These are the notes for “ Desi Webs: South Asian America, Online Cultures, and the Politics of Race.” The notes are from a paper by Madhavi Mallapragada, presented at the Texas A & M University Race and Ethnic Studies Institute’s Symposium exploring Race, Ethnicity and (New) Media.

• How is the web mobilized around categorizes and what are the politics around these identities.

• Derived from “desh” which means homeland
• Term of self and community identification
• 2nd and 3rd gen youth often collectively identify as desi
• While desi is a pan-South asian term, it often means Indian

• Bicultural remixes uniquely reflect the reality of people
• Overwhelmingly focused on bollywood
• Centrality of Indian pop culture and politics

In this video titled, “You are not an Indian,” a young male addresses viewers who like him are neither just American nor Indian but desi. Wearing a t-shirt with the word “desi” written prominently in Hindi across it, the young man points out that desis are not South Asians but of South Asia. People of South Asian origin in the United States commonly refer to each other as Desi. The term means “from the homeland” and simultaneously invokes one’s identity as South Asian but also as being “outside South Asia”. As the young man reminds his viewers, the difference is key. Being desi implies being critically engaged with the “realities” of India rather than uncritically celebrating the hype surrounding its contemporary global image as high-tech nation.

• Video is important as it displays the process of reasserting identity against a current narrative – of reclaimation, of identification
• The idea of desi is undergoing a renovation in South Asian community spaces

• Immigration justice program
• Know your rights workshops to counter ICE raids
• Registration requests by US led to mass deportation

As part of the Homeland security measures, immigrant men from 25, mostly Muslim countries were required to enroll in a Special Registration program. The result: no evidence of terror, but some 13,000 people are now being deported mostly for expired visas. The Alams were among the many families who believed that voluntarily participating in the Special Registration would show their loyalty. Instead, they face the prospect of breaking up their family, despite a decade of hard work and the raising of two children. Working with DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving), the Queens South Asian activist group, the Alams have become activists, organizing to fight for their right to stay.

• Asked men and boys of different nationalities to register
• Portrayed as helping the government, being patriotic
• 82,000 people registered from targeted countries
• 13,000 put in deportation proceedings

(Image Credit: drumnation.org)

Okay, y’all – who saw the movie over the weekend?

If you did not see the movie because you found the first H & K too sexist, I am here right now to tell you that you made the right choice because the second movie is even worse. (Though, you do get to see three different men breakdown over their respective lost loves and one of the biggest misogynists get their comeuppance.)

If you have not yet seen the movie, please do not read any further because here there be spoilers.

Some scattered thoughts…

* I have been fuming about this since Saturday night. I sit through a whole movie designed for the titillation of men. Fair enough. I knew what I was getting into. But what the fuck was up with that tease? I watch fifteen different vaginas roll by, catch a glimpse of a stunt dick and that’s all cool – but when John Cho and Kal Penn drop trou you do the cut away?

WTF!?!?!?

Where is the consideration for the women!?!?!?

Who the hell is responsible for this travesty? Is it the MPAA? The directors? The actors? I want names dammit! Parity in nudity!

I ought to start a petition.

Or at the very least, lobby for the director’s cut to include it. Anyway, moving on…

* How bad is it that I missed the black stereotype joke? I had no fucking clue why dude was pouring “grape pop” on the ground until one of the other guys called out “You got any kool-aid?”

Ooooh….

* Interesting that they manage to do a throw down with extremists and manage to mention that they weren’t Muslims, but “even if [they] were, it doesn’t mean we’re terrorists!”

* Goth John Cho. ~Squee!~

* I never, ever wanted to have a mental image of a bag of weed with a vagina. Thanks for that one…

* As an intentional nod to the creators, only the Jewish characters were allowed to live up to their stereotype.

And, along those lines – fuck you, Tom Carson. Now that I’ve seen the movie, your review makes less sense.

* They shot Neil Patrick Harris!

*I am leaving the Bush role alone for the moment.

* Love the poem – who wrote that? That was so fabulously weird and dorky.

That’s what stood out most strongly in my mind. Your thoughts?

I check out the Freakonomics blog daily, so I am a little late on posting this.

According to Stephen Dubner:

Sudhir Venkatesh’s book Gang Leader for a Day has been optioned for a film to be directed by Craig Brewer, who wrote and directed Hustle & Flow.

Dubner then asks who should play each of the main characters.

I expected (and saw) a lot of votes for Kal Penn, but the Freakonomics commenters really had some great ideas for a Desi leading man:

Sendhil Ramamurthy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendhil_Ramamurthy

— Posted by Robert

For Sudhir: Naveen Andrews, of Lost
— Posted by Jesse

I’ve never heard Sudhir talk. If he has an Indian accent, I’d vote for Hritik Roshan (Indian heartthrob actor who could definitely pull off Sudhir’s role). If he speaks perfect English, it’ll probably be Kal Penn.

I’d like to see Omar Epps play J.T.
— Posted by Shan

ajay devgan should play sudhir.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajay_devgan

— Posted by karthik

However, quite of a few of the commenters were realists, citing the controversy around 21 and pointing out that Hollywood tends to whiten characters at will:

Oh please: it’s Hollywood. George Clooney should play Sudahir. After all, Cary Grant played Cole Porter.
— Posted by jonathan

You know by the time Hollywood is finished it’s going to be Julia Stiles and Vin Diesel.
— Posted by Doug Nelson

Who should play Sudhir… how about an Indian actor?

As mentioned above, the film adaptation “21″ of the book “Bringing Down the House” replaced the 4 main Asian-American characters with Caucasian actors, despite the fact that race was an important plot point. Race is probably an important factor in Sudhir’s story too.
— Posted by Jeff

I should mention here that race is also important to the progression of the plot in Venkatesh’s story. In the excerpt I read, one of the reasons his life was spared in his initial meeting with the gang members (and why he was allowed to continue researching) was based entirely in racial confusion. Venkatesh wasn’t white…nor was he black. So, in the minds of the gang members, he wasn’t a cop and he wasn’t a rival.

Anyway, I am going to assume Hollywood is going to jack this one up. They generally take a lot of liberties when pulling a story off the page and into film, but adding in the racial aspect and the nature of what Venkatesh was doing (economic research) and we have a recipe for a movie that resembles the book in name only.

So my question to everyone is: What kind of movie do you think is going to come out of the studios?

Here’s my prediction: If they allow Venkatesh to stay brown, they are getting rid of the economics thing, throwing in a love interest, and recreating West Side Story. His girlfriend will die tragically at the end, in Venkatesh’s place. If they make the lead a white guy, expect to see a lot of “white boy proves he’s down” moments, the economics part will be back in full force, and the white man will save the brown folk from themselves after showing them the error of their ways.

Your turn – what do you think might happen?

by guest contributor Brigitte, originally published at Make Fetch Happen

Do you remember when Vogue India hit the stands and Australian model Gemma Ward was front and center flanked by two presumably Indian models in what I like to call “the coveted Beyonce spot?” All I could do was laugh at how predictable that move was on the editors part.

In the months since that launch last year, Vogue India has featured a dazzling array of Bollywood actresses and models on the cover. It’s as if to say, “yeah, we thought the cover on that premiere issue was lame too but we fully intend to make up for it!”

Anytime I think about that launch I wonder if an African country will ever get its own Vogue. Maybe a Vogue Nigeria or a South African Vogue.

I’ve debated back and forth on message boards about who would be chosen for the imaginary inagural cover. Legendary Iman? Alek Wek? Liya? Oluchi? Gemma in a safari hat?

I read an article in The Times last week about Oluchi in which she was quoted as saying that top magazines in South Africa (like Glamour and GQ) refuse to put blacks on their covers. This in a country that is 79% black.

She said:

“As a Nigerian and an African I have done so much in my career to represent everything African in Western countries. There is a diverse group of people in South Africa, be it black, white, Asian. …If you pick up Vogue India everything about it, from the first page to the last, is very Indian…I would like to see that in South Africa. They [magazines] need to embrace diversity and show more love …It doesn’t give me joy to pick up a copy of South African GQ and feel like I’m reading American GQ.”

Damn.

This saddens me. I recall seeing the cover of South African ELLE once with a dark skinned woman on the cover and for months I tried to find an issue at various newsstands only to come up empty. I was dying to know if the cover I saw was an anomoly. So far, I’m not willing to pony up the $90 or so for a subscription to find out.

Back to my magazine fantasy…I picture two covers. The first one featuring a mix of models from all over the continent with Iman or Liya Kebede, Alek Wek or Ajuma to show the very different types of African beauty. My second thought has editors mixing it up a bit more with the likes of a Jourdan Dunn, Emanuela dePaula, Chanel Iman, Chrystelle Saint-Louis Augustin, or Damaris Lewis to illustrate how there isn’t a corner of the world that hasn’t been touched by this so called dark continent’s beauty and influence.

Seriously, I could ponder this for hours. I am so much more satisfied by made up magazines than by their real conterparts. Maybe there’s an editor out there dreaming of this launch too, and of Gemma Ward posing on an elephant for the cover.

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

It was just Thursday when we wondered why fashion designers and editors don’t seem to be able to use models of color without exoticizing/exploiting their race or culture. And last summer, we discussed Vogue’s obsession with romanticizing colonized Africa and Asia.

Folks at Hermes must have been reading closely because they managed to squeeze both blunders into a single ad campaign.

Check out their new ads, featuring desi model Lakshmi Menon. And lo and behold, what else appears in the ads? Elephants! With colorful henna-esque tattoos! And jodhpurs! Lest we forget the glorious days of British colonial rule in India!

See the rest of the ads here. Via FabSugar.

A few weeks ago, while walking along the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, a well-known strip for the burgeoning fashionista or the credit card terrorist, I stopped dead in my tracks. Though normally oblivious to any movement around me on the streets near my office, especially as most of the foot traffic in midtown is comprised of the steps of awed tourists or jaded ladies who lunch, the one story-tall photo to my right as I approached the corner of 49th street compelled me to give pause. I had been rendered still by the image of a South Asian-American man dressed in red, black, and white wearing a turban. His right hand lifted to adjust his sunglasses in cool indifference, the handsome face was an unusual one—at least to be seen on an advertisement on Fifth Avenue.

Upon closer inspection, I learned the name of the bearer of these model good looks. “SONNY CABERWAL,” the sign read, “PRACTICING SIKH AND ENTREPRENEUR SPEAKING OUT AGAINST RACIAL PROFILING.” Caberwal, the North Carolina-born Duke University and Georgetown Law graduate and owner of Tavalon Tea Bar in New York City, was part of Kenneth Cole’s new campaign “We All Walk in Different Shoes.”

Cole, a New York based fashion designer known for his humanitarian efforts and philanthropy, was the first member of the fashion community to enlist in the global fight against HIV/AIDS in 1985, a time when little was known about the virus and even less was known about the people struggling to survive it. Cole decided to base his current campaign on the motto “25 years of non-uniform thinking” and what has become his most famous mantra:

“What you stand for is more important than what you stand in. To be aware is more important than what you wear.”

Via the Kenneth Cole website, one can learn about the individual participants in the campaign, all activists in their own right, ranging from the stories of partners – one a married lesbian couple, another a film-making duo comprised of an Israeli and a Palestinian—to the powerful stories of individuals, including those of Caberwal, whom I mentioned previously, Regan Hoffman, the HIV+ Editor-in-Chief of POZ Magazine, Aimee Mullins, Paralympic athlete and actor, and Patrick Sammon, the President of the Log Cabin Republicans, a group for conservative gays and lesbians. The real-life models for this campaign are of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, levels of physical ability, sexual orientations, and political leanings, but exist as evidence that anyone can look good in Kenneth Cole.

Though cynics could easily argue that this is simply an attempt by the Kenneth Cole label team to garner attention for their wares, the campaign takes the fashion industry a few steps ahead, primarily because it not only lends itself to encouraging activism and social progress, but also because it blatantly acknowledges that one can receive attention for a clothing or accessories line without relying solely upon an emaciated and predominately white fleet of models. I stopped in my tracks that day on Fifth Avenue because I was so shocked to see an Asian-American male involved in a fashion ad, but I still noticed the clothes. Despite what seems to be a popular belief in the fashion industry, his tan skin did not take attention away from the impact of the colors and fabrics upon it. Nor did Delmon Dunston’s wheelchair distract me from noticing his electric blue sleeveless shirt. In fact, his wheelchair, with its silver and black casing, allowed for a more dynamic color contrast. The clothing and accessories were enhanced by the models Cole’s team had chosen.

So as thousands of designers and modeling agencies around the globe continue to reject models of color, of size, or of varied physical abilities, Cole has provided his buying audience, or even those who just stop to admire the advertisements as art pieces, the opportunity to judge beauty for themselves.

To read more about the models chosen for this campaign, please click here.

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

Wow, my inbox was flooded last night with emails decrying this SalesGenie.com ad that aired during the Superbowl last night.

What do you all think of the ad?

Research. It always gets you into trouble. This review was supposed to say “Empowering! Feminist! Realism! Actually Tough Women of Colour!”. But then I did a little googling, (damn you google!) and now I’m confused.

The movie Bandit Queen is based on the story of the real life Phoolan Devi. In the 80’s in India, Devi led groups of bandits to pillage high caste villages for money. She was notorious and fearsome, and this was a big, shocking, deal – not only was she a woman, she was a low caste woman.

A kind of Robin Hood with a gender twist: at 11 Devi was married to a 30-something man who raped and mistreated her. As an adult she found him and stabbed him in front of his village, as a warning for old men who marry young girls.

Devi was always described to me as a hero for poor people and women. Separate from who she actually was, Devi became a legend and a symbol of the one woman who just wasn’t going to take it anymore. She was tough shit! She was brutalised, pushed around and dehumanised by patriarchal culture (more on that later) – but she actually pushed back!

So a movie about the life of this feminist hero – ok, the violence she committed makes her a problematic feminist hero – would definitely be a feminist movie wouldn’t you say? Well, this is where the confusion kicks in.

What I liked most about this movie was how it is such an unflinching, unsentimental portrayal of life for women in a patriarchal culture. The violence against women in Bandit Queen is essentially constant and blatant (I didn’t say it was a fun movie to watch), but that amazed me. Because the movie seems to be saying, look, it’s not just that some men are bad apples, and it’s not just that women will experience gender violence once in their lives. It’s that under a patriarchal system the threat of violence and the incidence of violence against women is constant and total.

For example, often “rapists” and “wife beaters” in North American cinema are portrayed as dirty, creepy, foul-smelling and poor. The men who assualt Devi in Bandit Queen however, are just regular, average men. This seemed to say to me that, it’s not just lower income men who don’t wash their shirts who are capable of violence, it’s all men who’ve been socialised by rampant sexism.

BUT, that’s exactly the problem with Bandit Queen: the constant gender violence. Arundhati Roy argues here and here that Bandit Queen reduces Devi to a rape victim, and is just two hours of rape, rape and more rape.

It seems there was a lot of sexual violence in Devi’s life. According to the (deeply contested) movie, she was sold by her father, raped by her husband, nearly raped and then sexually humiliated by the headmen in her village, gang raped by the police, raped by the head of the bandits, and then gang raped by a village of men for 3 days.

But the question of how to responsibly represent rape in cinema is one that has enraged and puzzled people for eons. I would sum it up but my friend bell hooks (ok, I guess it would be more accurate to call her my idol) does it better in this youtube clip from her video Cultural Criticism and Transformation (she starts talking about rape around 3 minutes into the clip).

Inga Muscio in Cunt has this to say:

One out of eight movies produced in Hollywood contains a rape scene. In American cinema, rape scenes tend to be violently eroticized…when viewing a rape scene, scads of men feel confused and disgusted with themselves if it turns them on. (p. 161 of the 2nd edition, if you want to read along)

Interestingly in the same section, Muscio sites Bandit Queen as a movie that responsibly deals with rape. I would agree with Muscio, except for one big issue: Devi, the real Devi, did not want Bandit Queen to be made. She disputed the accuracy of the film and even threatened to set herself on fire outside the theater if it was screened.

In an article written after Devi was shot and killed in 2001, Indira Jaisingh, who represented Devi in court when she sued the filmmakers of Bandit Queen said:

[Devi] did not admit she had been gang-raped. This was one incident in her life she did not want to talk about. She just glossed over it. And what was Bandit Queen all about? Rape is not entertainment… that is what we were trying to say…Phoolan Devi did not want to talk about her rape.

On top of this, it seems that Devi was swindled out of the rights to her life – she signed a contract in prison agreeing to let Mala Sen write a book about her, which later formed the basis for the movie, but she was paid a very small sum, and the contract was in English – Devi could not speak English.

Shekhar Kapur, the director of Bandit Queen, according to the Sunday Observer, had no interest in meeting Phoolan Devi herself. He did not feel the need to meet her.

I would argue that the ultimate basis of violence against women is the silencing of the voices of women. What does it mean that, in making the film Kapur – who is a man, highly educated and wealthy, while Devi was none of those things – was essentially silencing Devi?

The confusingest thing about Bandit Queen to me is that in and of itself, I would say it is a fine movie, and definitely a feminist one. But can you critique a movie about a real life person in and of itself, especially if the real life person didn’t want it made?

While Devi eventually did agree to have the movie released, the question holds: if Devi felt completely disempowered by the movie, can it still be empowering for women who watch it? If a feminist movie was made in a very un-feminist way, is it still feminist?

Nina’s Heavenly Delights is the latest badly-written desi flick to hit enough recognizable truths about the diaspora that it’s fun in spite of itself. It’s a Glaswegian lesbian romance interpreted chastely, as if for kids. The female leads nuzzle and kiss without tongue, lest director Pratibha Parmar offend the focus group, while the drag queens camp and vamp to stereotype but are never permitted to smooch on screen. FSM save gays and lesbians from friendly filmmakers.

The problem with gay, desi, and gay desi flicks is that they’re made out of a crying need for representation, but neither ‘boon’ automatically makes one a good director. Nina’s is infested with clichés, begins with a spice metaphor, and ganks not only the ghostly chef from Ratatouille, but also the spirit guide from the atrocious Touch of Pink (Jimi Mistry, Kyle MacLachlan). It rings false and fantastical, with the most understanding desi mom ever written into film. But it leans on an indie soundtrack and a cinematographer who loves slow pans and tilts. Save for a tacky Taj Mahal model-slash-heartlight, it’s not as obviously amateur as Flavors.

Shelley Conn, great niece of stealth desi Merle Oberon, is taller with darker skin than her white love interest. She’s the top in this film, which is unusual for gay desi flicks. (Daniel Day-Lewis’ tomahawk cheekbones were clearly dom in My Beautiful Laundrette.) The plot is yet another battle-of-the-bands exercise, a ‘curry competition’ helmed at last by the great Kulvinder Ghir (Goodness Gracious Me) in burr, kilt and rabbits’ feet. The movie’s relentless focus on Indian food makes it more commercial, as does the lesbian angle; knowing her mainstream, Parmar let the girls get to first base, while any guy-on-guy takes place off-screen. It’s not that one wants to see Ronny Jhutti (Rafta Rafta) get it on — not that there’s anything wrong with that — it’s that it’s a blatant double standard, genuflecting in the direction of heteronormative marketability.

This movie was made earlier with more wit and bite as East is East, which too made great use of Jhutti and Raji James. But its ending video sequence has queens, twinks, brown highland dancers and white Bollyornaments naachofying to Briton Nazia Hassan’s classic ‘Aap Jaisa Koi.’ If you enjoyed Rocky the drag queen’s camp performance in Bollywood/Hollywood, you’ll have fun with this. And Shelley Conn (and Atta Yaqub) aren’t exactly hard on the eyes.

Nina’s opened in NYC and San Francisco recently. Here are the trailer and clips. For more desi Scots, check out Psychoraag and Ae Fond Kiss, among others .

Heroes Volume 2, “Generations,” is over.

The season began with an exciting change of scenery, as Hiro Nakamura accidentally teleported to feudal Japan and met the legendary Sword Saint, Takezo Kensei, who turned out to be a lying, cheating, spiteful scoundrel of an Englishman named Adam Monroe. As Hiro tried to repair history and turn Adam into the heroic Kensei of legend, his brave deeds won the heart of their mutual love interest, the swordsmith’s daughter Yaeko, and Hiro himself became immortalized (figuratively speaking) as Kensei. Hiro and Yaeko’s love incurred the wrath of the jealous Adam, who swore on his life that he would bring misery and suffering to Hiro and all that he held dear.

Adam, the first man to discover his special ability, has survived through the ages because of it, and four hundred years later, he has founded a Company dedicated to finding and tracking others with special abilities. But Adam has a hidden agenda – fueled by his desire for revenge on Hiro and his bitter cynicism as a result of living through four centuries of human suffering, Adam plans to use the vast talents and resources of the Company to destroy most of humanity and “wipe the slate clean.” When the Company realizes this, they lock up Adam and throw away the key. Thirty years later, Adam recruits Peter, a son of Company founders Angela and Arthur Petrelli, in his quest to escape and release the deadly Shanti virus.

The season finale begins with the other bad guy’s quest to regain his powers. Sylar has recruited Maya Herrera, an irritatingly naive Dominican who has journeyed with him to Dr. Suresh’s apartment in Brooklyn to ask the good doctor for a cure to her cursed powers. Maya feels a kinship with (and attraction to) Sylar because they have both killed people with their powers, but she does not realize that Sylar is only using her to get to Dr. Suresh so that his powers, neutralized by the Shanti virus, can be restored.

Mohinder knows full well that Sylar killed his father, and having battled Sylar before, wants to be sure that Maya understands exactly what Sylar wants. Ever faithful, she believes that Sylar only wants to be cured of his sickness and lets slip that his powers are gone. Upon hearing this, Mohinder tries to attack Sylar with a knife, only to be met with a Company gun. Sylar reveals his true intention of regaining his abilities so that he can continue his power-hungry murder spree, and forces Mohinder, Maya, and Molly to Mohinder’s lab, formerly the apartment of precognitive artist Issac Mendez, one of Sylar’s many victims.

Maya is furious with Sylar, and she finally realizes, upon asking Molly to find her brother, that he killed Alejandro. Sylar shoots Maya and makes Suresh prove the effectiveness of his cure by using it on her. It works. Just when it seems that all hope is lost, Elle, having noticed the situation on the Company surveillance monitor, comes to their rescue, but loses track of Sylar, who escapes with the cure.

Meanwhile, in Odessa, Texas, at Company front Primatech Paper, where the Shanti virus is stored, Adam has Peter use his telekinetic ability to force open the Company vault. Peter believes that Adam wants to destroy it before the Company can unleash it on the world. Hiro and Matt try (unsuccessfully) to stop Peter, but ultimately, Nathan convinces his brother to see the truth – that Adam is a dangerous murderer who manipulated him into opening the vault for him so that he could wipe the world clean. Peter realizes this just as Adam enters the vault and finds the virus. Just in the nick of time, Hiro teleports inside to confront Adam, and once again defeats the villain. He buries Adam alive in a casket in the cemetery where his parents are buried. Peter has learned to control the radioactive power that almost destroyed New York last time, and uses it to destroy the virus. Hiro, having put an end to his father’s killer, seems to have taken an important step towards becoming the gravely serious Future Hiro we’ve looked forward to since the beginning. Peter, having redeemed himself and regained his memory and control of his abilities, also seems to be turning into the scarred hero that Future Hiro foretold.

In New Orleans, Monica has been captured by a nameless thug while attempting to retrieve Micah’s stolen backpack, and the thug has left her for dead in a building he’s been hired to burn down (for some reason). Even though she’s lost her super-strength, Niki beats up the thug and rescues Monica, but doesn’t make it out of the exploding building in time. I was disappointed that both Monica and Niki turned out to be so helpless. But perhaps there is still hope for Monica – the cover of prophetic comic book 9th Wonders! appears to feature her as St. Joan the muscle mimic, holding a crossbow and a distinctly-shaped dagger that was among the collection of strange items in the Company vault.

Throughout the show, there has been an important conflict in the minds of people with special abilities – what should one do about being special? Claire and Nathan want to show everyone what they can do, so that they no longer have to hide. West believes it’s not in their best interest to reveal their powers except to each other. Adam wants to use his powers to “play God.” Micah and Hiro want to emulate comic book heroes and fight for justice. All around, there is plenty of moral ambiguity – Suresh began trying to bring down the Company and found himself fighting on their behalf. Noah Bennet lied and murdered in order to protect his daughter Claire, even if she didn’t want to be protected.

Like our Heroes, I think minorities often feel conflicted about what it means to be different. We cherish our specialness at times, and curse being different at other times, and often want nothing more than to be like everyone else and fit in. Heroes is the latest in a long line of stories that are concerned with the struggle to find peace and acceptance within society and with oneself when one is different.

To what extent are people of color, or people with disability, or gifted people, special, and to what extent are they ordinary? Is it possible or desirable to live an ordinary life and blend in completely? Or does one have a responsibility to be an activist and to do more and accomplish more than other people, even at personal risk?

We all have different sets of privileges that come from our race, nationality, skin color, gender, language, family background, etc. I think it’s important to be mindful of these “powers” and how we use them. On Heroes, each character tries to do what he or she believes is right. It’s fun to think of Sylar and Adam as “evil” and root against them, but we should remember that they’re not the only ones with power, and they’re not the only ones who have done “bad things” in service of what they believe.

At the end of Volume 2, Nathan Petrelli gives a speech to the press in Odessa, Texas. He is about to reveal his ability to the world, when he is shot several times in the chest by a mysterious gunman. Nathan is dead.

Angela Petrelli is on the phone, apparently with someone responsible for her son’s death. She acknowledges that it was “unavoidable,” but warns them that they’ve “opened Pandora’s box…”

Volume 3, “Villains,” begins with a shot of Sylar in an alley injecting himself with a mixture of Claire’s blood and Mohinder’s antibodies – the cure for the Shanti virus. His wounds heal and he stretches out his hand. A discarded can of spinach wobbles slightly, then flies into his grasp.

“I’m back.”

None of us can be sure when Heroes will return, so I will say goodbye for now and thank you for reading. If everything goes well, I will be graduating from college very soon, and would I would appreciate it very much if y’all would let me know of any positions where I could continue exploring issues of race, pop culture, and identity. I hope that when the show starts back up again I’ll be able to write recaps for you once again, but who can say what the future will bring?

To read past Heroes recaps, click here.

I usually avoid MTV because of its basic lack of programming that interests me. This weekend, however, I happened to catch an episode of True Life, which chronicles people in different walks of life going through different life experiences. The episode I happened to catch was entitled “I’m Having an Arranged Marriage.”

I can’t find the episode summary on MTV’s website, but the summary goes like this: MTV follows three people on their journeys through arranged marriage. The show follows Najwa, a Pakistani-American Muslim woman; Rohit, an Indian man living in America (who I believe is Hindu, but I couldn’t get a definitive statement from the show); and Arwa, another Pakistani-American Muslim woman. All these people have college educations; Arwa is currently in law school.

The show first follows Najwa as she goes to pick up her fiancé Zeeshan at the airport. Najwa and Zeeshan are engaged but have not married yet; this visit will be the third time Najwa has seen Zeeshan, even though they talk frequently over the phone. Meanwhile, Arwa goes to several dates set up by her friends and family in hopes of finding someone to marry, even attending a conference that attracts other professional Pakistani-Americans. Her mother keeps bothering Arwa about her arbitrary deadline: announce an engagement by the end of the year. That’s some serious pressure.

Both girls do not wear hejab, and at first glance, you wouldn’t even be aware that they were more conservative, family-oriented women. I’m big on not judging a book by its cover, so I was kind of pleased about this. Both women talked about how they thought they’d find their own husbands (rather than being set up by people in their community), but are willing to try their family’s traditions.

What I really appreciated is the fact that the show highlighted these women’s experiences as their choice: Arwa mentions that she tried to find her own husband, but she’s okay with her parents trying to find him for her, too. Often, the words “arranged marriage” conjure images of veiled women who have no say in who their parents choose for them, and a lot of people think that arranged marriages trap women and are loveless. There’s also this idea that any Muslim man is a good Muslim man, and all a girl has to do is find a Muslim guy—any Muslim guy—and marry him. Muslim marriages—whether arranged or not—work just like other people’s: compatibility is key!

This episode refuted a lot of those ideas, likening arranged marriages to something as simple as just getting set up by your friend who thinks she has a friend you’d like. The idea that one size fits all is also not applicable here: Arwa met three different guys, and rejected two of them (unfortunately, the one she liked didn’t call). Najwa, after realizing that she had different priorities than Zeeshan, ended the engagement herself. At the end of the episode, Rohit was the only one who actually got married! Arwa went back to law school (if I remember right, she was on summer break during the show’s taping) and Najwa’s family continued to look for a match for her.

While the reality of arranged marriages is different for everyone (personally, I think I could do a better job of picking out a husband for myself than my parents; some families prefer to rely on social networks, some families let their children find their own mates, sometimes arranged marriages turn out badly, sometimes love matches turn out badly) and MTV’s portrayal really only illustrates how arranged marriages work within the U.S., I was pleased to see none of the gimmicky stereotypes. My only real complaint is that it would have been nice to see a Muslim man getting set up. On the whole, not bad, MTV.

The New York Times licks its typing finger and reels off Yet Another Curry Review, because after all these years, it’s so original. Even lamer, the movie is about a 2nd genner. You can take India out of Shelley Conn, but Shelley can’t take herself out of India — the Times won’t let her:

A cloying blend of Bollywood sentiment and Amélie whimsy, Nina’s Heavenly Delights is a lesbian-foodie fairy tale… the director, Pratibha Parmar, is more interested in pappadams than passion… Fetch the turmeric! … groans beneath ethnic stereotypes and half-baked performances. Blander than a cumin-free curry… cringeworthy dance routines (courtesy of a flamboyant troupe known as the Chutney Queens)… [Link]

One can only imagine how the Times reviewed Alfonso Cuarón:

A cloying blend of mariachi music and lucha libre whimsy, Y Tu Mamá También is more interested in tacos than pasión. Fetch the cayenne pepper! Acting worse than a two-dollar chimichanga and blander than a chili-free burrito.

Oh, it didn’t? Not even a whiff of exoticism?

… one of those Bildungsroman films… The director, Alfonso Cuarón, works with a quicksilver fluidity, and the movie is fast, funny, unafraid of sexuality and finally devastating. The film, which takes place in Mexico, follows two hormonally consumed teenage boys, Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna), whose infantile macho games seem more like baby steps when they meet Luisa (Maribel Verdú), a sad-eyed young woman who is married to Tenoch’s older cousin. [Link]

Snark is great, but what’s with the baby talk? On the plus side, the Times has finally run a review as badly-written as its movie. Much respect. There’s a kind of beauty in that.

Update: Reviewer Jeannette Catsoulis writes back that the piece’s clichés were partly intentional:

… When reviewing a film in 200 words or less, I usually try to give readers a flavor (no pun intended!) of what to expect, and, to be honest, this film was one long cliché. I responded with clichés of my own, mostly out of irritation and disappointment. As for the curry/spice issue, I grew up in Britain (in Glasgow, which had made me more excited about the film), and was probably corrupted at a very early age. No excuse, however, for falling into the pit of knee-jerk regional metaphors — however well they seem to suit the tone of a particular film…

But most of the time the Great Curry Metaphor strikes papers unironically and with maximum kitsch.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Snow’s 1993 hit, “Informer,” I get all giddy and nostalgic inside. You can’t summon the energy? Would a photo help?

Ohhhhhh yeah. Those round sunglasses, so low on the nose bridge. That hair! That sullen gaze! And that sultry, smooth Snow voice! OMG. I can’t deal.

Okay, if you’re not feeling it like me, I can’t force you. But I can offer you an exciting new take on the oh-so-good-even-though-it-feels-so-wrong original:

THE BOLLYWOOD VERSION! Fabulous Arash turns the “Informer” tune into “Chori Chori” (Secretly).

Now mind you, the lyrics and the talent may be new and different, but if you just close your eyes and relax, I swear you’ll kinda believe it’s snowing. Just a little bit.

by Carmen Van Kerckhove

As many of you have probably heard, the Writers Guild of America has been on strike. As part of their campaign, they have put together a series of online videos feature A-list actors. Check out this one, starring Holly Hunter.

I’m left scratching my head, wondering what the heck this issue has to do with outsourcing to India? And why exactly does the writers guild need to mock one profession to make a case for fair compensation of their own work? (Thanks to Angie for the tip!)

As Volume Two of the Heroes saga nears its end, the plot lines come together and the series develops a climactic peak. But at the same time, gone are the opportunities for the writers to tell backstory, and while this is good for simply the quality of each episode, it gives the show a lot fewer opportunities to slip up with things like representation and stereotype. But who was counting anyway? Oh right, we were.

In this episode, Adam, Peter, and Hiro all look for a virus, albeit for different reasons. Mohinder Suresh proceeds in his lonely medical missions before being confronted by an old villian, accompanied by Maya but not Alejandro, who is the newest victim to Sylar’s wrath. And in the meanwhile, the Bennets mourn for their not-so-dead father… moments in which Hayden Panettiere displays her best acting yet this season. (Okay, you might disagree with me there.)

Two recaps ago, I told my deep discomfort with the portrayal of the as-yet-unnamed Haitian, but I missed one thing. I don’t know the science-fictional precedent of his eclectic collection of superpowers, but somehow we must add one more to his many abilities: super-hearing? I say this because from season one, he and Claire have a relationship that has stemmed from a friggin’ windchime; when she needs someone to turn to, she just needs to hang up a special windchime and then expect the Haitian at her back door immediately to console her fears. In this episode, as Claire grieves for the loss of her father, she is tempted to hang this windchime once more to ask him to erase the memory of her father’s death. This character is even less whole than we had thought… I’d like to think that in addition to his power-negation and memory-stealing powers, he has also teleportation and super-ears, but instead he seems continually like just a house-elf for the Bennets and the Company. And this is a problem. (Please note that he wasn’t shown in this episode – this is just a remark about another reminder of this issue.)

This week we also return to the Dawsons in New Orleans. After Monica attempts to steal back a medal won by D.L., she’s caught by a gang that, besides being paid for arson, steals backpacks from little kids. Granted New Orleans is still depicted as a broken city with rising crime, but the men in this gang here fulfill very specific archetypes of the urban criminal. Specifically, these gang members do happen to be black men decked out with chains, toting guns and enacting violence upon the good. This stereotyping ties into a much greater discussion about how the criminals that these men portray have made a mark on the mainstream consciousness, but I’ll stick to the small things here. In this show, it is apparent that no effort was made to avoid or qualify this kind of typecasting at the levels of plot or representation. I can just imagine how casting was like.

And lastly, as we begin the hunt for this pandemic-causing virus, deception and coercion thrive in the plotlines of Heroes. In which case, it’s interesting to note that, well, all of the dishonest, deceiving, and generally bad characters are white: Bob, Elle, Noah (in a way), Adam, Sylar. The characters of color are generally all genuine and good, for reasons entirely inexplicable. Sorry, but I just had to make this connection. Perhaps it means nothing.

To read past Heroes recaps, click here.

This week’s episode revolves around the deaths of two fathers, Noah Bennet and Kaito Nakamura, and the struggles of their children, Claire and Hiro, to come to terms with the tragedies.

The episode opens with the funeral of Kaito Nakamura, who, a few episodes ago, was killed in a plunge off the Deveaux rooftop by someone he knew but least expected. Hiro is asked, as the eldest son, to give his father’s eulogy, but he hesitates, telling Ando that to do so would be to admit that his father is dead. He decides to go back in time to save him.

The prophecy apparently foretold by the Mendez paintings, that Mohinder would fire a Company gun, and the Man in the Horn Rimmed Glasses would die of a gunshot wound to the eye as his daughter Claire looked on, seems to be unfolding perfectly. Mr. Bennet tries to evacuate his family from Costa Verde, California, but is held back by Claire’s anger at his deception and refusal to cooperate. Noah Bennet has led a secret life of kidnapping and murder, and as Claire discovers that her boyfriend West was one of her dad’s victims, she comes to hate her adoptive father.

Meanwhile, Mohinder, Company man Bob, and Bob’s (adopted?) daughter Elle track the Bennets down to Costa Verde, where they will attempt to take Claire from Mr. Bennet. The healing factor in her blood is the key to saving Niki, who has infected herself with the Shanti Virus, and saving the human species, which will be devastated by the virus if it crosses over into the general population.

The conflict between Mr. Bennet, who will protect his daughter at all costs, and Dr. Suresh, who has found himself on the side of the Company in the pursuit of saving lives, comes to a head. After an initial fight with Mohinder, Bennet captures Elle, but Bob gets Claire and takes a sample of her blood. Bennet and Bob agree to a hostage exchange, and each brings the other’s daughter to the beach.

Mr. Bennet comes to a bit of an understanding with West when they realize what they both want most is simply to protect Claire, and Bennet enlists West’s help in flying Claire away from the hostage exchange. As she is being returned to her father Bob, Elle, ever devious, shoots a ball of lightning at Claire and West, who come crashing to the ground but are not seriously hurt. Mr. Bennet, seizing the opportunity, shoots Elle in the arm and prepares to kill Bob and end The Company once and for all. Mohinder chooses to protect Bob over his former ally and shoots Mr. Bennet, fulfilling the prophecy. The Man in the Horn Rimmed Glasses is dead.

There is an interesting minor story that involves Matt Parkman developing the power of suggestion, a.k.a. Jedi Mind Trick (similar to Mohinder’s deceased love interest Eden) and using it to extract from Angela Petrelli the identity of the final founder of The Company, Victoria Pratt. I am excited to learn what her role in the complex story of The Company will be.

But I think the most interesting story was Hiro going back in time to try to save his father. As with his experience in feudal Japan with Takezo Kensei, where his actions became an integral part of history, Hiro’s attempt to change the past is futile, as Kaito refuses to change his fate, even given the opportunity. Hiro takes his father back in time to his mother’s funeral to show Mr. Nakamura the grief he feels, to try to convince him to let him save his life. There, he runs into himself as a boy. Young Hiro is a mini-Takezo Kensei, a hero with a plastic sword, full of naive enthusiasm and convinced that he can save his father from his mother’s fate. As the older, mature Hiro explains to his younger self that there are things beyond the capability of even Takezo Kensei, and that the best way to honor his father would be to remember his lessons of “strength, responsibility, and justice,” Hiro finally comes to terms with the truth of his father’s death. Before they return to the scene of the crime, they both pay respects to Mrs. Nakamura.

Kaito Nakamura is murdered, as fate had it, but Hiro pauses time to discover one shocking fact: the identity of his father’s killer, known to Kaito as Adam Monroe and to Hiro as Takezo Kensei. He returns to the present day to give the eulogy at his father’s funeral, telling those in attendance that as long as he remembers his father’s lessons, they will live on in him.

As an American of Chinese descent, I feel deprived that I have been exposed to relatively few non-fantasy images of modern China in the media compared to images of modern Japan. The American involvement in rebuilding Japan from the ashes of the Japanese Empire has, no doubt, biased our understanding of that country versus China. Therefore, although I am not Japanese, I feel as an American that I have a fairly good sense of what is authentic in Japanese culture, and the portrayal of the funeral seemed very authentic to me. Please feel free to correct me in the comments if this was not the case. In this country, our rituals often severely distort the past, such as the whole Pilgrims and Indians motif during Thanksgiving, so I am never really sure what’s real.

It seemed to me, though, looking at Japanese culture through an American lens, that the funeral was not made exotic, but was shown as a real example of Japan today – a mixture of traditional and modern, secular and religious, and Eastern and Western. I often wonder, when I see portrayals of foreign culture in the media, if they are respectful and authentic, as I believe this example was, or if they are crass and commercialized, like a shopping mall rain stick. Is it possible for a gaijin like me to truly respect and appreciate Japanese culture? Or does the fact that I’m looking at it through an American lens make me as bad as people who get kanji tattoos? And will it someday be possible for me to be an American who appreciates his Chinese heritage without associating the nation with poisoned toothpaste and cheap Wal-Mart merchandise?

I also felt that the deep respect for elders and deceased ancestors as displayed by Kaito and Hiro was very authentic and crucial to understanding their restrained but strong emotions. As I’ve said in the past, it’s important to combat Asian male stereotypes not just by showing that we can be as tall and athletic and sexy as the rest of them, but also by understanding us as three-dimensional human beings on our own terms, and part of working towards this is portraying the family values we try to live by, as well as the different way we traditionally express our love and affection – not necessarily though hugs and kisses, but through devotion and honor. Having said that, I, for one, am certainly not opposed to hugs and kisses, wink wink.

In the aftermath of Mr. Bennet’s death, Claire expresses regret that the last thing she really told her dad was, “I hate you.” Sure, they had their difficulties, and they both became entangled in a web of lies – Mr. Bennet in his attempt to protect his family, and Claire in her yearning to live a normal life as an ordinary cheerleader. But they certainly had a deep, deep bond, and I’m sure Claire would have tried to save her dad if it were possible.

As I’ve mentioned before, Claire has experimented with testing the limits of her regenerative powers. She discovered that she can regenerate limbs (at least a toe). She’s wondered if she can be killed, and having died once, the answer seems to be no. The fact that Takezo Kensei has survived for 400 years seems to indicate she’ll never grow old. But what’s she’s really hoped for is the ability to save people with her blood.

In the last scene of the episode, we see a lifeless body hooked up to an IV drip of blood – the sample of Claire’s blood that Bob took. The body heals and comes back to life. It is Noah Bennet.

To read past Heroes recaps, click here.

What is his name?!?

There is too much to be said about how a black character from Haiti, referred to as The Haitian and used as a weapon by dominating, white forces, still has yet to earn a name. Is his name too ethnic for us to pronounce? His history too dark for us to fathom? But most of all, how do you address someone who has no name?!? I’ve wondered how the screenwriters have avoided until now the instances where some higher agent has to say, “Haitian, go do this-and-that.” (Maybe they just use “you” the way Elle does when pursuing Peter and Adam.) Watching this episode, these exchanges between other characters and the one played by the talented Jimmy Jean-Louis become increasingly ridiculous. He rarely even speaks! Something really is wrong with this.

And remember the part where Elle refers to The Company’s power-negating medications as “Haitian pills,” a reference to one of his powers? Yeah, that was messed up.

To boot, does he have alliances or a personal agenda at all? In this last episode, temporally set between the first and second seasons, he works for the Company that he had been working to bring down in both seasons. This character just always seems to come in handy only when key characters require a partner who can suppress superpowers and erase memories. If I am just missing the logic behind this, someone inform me; all I see in this character is a lackey for the more crucial (ahem, white) people, and his story should be so much more than that.

Another item of note was a comment by Elle, the other cute (but crazy and dangerous) blonde girl to come by on this show. (Thanks to Elton for the tip.) She makes a speech worthy of a great, collective “aww”. She says, “I’m twenty-four years old and I’ve never gone on a date. Never been on a rollercoaster. Never been swimming. And now you know everything there is to know about me.” I feel so sorry for her, but question: what ideals must you impose upon yourself to feel bad about these things? If you said “Western” you may have been right, because as Elton pointed out, there are cultures where dating and amusement parks are just not on the adolescent agenda. Which is to say, the first-world innovation of amusement parks and the social construction of dates are not necessarily universal. Just pointing that out. (I still felt pretty bad for Elle, though.)

And also… so much for my crying out about how very Catholic Maya and Alejandro are. They are apparently really Catholic. So Catholic that Maya does a stint as a nun! (Well, she is also seeking redemption for killing about fifty people; maybe it’s justified.

But lastly, I must say that there were some nice things in this episode. The wedding was sweet – until the soapy, intruded-upon sex scene. And once again, I can’t help but say that Nikki and D.L. are really cute together, and if people see the problems in their marriage as a function of their racial difference, then… I just have no words.

To read past Heroes recaps, click here.

Check out this great Boston Globe article about bloggers of color who are fighting racial stereotypes and getting their voices heard in the mainstream media. The reporter spoke with me, Manish from Ultrabrown, and Baratunde from Jack and Jill Politics, and name-checked a whole bunch of other blogs: Angry Asian Man, The Angry Black Woman, Guanabee, The Unapologetic Mexican, Latino Pundit, Ultrabrown, Zuky, Sepia Mutiny, The Field Negro, Too Sense, and Resist Racism. Congrats everyone!

Here are some excerpts:

These intellectual challenges to mainstream and other viewpoints are some of the opinions Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander-American, and black bloggers are exposing on a growing number of sites focused on social, political, and cultural issues…

These sites – many of which launched in the past year, although a few are older – have become places where people of color gather to refine ideas or form thoughts about race relations, racial inequities, and the role pop culture has in exacerbating stereotypes. The writers often bring attention to subjects not yet covered by mainstream media. Some of these blogs first sounded the alarm about blacks receiving harsher jail sentences in the court system, an issue spotlighted in the Jena Six, Genarlow Wilson, and other cases. Vij was among the bloggers writing about the racial offensiveness of the accented South Asian character Apu in “The Simpsons” just before the big-screen version of the television show came out this year…

As bloggers make these corrections, they’ve become fresh voices in the very places that they feel ignore them. The subjects they write about sometimes become mainstream media stories. Vij and bloggers at Jack and Jill Politics and Racialicious, a compendium of links and original content about race issues, have appeared on CNN, the BBC, and NPR, and in The New York Times. These young people offer alternative opinions at a time when stories about race often result in sound bites from Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson…

Posts from Jack and Jill Politics and Ultrabrown occasionally appear on Racialicious, a blog that offers links to thought-provoking news stories or blog items about race and posts on various subjects from its 25 guest contributors and three regular contributors. The New York City-based creator of Racialicious, Carmen Van Kerckhove, launched the blog in 2004 as Mixed Media Watch. Her goal, as a biracial woman of Belgian and Chinese decent, was to spotlight how the media portrays mixed-race people and interracial couples. Last year Van Kerkhove relaunched Mixed Media Watch as Racialicious, because of her readers’ strong responses to posts analyzing race and pop culture. Now in addition to posts about racism in the video game industry or recent examples of the use of the noose for racial intimidation, Racialicious includes items analyzing TV shows such as “Prison Break” and “Heroes.”

Pop culture, says Van Kerckhove, 29, “really is instrumental in shaping our view of race. It helps introduce us to and helps confirm a lot of racial stereotypes. As TV shows and movies have become more diverse in terms of the race and ethnicity of the characters and actors, I think it becomes necessary to analyze that and not to uncritically celebrate the fact that there is more diversity on TV.”

In Blade Runner: The Final Cut, the 25th anniversary edition of that seminal film, little-known indie director Ridley Scott (A Good Year, Black Rain) uses yellow panic to convey a dystopian future. Impenetrable Chinese and kanji ideographs and Arabic vocals from the Brian Eno track ‘Quran’ signify a future where Earth is crumbling, most have moved off-world, and the seedy neighborhoods left behind are non-European. In Blade Runner, white flight means leaving for the sub-orbs.

In one scene, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) chases a replicant down a crowded street, pushing his way through a group of Hare Krishnas. The world may be run by spinners, androids, implants and megacorps, but like cockroaches, Krishnas and Chinese noodles survive. Make way, make way; Deckard locates and blasts Joanna Cassidy, in a scene reshot with the aging actress specifically for the final cut.

Deckard later tracks down a clue, decorative scales from an artificial snake. The music switches to tabla and desi vocals as he shakes down the Muslim proprietor. Paul Oakenfold sampled other parts of the soundtrack in ‘Goa Mix’ (’94). Artless though it is, Blade Runner’s multiculti melange is even today far ahead of ultrawhite sci-fi/fantasy films like E.T. (which crushed Blade Runner on their head-to-head opening weekend), Star Wars, and the modern-day Lord of the Rings. The only sci-fi films I’ve seen recently which were as multiculti were Serenity and Sunshine.

* * * * *

Blade Runner has held up remarkably well over time. It’s still gripping and panoramic and ambitious in a way not often attempted in sci-fi these days. Its atmospherics were remarkable. It was the Half-Life 2 of its time in terms of immersive, spooky audio and visuals; today, PC games are the new Blade Runner. The film’s models look great, non-CGI-fakey. With physical models, getting the lighting and physics right is pretty much automatic.

Later movies freely pinched from key scenes in Blade Runner. Silas in The Da Vinci Code was ripped from Rutger Hauer’s white-haired Jesus figure, complete with crucifixion reference. Daryl Hannah’s leotarded replicant crushes Ford’s neck between her thighs. The scene was gleefully echoed by Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp in Goldeneye.

The ghostly, omnipresent advertising blimp showed up later as the floating zeppelin in Æon Flux. Hide-and-seek with living toys and assassins with calling cards have become fright flick staples. ‘Time to die,’ uttered twice in different contexts, is now a survival horror catchphrase. Blade Runner’s even got its very own ‘Han shot first‘ fanböi squabble, the unicorn scene.

Ford’s antihero, a moper who’s overmatched by his adversaries, was an extension of his Han Solo routine, coming five years after the success of Star Wars. Little since has been as grand. The younger Ford was handsome, Tom Cruise as a wiseass with a crooked smile.

But there are a few glaring anachronisms 25 years on. The computer screens, small, dim CRTs with underpowered raster engines, look laughable these days, almost like the purposeful pneumatic throwbacks in Brazil. Hauer’s sneering villain in a black leather greatcoat is like the cheesy baddies from Rocky IV and Superman II, and they come with lines just as stale.

Most strikingly, Hauer’s eyes, bucktooth and ‘Oriental’ lisp as he’s threatening Methuselah Man, and Ford’s effete, gay accent as he pretends to be a theater activist, would not fly today as broadly as they’re played here. Sadly, eye geneticist James Hong has made an entire career out of Orientalism. He was the mystical ping pong master in Balls of Fury this past summer.

The movie itself uses androids as a metaphor for American slavery. Here’s a snippet of Deckard’s voiceover excised from the final cut:

Bryant: Come on, don’t be an asshole Deckard, I’ve got four skin jobs walking the streets.

Deckard (voiceover): Skin jobs. That’s what Bryant called replicants. In history books, he’s the kind of cop that used to call black men n–. [Link]

… Blade Runner elides ethnicity even as it seems to deal specifically with it… The replicants… function as replacements for blacks, whose absence… has made it economically desirable… to construct a new race of slaves. Only this time… we’ll get it right: we’ll program them with a four-year life span to keep them from getting uppity… a fearful white technocracy constructs its new race of slaves “better,” meaning white-skinned and blonde. [Link]

* * * * *

Scott is dealing with race with more sophistication these days. Edward James Olmos’ young wife Lymari Nadal plays the wife in American Gangster, Scott’s latest, and there are only offhand references to her character’s Puerto Rican heritage. Denzel Washington plays a Harlem heroinista like an MBA with a gun.

But the scenes set in Vietnam may make you wince again. Ric Young’s Chinese general has the impenetrable stillness of Hannibal Lecter.

Here’s the Final Cut trailer:

This is the cover of the inaugural issue of Vogue India. Unfortunately, I don’t see much of anything distinctly “Indian” about it. I see them highlighting Australian model Gemma Ward, flanked by two Indian women, who may as well wear signs saying “sidekick” around their necks. To add to the affront, the Indian models both have blue eyes.

I know that most will say that it may not be too much to worry about because most Indians have bigger fish to fry like poverty but Vogue had a greater responsibility to do right by India and it failed.

Sad to say, this isn’t the first time. Vogue pulled the same stunt, with the same model on the cover of Vogue China’s inaugural issue.

I’m sorry but when I look for a Vogue India, I want to see beautiful Indian models all over the magazine; I want accurate representation.

Gemma Ward pales in comparison to the lovely Aishwarya Rai, so why isn’t Miss Rai on the cover? What about Shilpa Shetty? Looking at the other models, they didn’t even need Ward on the cover. Their beauty speaks volumes.

Unfortunately, their beauty wasn’t allowed to grace the cover without Gemma in the middle. What does speak volumes is Vogue’s subliminal message that unless a Caucasian female is associated with it, it’s not beautiful. The use of models with blue eyes (or possibly color contacts?) further cements Vogue’s idea of what women of color should look like in order to be considered pretty enough to stand next to a white woman’s beauty.

If this the way Vogue is going to operate when launching magazines for perspective countries, I shudder to think what Vogue Kenya may be. I can just see it now.

This is why we should be extra vigilant to the messages that the media sends children of color and protect them from deception. I wouldn’t bring this magazine into my house to line a bird cage.

Vogue’s message is loud, clear and pathetic. If this is the best Vogue can do, they should be ashamed of themselves. Gemma isn’t the standard of beauty in this photo, in all reality, she barely makes the cut.