Will she marry a desi, or will she stay with her white beau? It’s what we all struggled with — back in the days of Motley Crue.

Thank you and an amen to that, Manish. ;)

It’s what we all struggled with — back in the days of Motley Crue

If you read this site and post comments in non-'a0l rUlEz' style, you probably don't have to ask your parents for permission to borrow the car or shag the neighbor.

Do you ever wonder why the subject is such a big part of South Asian literature and media? Seriously

the south asian community in the us is (relatively) highly educated...is this the best they can come up with? not to sound like a jerk, but im about to sound like a jerk.

this is controversial? every couple of years the literary/arts/film critics/juries of coffee house new yorkers embrace a new culture's "coming out" so to speak...so we see a bunch of novels dissecting every quirky idiosyncracy of whatever culture, and a couple awards are given thrown out here and there until the elite hipster magazines move onto another ethnicity.

after september 11th some opportunities came about to hear "the other side" of the story, and some small playhouses in new york had productions dealing with south asians affected by the tragedy. for the most part these plays were pathetically puerile. it's as though affirmative action came along and gave some of us a voice, and presented as professional works, entire productions of pure mediocrity. there's many reasons it's hard to break into the arts, and one of those is competition, which forces the honing and refinement of the craft. desis really need to think of competing within the entire arts arena at large and not simply amongst other south asian artists.

unfortunately, with our culture a bit closer to the mainstream than ever before, we're throwing out our first drafts and expecting longevity in these industries. only because of this "affirmative action" are so many of our pieces getting their exposure(and subsequent shit reviews).

on the other hand we also have the american desi/abcd/american chai comedies, with the formulaic mad lib plot of the young desi who wants to be a (musician/actor/painter) while his traditional parents want him to be a (engineer/doctor/computer scientist) and on and on, filled with unfunny in-jokes that can just barely be appreciated by desi audiences.

i can't believe in 2005 we have nothing more sophisticated than this.

perhaps desis really should stay out of the arts and stick to their medical studies. either their work is idiotically self-important or just idiotic.

Worth seeing merely to experience being in prison.

Worth seeing merely to begin, and likely reach concensus on, a discussion on the worst movies you and your friends have ever seen.

Seriously, even though this movie sucks (story, script, acting), it really is worth watching it to discuss the implications bad SA cinema has or will have on SA filmmakers, actors, etc. with talent.

I could sit here and praise the director and actors for breaking ground and all their hard work, but I think this kind of all-round cinematic bs just makes it harder for the rest of us. What do ya'll think?

It's also worth watching to discuss it's unfathomable pervasive suckiness.

Will she marry a desi, or will she stay with her white beau? It’s what we all struggled with — back in the days of Motley Crue.

LoL

dude thats funny

Raju

Do you ever wonder why the subject is such a big part of South Asian literature and media? Seriously

I am going to write an essay about this one day. They are freaks. Its like, thats all these moviemakers can think of.

One day a Scorcese or Coppola will arise from amongst the dregs of fifth rate desi filmakers in England/America and banish such trite and yawn inducing cliche. Until then, just smile and put up with it.

Or better still, write that film script ourselves.

Here is a witty ten minute short film called Holly-Bolly that deals with some of the issues surrounding British-Desi cinema and how a certain kind of worthy and predictable movie and representation gets rewarded and funded. Its funny.

Anand

Sir, I loved your post. People like you should do something about this, write a script and hustle it about. I loved your post because it tells the raw truth. Because alot of these scripts are commisioned as a kind of affirmative action, they elevate the mediocre and clueless white critics applaud it for telling them 'the truth' about this 'community'.

Man, if you think its bad in America, you should see some of the plays that are commisioned by regional theatres in England.

Use it to fire you up man, if you let them get away with it its our own fault. Get writing.

Check out this link about some new films getting shown at a movie festival in England soon. Does anyone else want to groan when they read this?

Other films include the double feature Punjabi Love Stories & Meet The Sumdees, both examples of culturally mixed marriages and what they reveal about our capacity to navigate cultural differences.

On the lighter side, Pink Ludoos is about how one Indo-Canadian girl, caught between old traditions and new lifestyles, is hell-bent on making the best of both worlds. Billed as Canada’s answer to Bend It Like Beckham, it stars Shaheen Khan again as the mother

i can't believe in 2005 we have nothing more sophisticated than this.

So much irritation! But I guess I agree, since I Am Not Stimulated.

Hopefully it's just a (very, very, very slow) process that's been hindered by too many people pursuing crap for money, relying on hackneyed identity blah blah blah, and political/cultural/economic trends that lead them to do it? I'd hate to give up on my community :)

Maybe some day you'll find other people who agree with you and you can all write a play together. That's how it works in desi activist culture, at least (people learning from spaces, finding other good people, figuring things out as they go along, growing, etc.).

Also, I'm sure some great things will be coming out of the the homeland sometime soon. In Bombay, I saw an interesting reading of a play about queerness and being outed that concsiously grappled with the issues stereotypical art vs. something better you're talking about. It wasn't the best thing i've ever seen, but it was interesting (and I had to have the whole thing translated from Marathi for me too).

Also, you could go to Seattle for the desi Independent Film Festival that Chapati Mystery has a post on.

There's material in those kinds of stories, but there's so many other interesting situations as well. Who out there has not seen a film with this subplot? But what about the other iterations on the theme? What about how interesting it might be if a turkish person and a desi were to fall in love? Argentinian and Desi, what would it be like to see a desi man falling in love with a woman in a movie?.....maybe we're not able to reproduce that kind of thing with the new digital technology)

There's material in those kinds of stories, but there's so many other interesting situations as well. Who out there has not seen a film with this subplot? But what about the other iterations on the theme?

I saw a bizarre 10-minute short at a 3rd I event about a doctor who oded while doing his 169 hour a week residency--it was mostly drug-addled visions (a la trainspotting) and a weird relationship with the other desi doctor before he proceeded to die, as far as I can remember. Does that count? :)

My rant on the subject:

I’m aching to see a smart, original film in this genre. Something like Srinivas Krishna’s Masala, but less misanthropic, more polished. A film where arranged marriage, bad desi accents, visa jokes and variations on ABCDs/desi/spices in the title are absolutely verboten. Something with a dark emotional palette, Talvin rather than the mathlete rap, Buddha Bar rather than Gerrard Street; the soft-edged precision of a ta note ringing in darkness, a teental jam in a wine-filtered room; a layered flirtation, slowly undone.

Filmmaker, seduce me. I’m waiting for the desi Almodóvar.

Almodovar and desi in the same breath... visions dancing through my head... I'm swooning. ;)

Punjabi Boy,
I just saw Holly Bolly and its awesome.

What with all the talent, humor, etc. on this site, I wonder why nobody has proposed a Sepia Mutiny Entertainment Consortium to come up with the ever-elusive South Asian movie/play that doesn't involve all of the tired old trite stereotyped stuff... Surely we have the abilities...

Sepia Crew

Al Mujahid spoke and he never lies. Promote desi filmakers who do something different. Put Holly-Bolly on the front page. As Al Mujahid said, its awesome.

Holly-Bolly

Director of Holly-Bolly, Dilshad Hussain, says:

"The film also conveys my main ambition in film making, which is to create cool brown people and stories about them. I hope I never make a film about arrange marriages, wife-beating male chauvinists or terrorists."

From this place.

... we're throwing out our first drafts and expecting longevity in these industries. only because of this "affirmative action" are so many of our pieces getting their exposure(and subsequent shit reviews).

But it's the 'affirmative action' or audience interest in off-off-Broadway and indie stuff that trains desi filmmakers, playwrights and actors in the first place. Can't expect the baby to spring full-grown from someone's forehead. The bench is not deep right now.

You see it all the time: the non-desi actors in desi films and plays do better work, they're much more experienced. Desis don't get many roles beyond terrorist, doc or pizza guy. So they get itchy in between roles and go out and do their own indie work. But the writing is weak, because the truly excellent desi writers so far have been done novels and short stories, not films and plays.

There isn't critical mass in the U.S. market yet where those writers are well off enough in their core markets that they'll branch out into film and theater. Rushdie and Jhumpa Lahiri are the only notable ones I've heard are doing so.

Specialized screenwriters and playwrights aren't the business hustlers who have the organizing and fundraising mojo to get movies made. Once the hustlers have raised the money, they want their own crappy story to be produced. They don't have the vision to hand it over, trite though it may be, to a great writer.

All in all, the specialization of roles and bench strength just isn't there yet in the U.S. It's further along in the UK and Canada. It's partly about time, but it's a whole lot about population. So, once again, breed ;)

All that aside, there's always room for an auteur: the original filmmaker or playwright who excels at the art and is good enough at the business.

yes. let's produce some works of these frustrations. entertaining, overblown, developed humor. if audiences know stereotypes, let's subvert them. what we need is something overblown, hilarious, entertaining and poignant instead of hitting viewers over the head with stale messages. i propose the first desi action flick that ain't meant for consumption by just SA audiences. yes, i said action flick, for fuck's sake let's give audiences some spectacle rather than videotaped plays. let's not be hypocrites expecting "them", meaning the industry or other SA artists, to do it for us. if anyone is with me, post here and let's begin at the writing stage...

one more thing, i want to admit that i have been and actor and collaborator in some of these works i've condemned, we must produce a penance piece.

yes, i am serious.

Manish your rant was very literary

dude i'm open to doing something...i'm an ok writer

i'm serious too

A request to all who posted: I've read the very interesting comments since I am prusing my Ph.D on films on the Indian diaspora.

Could you help me answer the question:

Is it worthwhile scholarship to research these films? the white, brown, abcd movie.

I will be extremely grateful for all your answers.

Al and Punjabi Boy,
Holly Bolly is cool but its yesterday's news which is why I haven't posted it. I was on the film committe for the Artwallah festival in Los Angeles last year and we showed it then. It was already "old" by then. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful film and I don't mean to come off as snobbish but we specialize in "hot-off-the-press" stuff when possible.

anand

yes, i said action flick, for fuck's sake let's give audiences some spectacle rather than videotaped plays

Alright, I dont know about action flick, but you make a good point....most of these kinds of movies suffer from a wretched worthiness and embarassing stale self righteous social message and as you say are just like filmed plays....then they get praised to high heaven for their 'bravery' or 'social concern'....give me a break

So you are right....they dont engage in cinema as spectacle, which is what makes cinema different from other artforms like the play...something just for the sheer love of image and storytelling

abhi

I didnt realise it had been around that long

Cecilia

Watch a few of them and then decide for yourself. If you want to study them as sociology then, you know, you can study anything as sociology. Some of them are unoriginal and worthy and full of their own importance. Only a certain kind of film gets commissioned, it seems.

Cecilia, yeah I think its a worthwhile subject...like Punjabi boy said, sociology entails the study of things like these movies....even if they are not good, they're getting made

actually, you are wrong. pink ludoos is not another moview about a young girl caught between two cultures it's a social commentary on the gender bias that exists in the Indian community. you should at least see a movie before you pan it.