (eds). East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture, New York: New York University Press, pp. 313 – 336.

⁴ Gill, A. K., and Harrison, K. (2015). ‘Child Grooming and Sexual Exploitation: Are South Asian Men the UK Media’s New Folk Devils?’, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 34 – 49.

⁵ Brayton, S. (2009). ‘Race Comedy and the “Misembodied” Voice’, Topia, Vol. 22, pp. 97 – 116.

⁶ Davé, S. (2005). ‘Apu’s Brown Voice’, pp. 315, 321.

⁷ Chand, V. (2009). ‘[V]at Is Going on? Local and Global Ideologies about Indian English’, Language in Society, Vol. 38, No. 4, pp. 393 – 419.

⁸ Fanon, F. (1967 [1952]). Black Skin, White Masks (translated by Markmann, C. L.), New York: Grove.

⁹ Explored in Chaudhuri, A. (2019). ‘An Exploration of Western Television’s Racializing Representations of South Asian Men’.

Written by Anushka Chaudhuri

Anushka is a PhD researcher, focusing her work on South Asian histories, cultures, and people. In her free time, she can be found in the kitchen, exploring the variety and richness of South Asian cuisines, and demonstrating their vegan-friendly nature over at @noochynush.

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