Director Wes Anderson did right by Sikhs in his latest film:
I saw The Life Aquatic last night, a hilarious, laid-back Jacques Cousteau parody… The director was very respectful of the handsome, turbaned actor / fashionista Waris Singh Ahluwalia: it was not a token role, the Sikh was a bona fide character. He had an American accent. He had a real name, Vikram Ray (though Ray is a Bengali name, perhaps a play on Satyajit). He was addressed by name several times, he had plenty of lines, he was an integral part of the crew. He even had three glamor shots in the submarine scene at the end, close-ups with light reflecting off his eyes. There was an Asian-American on the crew as well, and assorted Europeans; the casting was like the Star Trek bridge minus the aliens…On the flip side, the marketing campaign cropped Ahluwalia out. It’s a shot of the submarine scene, where Ahluwalia was seated at far left. On the U.S. poster, the guy in the turban and the black guy are missing.
In this particular case, it’s probably because Ahluwalia… isn’t a recognizable star. However, in many movies (e.g. Sandra Oh in Sideways), minorities don’t figure in the marketing campaigns, even if they have substantial roles… The kinds of people you’ll see [featuring minorities] are producers at the top and the bottom: those who are either already successful enough to take the risk, such as Wes Anderson and his cult of fans, or so indie that they don’t care.
