JamalSpunky
Well-Known Member
What may not be a big deal to you may be a big deal to other people. Try respecting that even if you don't agree with the other person's view.
Look, I don't watch the show on a regular basis anymore. But when I did I mostly found it enjoyable. I didn't find it offensive or racist either. That being said I'm not Indian. Perhaps if I were I would be more sensitive to how Raj is portrayed.
No offense to anyone but if you are white it may be a bit hard for you to see why some people of color take issue with the handling of non-white characters on TV, even if the show is a sitcom. How can white people in America for instance relate to this when they are overrepresented on TV compared to their actual numbers in the population? If people do tend to identify with characters who look like them and sound like them, then white viewers have always had an excess of riches. 99.9% of the TV shows in Hollywood's history have been about white characters, starred white actors and actresses. A white viewer doesn't like a certain show or two, well he/she always has endless amount to choose from (if the criteria again is finding characters they identify with). For people of color the options are far less abundant. Therefore we may end up getting too attached to the far less numerous non-white characters. Which means we may end up expecting those handful of characters to represent all the people of their respective races and therefore personally place burdens on them that are not placed on white characters. And of course that means we may be put off more when some shows, perhaps our favorite shows, don't have any cast members of our own race (white viewers tend not to have that problem obviously). Can it lead to a bunch of paranoia and unnecessary hysteria? Yes. But then again that is what happens when even today in 2012 non-white viewers are still looking for more non-white characters who are as fully formed as their white counterparts. Instead of dismissing that out of hand, try walking in someone else's shoes. I had to do that when hearing the arguments of female friends that in some areas women were not given the same opportunities as men. I had to do that when gay colleagues use to bemoan the lack of representation of homosexual characters in the movies. I had to do that when Asian friends would discuss how disappointing that there weren't many Asian American role models in sports.
I like to put it this way. Let's say that there is an ensemble drama like "Lost" in which there are about 25 or so regular characters. Now how about it if the one or two black characters end up dying and/or end up betraying the rest of the characters, killing some of them and then end up dying. White people often can't understand why black viewers may bemoan such events by asking why did such and such have to happen to the black character. The white viewers may respond that "hey, one or two white characters died too" or "that one white character went bad also so what's the big deal?". What they don't grasp is that if one or two white characters went belly up there are still like twenty or more white characters to choose from. In other words there is no shortage of white characters in the first place. Same can't be said of black characters so when the one or two (whom are rarely the lead characters anyway) go down there is a void left.
And by the way I agree that while sitcoms are not the vehicles of social messaging, any form of media is still capable of shaping perceptions, even if unintentionally.
