Growing up, I was constantly watching Bollywood movies — my parents introduced me to the icon that is Shah Rukh Khan when I was in diapers. From the catchy tunes to the intense drama, I grew to love Bollywood and consider it to be a major part of my identity.
In Bollywood films, I constantly get to see people who look like me, but they don’t necessarily act like me. In most of these movies, there wasn’t an Indian-American character, rather than a character from India. I feel that I am a very different form of Indian than what is shown in Bollywood. Sure, they look like me and speak my language, but they haven’t gone through the experiences that I have felt growing up in the US.
To counteract this difference, I started relying on watching TV shows and movies in the west, especially Disney Channel. But back then, there was little to no representation for Indians, and those that were, were heavily stereotyped.Â
Ravi Ross is my favorite character ever. Ravi is from the show Jessie, a show about a nanny taking care of four rich kids in New York City. However, he is a prime example of the stereotypical Indian character. Ravi is a kid that was adopted from India. He has an Indian accent, is smart and nerdy, lame, and wears a kurta. The problem with Ravi is that he is a mockery of Indian people and fits other people’s ideas of what an Indian is. Another example is a character unsurprisingly similar to Ravi, Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb. Baljeet, again, is the nerdy and uncool character in the show and you guessed it, has an accent. Yes, both of these characters are immigrants from India, but they don’t even represent people that live in India, let alone the US. There are many other characters that fit the racist Indian stereotype, but these ones are the ones that most Desis living in America grew up with.
While these characters are fan favorites, they weren’t meant to be that way. The problem with characters such as Ravi and Baljeet is the impact that these stereotypes have on brown youth. Most South Asian people do tend to be smart and try hard in school just because of the importance of education instilled in the culture. However, this trait is their downfall, painting them to be undesirable or less important characters. Likewise, the accent that most of these characters have is not only inaccurate of an actual Indian accent, but also meant to put down the Indian character from their white counterparts. This can create an image for Desi youth, thinking of themselves in the negative light that is shown on TV.Â
However, the media has grown and they have improved on the representation of their South Asian characters. Nowadays, most Indian characters are just seen as people. They don’t have a stupid accent or are disrespected or known as just the smart characters. But, they don’t completely let go of their cultural personality.
An example of a character who has reflected the change of representation is Kate Sharma from Bridgerton. Not only is Kate shown as a regular character, but she is desirable and royal. This is a big step for the now adult Desis in America that grew up on Ravi and Baljeet. Despite that, she isn’t completely whitewashed. She is still shown paying homage to her culture such as wearing cultural Indian clothes in many scenes. Another example is Devi from Never Have I Ever. Devi is unfortunately a byproduct of the Mindy Kaling effect. Devi starts off the show by having a division from herself and her culture, she isn’t proud of being Indian. She always gets with the white guys and believes other people’s racist impressions of her. However, the difference between Devi and the characters that were shown back then is her character growth. Devi went from isolating herself from her culture, to embracing it by the end of the show, and is proud to be Indian. She reflects many Indian-Americans to where they love their Indian culture, but they still grew up with American values. Devi embraces both, making her a far better representation of Indian culture than it was in the early 2000s and 2010s.Â
It’s very important to have adequate representation for any minority culture. In western media, we went from building ethnic characters solely based on stereotypes, to actually reflecting the experience of being a minority in America. We have made so much progress in the last ten to twenty years, but there is always room for improvement.