Some of my Indian friends tend to be a bit intolerant of Hindi or Punjabi spoken with a bad American or British accent

That is one thing that vexes me when an Indian makes fun of my Punjabi accent because I cant pronounce certain words - and when they do I just laugh at their English stupidities and have a war against freshies as retaliation.

A different question - why does the redubbing bother you?

In an industry where actors don't sing the music coming out of their mouths, and their lines are (probably?) redubbed for release in non-Hindi markets, why bother having any of the lines spoken by the actor at all?

Why not separate the good looking actors and the good sounding actors and unite them for post-production only?

"2. But why is Katrina Kaif in Bollywood to begin with? Why is she getting parts? It's not for her acting ability, which seems pretty minor, at least in Sarkar. I believe she and others are being brought in because they look white."

I think the case of Shashi Kapoor's kids is interesting. Kunal Kapoor and Sanjana Kapoor were not able to get a foothold in Hindi film industry because they were too white. Kunal with natural blond hair and Sanjana light brown hair.

"and the projection of 'western lifestyle' has been a part of Indian movie mythology for at least 40 years. And it's always been somewhat troubling to me -- a sign of a lingering colonial mentality."

troubling to me too (and I am an fob). I absolutely hate those, which I call "wanna be" movies.

As I said in response to Manish's Shazia Deen post, I find this whole concept absolutely ridiculous. I can't even be bothered to articulate it eloquently, I just think it's lame. Getting an essentially foreign girl simply on their looks and having them dubbed is not only daft, it's unnecessary. Lisa Ray and Katrina Kaif are the two I'm thinking about. No of course I don't blame them for having lousy or absent Hindi, but why should Bollywood look to NRIs for a pretty face when there's an abundance on their doorstep?

Amardeep you reckon it's because they look white. Maybe in Lisa Ray's case, but not Katrina Kaif. To be honest, I really don't find Kaif attractive. Yes Bollywood stars don't look like typical Indians, I don't find that a problem, everyone wants to see beautiful people in a movie. If one wants fair girls, you have that with Preity and the like.

The thing that bothers me is as long as Bollywood dubs actors' lines, it will never achieve the professionalism I want it to. I don't agree Ennis, tongue-in-cheek though it might be, that there's no difference in dubbing speech and singing. Western films dub singing as well - being able to act doesn't mean you have to be able to sing. Part of the problem is that, as you pointed out Amardeep, most sound is dubbed on by foley artists and the actors in the post, so there's no incentive for the director to use the actual actors' voices when he can easily pay a fraction to some ugly aunty with flawless diction.

On the other hand...with all these mixed race wooden actors with appalling Hindi...maybe I should try my luck in Bollywood.

The receipe for Hindi movie casting is simple - you gotta be good looking and you goota atleast look Indian, and have some Indian connection.

You can be good looking, but if you have no Indian connection then the masses dont embrace or relate to it.

If good / 'whiter' looks appeal to the mass Indian poplulation, then whats wrong with it? Thats what turns them ON !

As to the redubbing, anyone have any idea as to how many of these stars are actually getting their voices dubbed?
I cant imagine that many!
In katrina's case, I guess shes just too lustfull to not have her on screen at any cost.

I am sure you know what role English plays in India. One could safely say that English belongs to the Indians as much as to anyone else. And yes they speak it with an accent, but that is only if you are hearing it with "American" ears. (I’ve noticed that occasionally on TV, especially on news reports, they do dub over some desi English accents. They tend not to do this with Australian or Scottish accents which can be equally difficult for American ears.)

Anyway Hindi is not an American language. Our competence is nowhere near theirs – not even close. Most of us can’t read or write in a desi language. Let’s face it our Hindi (or other regional language) is “bad” compared to their English.

I believe nearly 90% of Telugu movies have non-Telugu speaking actresses. They are all dubbed. I would venture to say that it is the same for Tamil movies. What seems like a minor oddity in Bollywood is the norm in other places.

If Rekha, Hema Malini and Sri Devi could learn Hindi. I am not sure why the present lot cannot. And you don’t even have to learn to speak it, just pronounce it. Because they don’t have snyc-sound you end up dubbing yourself anyway, how hard could it be to repeat something.

the whiteness was possibly more of a problem back in the day, nowadays you have bipasha basu, etc

Vikrum Sequeira has related posts here and here.

The flip side is that a lot of non-stereotypically desi-looking folks really resent being told they can't possibly be desi: red-haired and freckled Kashmiris, blond sardars, Sindhis, Himachal Pradeshis, Konkanis, light-skinned Punjabis, Nepalis and so on.

1. She was born and raised in England, so why shouldn't she speak Hindi with an accent?
She can with impunity in her daily life but it's not unreasonable to expect her to make an effort to speak semi-proper Hindi if she wants to be a bollywood star...

2. But why is Katrina Kaif in Bollywood to begin with?
Salman Khan baby! She already has "indian content" because of him. In any case, I wouldnt classify her as "white" looking. She's light-skinned but many Indian women are...

To vurdlife - when in the past was whiteness more of a problem than today? Bollywood actresses have always been a spectrum...

"and the projection of 'western lifestyle' has been a part of Indian movie mythology for at least 40 years. And it's always been somewhat troubling to me -- a sign of a lingering colonial mentality."

Well, I think that's probably because alot of Indians in the cities and suburbs there do live alot like westerners. They have AC, foriegn cars, go to nightclubs, etc. It's not like Indians are not doing those things.

On the other hand, India lives it it's villages, and there you will find a more medieval type of setting and lifestyle. But that is a harsh reality and most Indians go to movies to escape their reality. They want fantasy. So for them, watching rich Indians globe trot on screen, well, that's what they're paying for - isn't it.

I don't see the colonial connection at all.

Plus, how many NRI's would go to watch a film about the hardships of Indian rural life? Not many.

Amardeep, you raise a pretty interesting paradox.
I agree, the roots of the attitude are deeply colonial -- a mirror image of Macaulay's infamous Minute on Education:

"We must do our best to form... a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect."

Ah - but is her Hindi any worse than that of Sonia Gandhi?

I'll steer clear of making judgements on beauty - real and/or perceived. To me, the underlying thread in the discussion is that the portrayals in Hindi cinema are not representative of the Hindi-speaking world at large.
I'll broaden this. I used to wonder why Hindi cinema never used last names for the male or female stars. It always used to be Kumar, or Kumari or "Viki Saxena". Anyway... recent movies have happily turned a corner. We see Shuklas, Agnihotris, Chopras, Srivastavas etc. A step in the right direction. It was also odd to never see keshdhaari Sikhs in leading roles in movies - even Punjabi movies for crying out loud -... but we've turned a corner with mainstream cinema showing leading men with turbans which brings me to... Sunny Deol, as big a ham as any. But he doesnt take himself too seruously and thankfully neither do some of his movies... a sign of maturity. I remember this popular movie in which he had a co-actor cast as "Darmyan" Singh. I may be off - but that was one of the more (really!) subtle presentations of gay men in a Hindi movie - and there was a fair bit of innuendo thrown in - earthy, but not cruel or demeaning IMO. Then in another movie - an actor commented about having a painful time sitting because of his previous employment with a Nawab. Our man chipped in with - "Oh-Ho! Nawab sahib shaukeen tabeeyat rakhtey they" - a cute line that wouldnt be out of place on Queer Eye.
Anyway - I've digressed. All I wanted to say was that however bleak it looks, things will continue getting better. Pardon my typos - I was typing away. Also, apologies. I dont get to see Hindi movies too often - so my conclusions can be totally off.

This is an issue that crops up every now and then, and now, thanks to all the attention being lavished on Bollywood in western media circles, it takes on a certain new-ness. While being "fair"/white has always been preferred for heroines (this just doesn't hold up when you consider heroes), one needs to consider how distribution practices have changed over the last 10-15 years.

A lot of the films that reach markets abroad are films that *do not* circulate outside urban India. And this issue gets even more muddled with the boom in multiplexes in cities in India. There are a number of films that are produced for the "B" cicruit (small towns, and some theaters in cities also) in which the heroines don't look like Katrina Kaif. While the colour-issue still is pertinent there, body-types vary widely. So do one of 2 things: (a) broaden the range of what you include in Bollywood, or (b) take Bollywood for what it is: a specific mode of film production (incl narrative) that also involves actresses of Indian origin from the U.S./U.K./other countries. And if you accept (b), then you're overstating what is perhaps another phase.

And, we also need to recognize that Bollywood is ascribed inordinate importance when it comes to talking about "Indianness". I can never say this enough: the regional film industries have their own economy of body-types and ideas about beauty, etc. Again, "fair" is good there, but there too, different circuits of distribution influence casting decisions.

I think this not necessarily an "accent" issue. Foreign born speakers of a language usually don't speak the language with an "accent," they actually pronounce the phonemes incorrectly. This makes it more difficult and often intolerable for a native speaker to listen/understand.

SMR, do you think bollywood has been representative of India in terms of actress skin color? I'll direct you to, for instance, the late 70's early 80s, the zeenat aman and jaya bhaduri days. Who's the darkest mainstream actress you can find from that period?

Can someone please direct us to pics of these blond desis I keep hearing about...?! I'm myself routinely told I don't look desi but I've never seen a blond desi.

Rekha

"To put it very directly: Why is physical difference from Indian norms acceptable (or even desirable), while significant linguistic difference is an impossibility?"

Methinks you should say Hindi rather than Indian. Almost all the Telugu movies that have come out in the last two years have a very un-telugu dubbing voice for the heroines, even when the actress herself is capable of speaking the language. It also seems to me that the dubbing is done by a person putting on the accent rather than speaking naturally, which makes it irritable after one movie and totally intolerable after another.
Here's an unintentionally funny story that bemoans the domination of Bombay Babes in the industry.

you can google "Karan Kapoor" and you can see that he is blond. But he is ONLY half desi.

--RC, I didn't know that about Shashi Kapoor's kids. I wonder if they would have the same problems today? I doubt it, somehow.

--Aswin, good point. I'm willing to accept that this phenomenon might be temporary as well as local to Bollywood. It's certainly not a universal thing by any means. This year we also had Vidya Balan, and even in Sarkar, Katrina Kaif's character was pushed aside in favor of the more ethically and ethnically 'Indian' Tanisha (i.e., Kajol's sister).

--I think in the long-run it's reasonable to expect (following SMR in comment #10) that actors in the Bollywood film industry learn them some Hindi, and use their own voices in their films. At the very least, it will probably make the acting seem more natural (synch sound would help even more, but that's another issue).

--Manish, thanks for those links to Vikrum Sequeira's blog. I didn't know about him before, and I'm impressed (the Barista post was also quite good).

--I'm interested in the thing tef mentions, about the amount of dubbing going on in Telegu and Tamil films. I assume it's because they're using actors from the north -- does it have to do with complexion as well? Are they largely using Punjabi/Sindhi/Kashmiri actors?

--Interesting tidbit: according to the article I linked to at Bollywood Mantra, both Bipasha Basu and John Abraham used dubbing in their first films.

I'm not sure why -- Bipasha Basu was raised in Kolkata... I assume her accent was too Bengali?
And John Abraham is a Bombay boy -- mother a Parsi and father a Mallu Christian. Not sure how he managed to grow up in Bombay without learning at least enough Hindi to overdub himself in "Jism."

Thanks to Amardeep and Manish .... I read Vikram's blog about Barista. It was amazing. Since I have never been to a "Barista" it was really illuminating. (Although I grew up in India, I came to US long before 'Barista' like entities existed) My personal experience was at an expensive hotel in India where my queries in Hindi were responded to in English. (quite pathetic actually)

Such a shame that English speakers in India have this unfair advantage. I have always thought that India can NEVER realize her potential if the bias against non-English speakers continue.

Amardeep,

Complexion has a lot to do with it. But this has always been the case with Telugu films, but they were able to fill the need from within the state.

But now mostly they are "bombay" girls with origins from all over North India. They also have a few actresses from other southern states, who also get dubbed.

The language deficiency seem to encourage/force filmmakers to ‘reduce’ women’s roles. Strangely there was a telugu mini-genre of male-bashing feminist movies at one time and now the movies seem to be moving in the opposite direction

We need to distinguish "whiteness" from "fairness". Whiteness goes beyond (deeper than) race, or color because it also privileges the mental structures of some racially white groups over others.

Fairness, otoh, is a preference seen in many asian societies, including some that were not deeply colonized by the West. As the theory goes, a fairer skin denotes wealth (&health) because you could afford to travel around in A/C cars or have ramu run to corner store, instead of you having to do it under the 110 degree sun.

Sanjay

RC, here's a previous post on Barista.

"Plus, how many NRI's would go to watch a film about the hardships of Indian rural life? Not many."

Uh, Lagaan?

It's well known that having an accent will get you infinitely better service at a Barista.

The interesting bit is that a lot of the Gurgaon/Delhi Barista crowd are the call-center folks who exist in this limbo between the US/UK and India. These folks are pretty much coached to say "'sup dude" on the phone to irate customers from the Midwest and they carry over their accents to the Baristas and the clubs across South Delhi. On my last trip to Delhi, I was shocked at the number of people speaking with pronounced American accents in the nightclubs and coffee-places. I tried chatting some of these people up (ok, so most of them were girls) and they all seemed to be fasicnated with going to New York /LA and working in the US and none of them had ever left the country!

On a mild pedantic note, is it "a fob" or "an f.o.b."? Not that it really matters because apparently fob is ghetto fabulous now.

Fairness, otoh, is a preference seen in many asian societies, including some that were not deeply colonized by the West. As the theory goes, a fairer skin denotes wealth (&health) because you could afford to travel around in A/C cars or have ramu run to corner store, instead of you having to do it under the 110 degree sun.

I have also noticed a similar 'fairness preference' amongst not just other Asians but also Hispanics and Africans . . . The Spanish channel seems to have actors/actresses who look fairer than the average Hispanic.

Some people have suggested that this preference for fairness is a legacy of colonialism. However, was this attitude prevalent even before the British came to India, possibly endorsed by Aryan culture and caste-based society? It is likely that 200 years of colonialism strengthened this already existent discourse . . .

re: fairness. i've commented on this before. here are some plausible points

within a population:

1) women are fairest post-puberty and pre-pregnancy.

2) fairness also tends to correlate with low testosterone levels.

3) in women, low testosterone tends to result in a high estrogen:testosterone ratio.

4) this tends to result in smaller waist:hip ratio, but more importantly, likely has a fecundity correlation, more estrogen being proportional to greater likelihood of fertilization.

the upshot is that there is an ultimate evolutionary reason to prefer "light skin" as compared to the population median for males in regards to females. women darken as they age, have children, and also the darker ones are more likely to be infertile (within a population, this subtly gets missed by many who read my comments on this issue). those who prefer light skin are maximizing their drive for young and fertile women. the opposite would be males who preferred, for example, older women whose complexion was darker due to several pregnancies and approaching menopause (when the estrogen level drops). obviously that would be maladaptive.

a general sociological example could work like so....

1) take some of the biases above as a base.

2) add post-neolithic social stratification.

3) the laborers work in the fields, they get dark relative to the cloistered elite.

4) hypergamy is common, that is, women can marry up. lightness becomes associated with the elite because of environmental differences, but, genetically light-skinned lower class women can "pass" (and there might be a biased preference among elite males for lighter women because of the evolutionary factors above in any case).

5) the passing of genetically lighter women amplifies the phenotypic difference between the elite and the peasantry, coupling the color association.

I dont understand whats wrong with having a preference for lighter skinned women (or men).
People have a preference for tall, short, thin, smooth skin and what not.
Why is having a preference for a tall man benign while having a preference for light skin a suspect liking when both height and skin color cannot be changed (height more so than skin color)
I prefer women who have light color hair and light colored eyes and I know a lot of men who prefer dark haired women with dark eyes.
To each his own.

Some of my Indian friends tend to be a bit intolerant of Hindi or Punjabi spoken with a bad American or British accent

this seriously pisses me off, i usually take the jokes in stride about my poor pronunciation/accent (that is when I understand the slang jokes being thrown around against me) but the minute I call out someone's fobby accent or mispronunciation, it's an affront to humanity and grounds for never speaking to me again...what gives?

I'm not as concerned w/ the fairness or lack thereof of hero/ine (s), I'm really more concerned about the fact that Bollywood literally cannot produce any creative material on its own anymore, that each and every actor/ress is virtually similar in body type/dress/looks and that all movies basically point to some story which has nothing to do about India or Indian life for the most part. Hindi movies should define their niche, right now it's Hollywood East and it sucks. I used to watch hindi movies religiously when I was a kid but then it was just a decade of love story after love story followed by neverending shirt-removals and increasing sexual content for shock value purposes.

"I dont understand whats wrong with having a preference for lighter skinned women (or men)."

I am with AM on this. Really, every society has preferences and standards of beauty. Same way, one can argue that there is a "tanned skin" bias in Hollywood. How most Hollywood leading female actors (actresses) have taned skin. Someone with a trur pale skin with a lot of frackles is not considered desirable. What about that bias??

And those "intellectuals" who are so worried about "fair and lovely" cream should know that an American woman uses several times more cosmetics than a regular Indian woman. So if there is no "bias" here in the west than WTF these women are putting creams and lotions for??

I dont understand whats wrong with having a preference for lighter skinned women (or men).

i tend to agree with you. the only caveat i would add is that i think it is important to focus on the skin color preference in indian society because i'm fucking tired of FOB and overseas browns telling me how racist the west is. hey, at least our brown actresses are 1 standard deviation within the color tone of the normal brown person (even "dark" actresses like bipasha basu seem on the border of 1 std).

I really don't think Amardeep intended for this to kick off a debate about fairness (maybe he did, just guessing!) as that's one we've all heard before.

I just wanted to debunk razib's theory, sorry mate! Fairness doesn't tend to correlate with low testosterone (derived from cholesterol), a lack of hair correlates with low testosterone. Skin colour is due to melanin, which is produced by melanocytes.

The sex hormones (testosterone, luteinising hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone) determine waist:hip ratio and fertility and have no action on melanocytes. Darker-skinned races are more fertile than lighter worldwide. Within a population, skin colour has no bearing on fertility.

Your second theory, I feel, is the correct one - dark represents manual worker in the field, porcelain skin represents high class lady eating bread and honey in the parlour. What what.

I just wanted to debunk razib's theory, sorry mate! Fairness doesn't tend to correlate with low testosterone (derived from cholesterol), a lack of hair correlates with low testosterone. Skin colour is due to melanin, which is produced by melanocytes.

bong, i said within a population for a reason. if the genetic background in the same, for example, among african populations where MC1R (the main regulatory gene of melanin production) then the factors which buffer gene expression to the phenotype are important. in other words, that is the reason that within populations males are 10% darker in reflectance measures than females. same genes, different color, because the expression is modulated. in fact, skin color is a polygenic trait anyway, so you don't need to focus on modulation of one gene. the modulation is also why women darken as they age, especially after menopause.

now, variation in skin color between populations is due to genetic differences (correcting for environment), but, i made it a point several times to emphasize i was looking at within population variance. of course, in a place like the USA the genetic background is varied because of the admixture of populations from very different regions. but this isn't the evolutionarily standard state.

so you missed the point i tried to make several times.

this seriously pisses me off, i usually take the jokes in stride about my poor pronunciation/accent (that is when I understand the slang jokes being thrown around against me) but the minute I call out someone's fobby accent or mispronunciation, it's an affront to humanity and grounds for never speaking to me again...what gives?

oh wow, you're hitting a nerve with me, Lovin. I wish I had an answer for this. I too have been repeatedly frustrated by certain people who continue to laugh and make fun and tease me for my slow, carefully (incorrectly at times) pronounced Hindi. They say "hahaha I couldn't even understand your hindi because your accent is so bad!"

(well I can *read* hindi and your kids can't, so eat somma dat!)

but yeah, it's not so hahaha if you point out that their FOBby english isn't anywhere near great, even though they've spent 30 years in the US and I've only spent 2 years casually trying to learn Hindi. Instead of helping out and being a good tutor or something, I guess it's easier to criticize and laugh at someone trying a new language and taking the time and energy to learn...

I think the bigger question is - why the hell is she dating Salman Khan?

from page 57 of survival of the prettiest (you can do an amazon search if you want):

At puberty...Boy's voices deep, their skin darkens...A girl's skin lightens

the genes don't change, development does. development is buffered by various genetic factors, not just the genes which directly control the synthesis of melanocytes.

I really don't think Amardeep intended for this to kick off a debate about fairness (maybe he did, just guessing!) as that's one we've all heard before.

Bongbreaker, You're right, here I was interested more in language issues-- Hindi as a barrier vs. English as a barrier.

But it's all good (well, mostly -- this discussion has skewed male a bit and bordered on sexism at times, unfortunately). And I must admit that I'm the one that brought it up with my framing of the paradox; the fairness issue does overlap with the language issue.

Regulation of the human melanocortin 1 receptor expression in epidermal melanocytes by paracrine and endocrine factors and by ultraviolet radiation:

We conclude that the MC1R is regulated by paracrine factors, including its own ligands, by specific endocrine sex hormones, and by UVR. Differences in the responses of NHM to some of these factors suggest differential regulation of MC1R gene expression, which may contribute to the variation in constitutive and UV-induced cutaneous pigmentation in humans.

razib

For some reason, I could not stop laughing when I read your last post and clicked on the link - you are just so supafly in your science.

You win todays Gold Star for best post of the day!

oh wow, you're hitting a nerve with me, Lovin. I wish I had an answer for this. I too have been repeatedly frustrated by certain people who continue to laugh and make fun and tease me for my slow, carefully (incorrectly at times) pronounced Hindi. They say "hahaha I couldn't even understand your hindi because your accent is so bad!"

i usually try not to get upset about ppl's cracks on my accent/pronunciation, it comes w/ the territory, but the funny part was when I told my cousins in India (who usually do most of the ribbing) to come over the pond to the states and see how they'd get undressed in a second for their accents they stop laughing and are like "what? why would you do that to other Indians?"...i guess in some way,shape or form, those of us ABCDs (or derivatives thereof) don't technically count as Indian... I've known indians born and raised in Dubai who claim they're more indian bcuz they 'go there all the time'...wtf?

you can google "Karan Kapoor" and you can see that he is blond. But he is ONLY half desi.

Blond? I dont see it.

SMR, Rekha !?

How about this one
He used to be in Bombay Dyeing Ads on TV in India. Looked blond.

I am 4th generation South African Desi. Want to know when everyone stopped speaking the Indian languages completely?
Most desi people think they have a hard time cos they were born here and arent Indian enough. I think its hilarious! You should meet the desis (sp?) in the rest of the world.
Listen for most of us who have existed outside of India for decades, we are just happy to know where in India we originated from! BTW, 90% of the people I know who are multi generation global indians dont know where from India they originated...

Anglo-looking actors and actresses

They look more middle-eastern (i.e. Iranian or Syrian) than Anglo to me.

The linguistically normal, yet physically abnormal representation of Indians in Bollywood is strange.

Then again so is the physically normal yet linguistically challenged representation of Indian-Americans in Hollywood.

I blame Vestern influences.

Razib, genetics fascinates me, though I'm not much of a "scientist".

Are you a geneticist?

Where does this "eugenics" thing come into play in genetic research?

Are you a geneticist?

Where does this "eugenics" thing come into play in genetic research?

my training is as a biochemist. i am currently involved in a project that does involve genetics, and it is a deep interest.

as for eugenics, well, you are seeing it right now. only prolife people have babies with down syndrome now, as there are tests to check for abnormalities and most mothers opt to abort. of course, this issue is not heritable down the generations (more due to age and degradation of the eggs), but there are other tests and "precautions" that people are taking which are altering gene frequencies.

evolution never stops ;) if you are curious, check out my weblog, gene expression. we talk about genetics a lot.

Razib, I sincerely didn't mean to get your goat nor try to make you look foolish. I apologise as you seem to have gone to some lengths to back yourself up. I'm quite willing to accept I'm wrong, I'm no expert and I can't be bothered to google at this juncture. However I did get your point, hence the reason I put the exact phrase 'within a population' in my post.

I did a research project on proopiomelanocortin (POMC), the precursor to ACTH, melanocortin and lots of other things. I freely admit I've forgotten most of it. In pregnancy, or Addison's (excess ACTH) the skin darkens due to the effect of ACTH, not MSH (melanocyte-stimulating hormone), as is It acts as an analogue. MSH and ACTH are both derived from POMC - they're two of the melanocortins. The members of the melanocortin family have varied actions - only alpha-MSH has a major role in pigmentation. ACTH's primary function is at the adrenals, including up-regulating testosterone. So whilst the actions of testosterone are tied to that of MSH, I don't believe testosterone has any direct effect on melanocytes. Or maybe it does. The Medline article you cited doesn't specify what sex hormones they're talking about in the abstract. Your book (written by a psychologist) is probably right.

Nice blog though.

Just to bring in a different perspective: Michelle Yeoh can't speak proper Mandarin to save her life. But one of her most famous movies was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which is in Mandarin. Born in Malaysia, her first languages are Malay and English, and her Chinese is Cantonese. Someone--sometimes even Ang Lee himself-- would have to write out the day's shooting script in pinyin (phonetic Chinese) and help her pronounce it. She would spend hours memorizing lines phonetically, and when Ang Lee would change the script during shooting she would have minor nervous breakdowns. This in a physically demanding role and after a broken knee. I'm told that her accent was audible and distracting even to American-raised Chinese who are non-Mandarin dialect speakers themselves. Knowing all this, Ang Lee--who had plenty of fx tech available to him--still used her voice, with sync sound. And I've never heard someone complain about her accent vehemently enough to suggest he should have dubbed her; they still wanted Michelle Yeoh to do the acting. I think this speaks to the extent to which most directors take sound and voice incredibly seriously. There's a great making-of on the Harold and Kumar DVD mocking this seriousness, but it can be mocked to good effect precisely b/c it's real and important. Now, Ang Lee might not have taken so much trouble with a lesser actress, or for a lesser film, but all things being equal, it was obviously important to him. And she worked really hard to fit in with that priority. Ever watch the making-of portions of the latest Chinese exports? The sense of artistic discipline and drive you get from the actors is amazing. Takeshi Kaneshiro works in three languages (Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin), and read up on archaic Tang Era expression. so he could inflect his Mandarin properly.

Now that's a very different market structure from Bollywood, and a very different class of films. It requires a lot of time and effort, a real market for that kind of quality, and a good script that is solidified long before shooting to base your preparations around. It's absolutely unfair to compare Sarkar to House of Flying Daggers, for instance. But even the highest production value, lovingly scripted films like Devdas and Lagaan often seem to lack that final buff of perfectionist polish. A good counterexample: it's really inspiring to watch Monsoon Wedding and hear the director's commentary; which lines were spoken in Hindi, English, or Punjabi was all carefully thought about.

Western actors do this kind of thing to a lesser extent but very frequently. Nicole Kidman has a really thick Aussie accent, but she also has a dialog coach for all her films. If you read Christopher Reeve's first memoir, he talks about the accent books they have at Julliard, and how hard he worked just to master a Southern Accent for The Bostonions. Charlize Theron would spend hours listening to American audio, carefully repeating, to erase her Afrikaans accent. Adrien Brody hung out with Polish relatives for The Pianist. Benicio Del Toro has an American kid accent, but put together a thick Baja brogue for Traffic. We all know about Meryl Streep.

I can't believe there aren't any beautiful, even Anglo, desi-2nd generation actresses who speak good Hindi. Maybe someone just knows her and wants to help her out, b/c we all know how hard it is for desi Actresses to get traction in the west. Wouldn't Kaif have a hard time getting roles even in the UK? And if Bollywood has such a strong relationship with its expats and their descendants, why no roles for what Kaif is---a second generation Indian-Brit trying to make her fortune back in India? The real proboelm is a paucity of scripting vision in the end, here, there, everywhere.

Interesting point. I watch a lot of Chinese and Japanese cinema. Whilst comparing Indian cinema to Japan is a bit unfair in some respects, I think comparing it to China's film industry is fair game. And in my opinion, Chinese films are superior to Indian, for the exact reasons you mentioned Saheli. Although, Michelle Yeoh was a huge star before CTHD, so dubbing her would have never been on the cards even if they did all that.

I find the idea of a Bollywood director painstakingly waiting upon a star to master the subtle nuances of the accent or dialect they're supposed to be portraying laughable. Perhaps there are some. The stars are no better, out of the current generation of actors and actresses, the only one I can think of who has not played the same character in every movie is Aamir Khan.

The vast majority of Indian films, leave aside just Bollywood, are vapid and superficial - the paucity is not simply in scripting Saheli, it's far wider reaching than that.

The casting of actors has been no different than the reason why hindi movies are so succesful in the first place.
A hindi movie, as i try to explain to non-desi's are fantastical and overly melodramatic because no one wants to see realism in their movies. A movie on poverty is not so successful, because a lot of times the mass public has a first hand experience of the poverty. They dont need to go to a movie to be reminded of the same.
Its the same with the actors. They need actors that are 'flashy' looking and of a lighter hue...because no one wants to go to a movie and see people that might resemble themselves.
If in the West movies are supposed to take you far away, in India, movies are supposed to take viewers to another planet.

p.s. is the site gonna be better-ly compatible with firefox. the comment section is broke!

p.s. is the site gonna be better-ly compatible with firefox. the comment section is broke!

Broken how? I just left this comment using Firefox. Please use the contact form at the top right of the home page.

Its the same with the actors. They need actors that are 'flashy' looking and of a lighter hue...because no one wants to go to a movie and see people that might resemble themselves.

At the same time, Ritesh, bollywood movies present a dreamworld don't they? A sort of perfect lifestyle that people wish they had. So doesn't skin colour become one of those marks of perfection?

I saw Sarkar on the weekend, first bollywood movie i've seen in the theaters. It was much better than I had expected, although the katrina kaif girl was pretty bad

The only main actors who looked like they wouldnt look out of place on an indian street were the bad guys, minus the swami (maybe?), that's telling isn't it?

and the one tamil guy was sort of a jackass, what was that line? "style from south...", that was lame.

known indians born and raised in Dubai who claim they're more indian bcuz they 'go there all the time'...wtf?

Dubai or Gulf born Indians live like they would have lived in India for the most part.
They go to school with all Indians, hang out with Indians and all their parents friends are Indians.
They speak Hindi with no accent and speak English with an Indian accent.
They have Indian passports and virtually no rights in the Gulf.
They have almost no social interaction with the local Arabs and very few speak any Arabic.
I am not surprised that they consider themselves more 'Indian' than ABCDs.
I wonder if its even possible for them to be more Indian ?

I wonder if its even possible for them to be more Indian ?

Seriously, dude. That's like saying State Department or Army brats aren't really American just b/c they spent most of their lives living on bases/in embassies. Not to mentin all manner of other American expat kids.

It would be great to have a day of Sepia without The Great Label Debates.

Sometimes ago, on sepia mutiny I had myself raised the comparison with Chinese film industry. They have recently(in last 5-10 years) reached new heights (with some help from hollywood and Chinese diaspora but not entirely) even though their film industry had languished for years and still faces a lot of hurdles. I am not even comparing with Japanese film industry.

Indian film is lot older (and had always environment to grow) but it seems (barring few exceptions) is going in other direction in terms of creativity. As regards skin color, we always are fixated about lighter skin. The Gandhi-Nehru family is fairer than 99% of Indians and even Martin Luther King noticed this when he visited India.

Kush

PS: I am a fan of Ms. Rai's grace and beauty but the latest Devdas is no comparison to Dilip Kumar/ Bimal Roy's version. It lacked empathy.

In response to Al Mujahid and Lovin,
Im a fresh of the boat indian (sort of. been in IN, GA and NJ for the past 6 years, so i feel safe with my mullet), and have noticed a key difference between Indians born in the US, UK and Aus., and the ones born and living in other indian populated regions (Hong Kong, Dubai, and other middle east parts). The difference is that the 'other' indians dont seem to care about who they are as much as the 'westerners' seem to. It seems like being Indian in the West is more taboo. It could also be that in the middle east, Indians fit into the crowd more easily. Im not sure why this is, but there is always a conflict within most ABCD's about their identity. My friends from Dubai dont get bogged down by their identity as much as the westerners do. Plus, there is a consistent attempt by ABCD's to be different. They will go to extreme measures to not be confused as the skinny, tight jeaned, fake t-shirt indian.
In any case, if you guys think you have it bad, i am a DCBA. A 'Desi confused by America'. But i dont have an identity crisis about it.

ps. admin, i again couldnt preview or post with firefox. The buttons once pressed wouldnt do anything besides flicker the page.

Plus, there is a consistent attempt by ABCD's to be different. They will go to extreme measures to not be confused as the skinny, tight jeaned, fake t-shirt indian.

could you explain this please? I'm not sure how abcd's take extreme measures.

By the same token, i see many fobs (not trying to be mean, just saying the term) who constantly criticize how things are over here in the US, how they don't want their kids to grow up here, and particularly how sensitive they are to other ppl's views of them. It's not just the ABCDs that need to come around.

Why is physical difference from Indian norms acceptable (or even desirable), while significant linguistic difference is an impossibility?

This is a really good question! Here are my attempts at some answers:

1) The producers think the consumers of these products they're thinking of prefer this, for whatever reason, (which I assume are desi even though the films are watched worldwide by nondesis).
2) Fairness and Hindi-centrism are both values held by the current Indian elite since independence.
3) The increase in power of the Indian state and the Indian elite and Bollywood are being reflected in some linguistic chauvinism.
4) They've seen any of Andy McDowell's movies and are worried about what poor delivery of lines can do to an audience.

I'm not sure why -- Bipasha Basu was raised in Kolkata... I assume her accent was too Bengali?

I've never heard her speak and don't speak Hindi myself, but I've been told Bangalis are notoriously bad at Hindi. Interesting note: Bangla and English, are, to my knowledge, the only two Indo-European languages without gender.

this discussion has skewed male a bit and bordered on sexism at times, unfortunately).

;)

I like what Manish pointed out about non stereotypically looking Indians- Considering how kids in my school ( yes Indian kids) wouldnt believe that I was Indian ( I looked more oriental, and East Indian didnt work coz of lighter skin).
On a side note, it does make for interesting incidents as orientals approach me and start off in their languages ( trying to be friendly) and then after 5 mins of one-sided conversation ( that I didnt follow), they realise something is wrong and ask :
Are you not filipino/Japanese/Korean?

With regards to discussion on Indians from places like dubai, hong kong etc. I lived in the Gulf for a very long time and as Mujahid (?) pointed out, we do not feel the need to 'fit' in.Infact, unless you think about it, you don't realise you are not in India- which may sound ridiculous but it strikes you when people in India ask 'so did you miss India' and you think'no' not just because (for some) you dont care to be in India, but coz really you had everything Indian around you anyway so you don't miss the country as much.
I do however think a big reason for this is that places like dubai have a huge Indian population as compared to the locals, whereas in the west ,while Indians do form a sizable population, the ratio of Indians to Non-Indians/non south asian is significantly lower.

Lovin and someone else pointed out their annoyance when their accents were picked on but they couldnt pick on fobs for their accent.
I do agree that it is unfair that you guys are picked on for your accents ( when you speak Indian languages) but I think you cannot compare it with picking on fobs . The reason for this is : There is a difference with picking on fobs and the parody of Appu on Simpsons. Typically not knowing English is considered to be 'lower' ( therefore non-english speakers are discriminated in India with jobs) and to not be able to speak English without the Indian accent is also looked down upon. while you guys may not have had this in mind when you picked on them, other people do. This in my opinion, stems from being colonised and the the bias that is internalised.
though I am not a resident of UK, I have made several trips there and oddly enough I always seem to find Brits taking a pick on Indians for their accents and this is usually done in a tone which is clearly meant to degrade Indians. Therefore, inability to speak English without your Indian accent is looked down upon as you are not considered 'educated enough'.
I personally do not favour taking digs at fobs and NRI's speaking with accents. I prefer to appreciate the efforts of the latter and to not make the former feel uncomfortable.
( im not a 'fob' neither do i speak hindi with an accent. It's challenging for people to make fun of my accents for both languages *phew* saved)

also, while Kaif , Ray and Yana gupta are much hyped over , I am glad that actresses like Rani,Kajol, Bipasha, Nandita Das are successful and sought after despite their darker skin tone owing to their acting talents ( ok maybe not as much for Bipasha). While some of these darker skinned women do have the family connections to get into films, I would argue it is their talent that helped them to stay and land some good roles ( eg Rani in Black)

Vidushi,

True, except for Nandita Das, who has struggled to find a foothold since her roles in 'Fire' and 'Earth' (which were both produced with Canadian money, and were hence not 'Bollywood' films). The last major Bollywood film she was in was 'Supari' a couple of years ago, and even that, as I recall, was a flop.

My feeling is that her complexion is too dark for B-wood film producers (or audiences) to accept her in romantic lead roles.

If not Bollywood, maybe 'Mollywood' -- I thought she was quite good in Mani Ratnam's film "Kannathil Muthamittal ("Peck on the Cheek"), a Tamil language film that came out 2-3 years ago.

Amardeep, I agree with you about Das's lack of popularity with masses.
However, I think movies like bhandarkar's Page 3 and Chandni bar are heartening not only because they are artsy but because the focus on being 'fair' is not there. Who knows, the fair beauty trend might change if these movies get more acclaim.
I wonder why you guys do not discuss art movies as this blog seems to be a good place to make people aware of all those good Indian (albeit few) movies out there. Or have I just missed those posts since I'm new?
Honestly, I do not bother with Kaif, Celina type movies so I can't discuss their works ( or lack of it) .

Also, it is intereting to note that NRI's have started venturing into VJ-ing. I saw a documentary of some Indian- Canadian who landed a spot on channel V recently. Dont remember her name. And sometime back Anushka( I think), from Australia, won the MTV VJ hunt.

Nandita Das was on the Cannes jury this year. I seem to recall another Indian actress getting a hell of a lot more coverage for the same achievement.

Vidushi, I haven't been here that long either but wait a bit and independent Indian cinema is guaranteed to crop up as a topic - just check back through some old topics.

This in my opinion, stems from being colonised and the the bias that is internalised.

i can see the rationale of this however, just as speaking improper english is viewed/stigmatized as uneducated/lower class, the same rationale should be applied the other way around as speaking hindi w/o the proper accent to many fobs indicates a lack of cultural awareness, when it is not always true. I agree w/ you though, the effort that someone is trying to speak to you in a foreign tongue should be looked upon as a positive in that they care enough to want to be part of your culture.

I agree with you there Lovin but 'usually' fobs get their impressions from Indian movies ( eg Purab aur Paschim-couldnt think of anything recent). While these portrayals are not always wrong it is unfair to assume without giving people a chance. But I think ( and hope) fobs learn eventually that their assumptions are not always true.

Forget ABCDs and FOBs - try being a white girl speaking Hindi in India - man! you REALLY get made fun of then. However I think they do it in jest and with affection. Mostly they are impressed that a "firangi" is making an attempt at "going native". Still, makes you real self-conscious.

I am glad that actresses like Rani,Kajol, Bipasha, Nandita Das are successful and sought after despite their darker skin tone owing to their acting talents.

Am I the only one who would not describe any of these actresses as "dark"?

bdeshini : the key word is dark-er ; hence it is a relevant term since comparison is with the likes of celina, kaif,ash,kareena, preity etc :)

I'm with you Bdeshini.
They are not dark.
But that is what we are supposed to believe.

I agree with you there Lovin but 'usually' fobs get their impressions from Indian movies

i don't know about that, for the most part they tend to be a lot more knowledgeable about the outside world than do Americans. I think what happens is though that cultures in which sex, drugs, mental illness etc is not necessarily a stigma are 'exotic' to them and from there many of them form general impressions that these lifestyles are the norm. I know some of my cousins in India assumed that I was getting laid daily in college due to their belief that white girls are easy, and they said they believed this bcuz of the teen pregnancy rate and availability of drugs and alcohol.

While I was proud to receive undeserved credit for attracting the opposite sex (I had a hell of a time getting dates, a whole different topic! :P), they were really surprised to learn that our single parenting rate was way less than what is in scandinavian countries, or that comparatively speaking to other developed countries, the US is actually more conservative regarding these topics.

On the other hand, i have seen people from here go there and totally mess it up for the rest of us who want to connect over there. My female cousin from here is an example, as are my sisters. My stupid cousin visited our bhua in the village where everyone lives in a HUGE joint family and the women are very low key, and generally subservient. Now here in the US, it's not cool, but there that's life. This idiot cousin of mine goes in and gives them a lecture about how it's bullshit to be subservient and domestic housewives and is telling their kids that they need to learn to be independent and not heed the advice of their parents on certain matters. Needless to say she caused some heart attacks.

My sisters also have a hard time of following local custom. My older cousins in india are drunkards and goofballs, they mean well, but are careless. So they were shooting guns off the roof at night and woke everyone up and got the cops called over, and my sisters who are 10-15 yr younger than my cousins started yelling at them for being inconsiderate and childish. I'm trying to tell them to settle down and that youngers don't yell at elders but they weren't hearing it. Needless to say I think they're not going to be hanging out anytime soon. So it does go both ways to an extent.

Where are the monitors?

"racist, abusive, illiterate, content-free or commercial comments rants will be deleted."

A poster has been posting under a racist term "white t---" with impunity.

Lovin : What I observed was that fobs tend to think :

a. white girls are 'trash'.

b. brown girls here are not at par with brown girls from 'back home'. for the most part, fobby guys thought brown girls would also fit in category a. if they weren't too 'brown'. Seen a few nasty comments coz of that. I cannot ignore remarks by brown guys ( here) of wanting to marry a girl from India.

I agree with you on that they think this is because of teen pregnancies etc. But I still hold Indian media partly responsible for this as it does feed these stereotypes. I know of guys who have come here from their respective small towns and villages, really their knowledge of teen pregnancies et al issues isn't as good [ as I discoevered from conversation].
So the majority may not be deriving their information from media, but a few do.

As for being more knowledgable,Americans/Canadians tend to think the world revolves around them/their continent. I read about every murder case in Canada in the national newspapers but somehow they fail to cover the bombay floods that claimed 1000 lives, the mysterious pig flu in China. I mean really, how can you fit into 3 pages of world news , like National post vs the remaining 17 for Canadian/American/ war on terror news.
We are made ignorant.

This skin-color thing has to be one of the most irritating (at best) and horrifying (at worst) desi obsessions.

And it's just AMAZING, really, when some of us decide to cast a professional scientific eye on the issue and pronounce iron-clad reasons why lighter skin is genetically preferable. Here's a dunce hat - go sit in the corner.

How the hell can we, as a group, try to correct western assumptions about us, when we're so goddamn busy parsing the pigmentation, accents and presumed values of each other!!

Amardeep, I don't think the preference for the physical appearance of whiteness mixed with a classy, sometimes English-inflected, but still authentic Hindi-speaking capability is paradoxical as much a still present symptom of colonial ass-licking and caste-pride superiority. The sheer stupidity of both frankly aren't worth discussing.

And for all you speculators: I'm not American-born, I'm dark, my English and native accents are perfectly acceptable(even if the latter is rusty), and when I went back to visit after living in the US for 5 years the first thing my relatives said was, "ohhhh! But you've gotten so daaarkkk!! How can that happen in Amrika??" Nice to see you too.

By the way, Amardeep, I didn't mean that as any sort of criticism. Your writing ability, thoughtfulness and breadth of knowledge are always astonishing. Perhaps I'm rushing to conclusions here but I think that asking for Indian-inflected English to be accepted by westerners in general is different from asking the same when auditioning for a film.

An Australian actor can't play an American unless he switches accents, so much the same way, I don't think Katrina can be believable playing a native-born role with accented Hindi. I agree with this - I believe she and others are being brought in because they look white. - and would also add that it might be because (of the presumption that) they're more likely to not fuss over revealing clothing and sex scenes. I'm NOT judging morality, values, etc, of anyone...just repeating something that foreign-born or totally foreign actresses themselves say in filmi magazines.

This skin-color thing has to be one of the most irritating (at best) and horrifying (at worst) desi obsessions.

I am not sure if preference for light skin is 'horrifying'.
Indians usually prefer men to be tall and women to be light skinned.
I am not sure why one preference benign while the other is evil.

why one preference IS benign *

I am not sure why one preference benign while the other is evil.

Because we do not hear of Indian men resorting to extreme measures such as surgery to increase their height . Nor do Indian men get passed over for jobs/opportunities if they are not tall enough.
But the quest for fairer skin is an everyday happening for browns. Prime time television is bombarded with fairness creams, soaps and lotions. So much so that even Estee Lauder has seen the potential for fairness products and has introduced them. This is a big deal because these fairness products contain abnormally high and unsafe quantities of mercury and hydroquinone (amongst other ingredients).

Some of the problems with mercury are :

Neurotoxic problems such as ataxia, speech and hearing impairment; mental problems such as irritability, fearfulness, and depression; kidney problems such as mercury-induced nephropathy ; and immunotoxicity Research has shown that continued and prolonged use of these products causes various forms of cancer and deformities.

A muslim feminist woman wrote an excellent article on the race, gender politics of fariness products recently. I cannot recall her name- can anyone help me out?

Nor do Indian men get passed over for jobs/opportunities if they are not tall enough.

Actually, some research does show height bias in the workplace:

... in the workplace, each inch above average may be worth $789 more per year...

Sorry Manish. It should have read ' Indian men are not passed over jobs/opportunities if they are not tall enough, on a larger scale ' [ in comparison with darker skinned women vs fair one to highlight point : fairness is given a heavy weightage when indian/asian/african women are being judged]

It's horrifying for me because I live now in a country that once had a "one drop" rule as law, about whether a person was white or not. Because that theory is "still influential," according to Wikipedia. Because I'm so damn tired of people who fall into the "not" catagory sizing each other up on a spectrum not of their own making, one that sets snow white on the candy end of the lollipop.

I don't care if you desi men prefer biscuit, caramel, cafe au lait, or some other edible color for your mates. Saying you prefer "fair" is still playing into an old and tragic myth. I don't care if men are discriminated based on height - so are women. I don't see any supermodels under 5'8", do you? Short women have as hard a time in business as short men. Worse, in fact, since women and earn 20% less to every male dollar earned (see penultimate paragraph).

In the 1700s, women ate arsenic to look paler, and the search goes on. I don't mean to rant, and yes, we are all entitled to our preferences, but it does strike me as odd, that these desi males casually professing to prefer "fair" complexions. I think it would be great if we all just miscegenate, but I find most desis hung up on fair skin also want a 'proper indian girl.' What a quandry, no?

According to this white supremecy website, third world immigration is seen as a threat greater only to "Chinese communism", and faaaar behind the "International Jewry" (take a look, really. It's all kinds of pathetic, ignorant and hilarious), but forum memebers still had this to say:

I feel that the most current, in your face enemy is the brown tide, flowing across America like a tidal wave of raw sewage.

The brown wave of sludge washing over us is a real danger to us folk, whether mestizo or not. The brown "culture", if one can call it that, is so different from anything we've built in this country, and it doesn't show any sign of assimilating.

Yes, they're probably a tiny bunch of inbred psychos. But I feel like it's the crayzees who're most likely to go after some harmless sardarji..

I'm don't mean to be as chicken-little-ish as this might sound..(I think someone actually said that about me on some other Sepia thread. Hmm)...I'm just sad that these neuroses linger on.

It's horrifying for me because I live now in a country that once had a "one drop" rule as law, about whether a person was white or not.

Funny - according to this theory, I'm a "colored person," and those who know me here can attest that I'm about as white as they come. :)

I think racists are more concerned with what their eyes tell them than some blood quantum. I may pass for Norwegian, but my mom wouldn't, and my grandfather absolutely not. Funny then, that he's one of the more racist people I've encountered in my life ;) Luckily, cicatrix, most racists are of his variety - blowing smoke from the armchair - than the "get out there and kill the brown people" variety. In fact, those guys who talk all that garbage on websites probably are the same ones who cross the street and put their hands on the wallet when a black guy comes walking their way. They're cowards, not fighters.

You do have your share of crazies, but your chance of getting killed by one is probably less than getting killed by a car on your morning commute...

Because we do not hear of Indian men resorting to extreme measures such as surgery to increase their height

Skin tone can be lightened pretty easily when compared to the surgery required to increase your height.
The abundance of skin lightening products might have something to do with the fact that they work. If height could be increased with lotions, there would be more height increasing lotions than cereal boxes in a grocery store.

Al Mujahid, since you brought up male insecurity vis-a-vis purchasing power, I'm so terribly tempted to make a bad viagra joke right now....

Al Mujahid, the link I posted shows a breakdown of disorders due to repeated use of fairness products. Yes it is easier to use them but their effect comes at a high cost, one usually not known by the users. In the long term, these products build up in the body and result in various serious health problems.
The Indian man's preference for fairer women has a higher health cost vs the short-term pain to surgery to increase height. I do not know of any long term side effects from this surgery.

Andrea, I'm not bothered about getting killed by a racist nutjob, or, for that matter, a terrorist nutjob. I just find it sad that people who aren't considered 'white' by, basically, 'white people'...can spend so much fucking time rating themselves on some pale-scale.

I'm not fair, at all. I don't worry about. But times like when a black guy said "Indian girls have such great hair and skin color" to me, in front of a black girl...The look on her face was just heart-breaking. It's not limited to desis, obviously. And it's so stupid, I can't stand it.

On Deepa's "Lagaan" example to the comment that not many Indians want to sit through movies about people toiling in the fields...I don't think Lagaan really qualifies. Those peasants slaving away under the relentless sun were still quite prettified, in a Milagro Beanfield War kind of way, much as those in Swadesh were.

On the subject of perceptions, and misperceptions, of the U.S. and "The West" in general, in Swadesh when Shahrukh Khan's character is invited to some village event and one of the elders says "People in America have no culture", I thought to myself "Here we go again", but I was suprised to hear SRK's character say "No, that's not true, they have their own culture too, etc etc".

ABOUT KUNAL KAPOOR:

To contradict "RC on August 2, 2005 12:11 PM "
Kunal doesn't look 'too white for movies' and doesn't have blonde hair from what I've seen on the web: http://specials.rediff.com/movies/2004/feb/27sld1.htm and he does have roles in Hindi movies
http://www.apunkachoice.com/people/act599/
He's married to another Bollywood Royal Family
http://www.junglee.org.in/kunal.html

As far as race vs. language first off, the profession of acting is considered a very bad thing to do socially, and the people drawn to it were marginalized anyway. Bollywood has an excess of actors who are muslim, parsee, Anglo-Indian, and even Jewish (Pramila, Bollywood actress, first Miss India
other Bollywood actors include: Helen, David, Nadira & Sulochawa)http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-asian-jews

The "paleness" came easily - people who went into making films for lack of other options happened to be pale. Yes, paleness is idealized because pale people stay pale when they don't work in the hot sun all day (in China same fondness for palour, and small feet!). Of course there is a prejudice factor too but other things come into play as well.

Accents: in Britain a proper theatre accent for serious roles (e.g. educated) and the regional strong accents for comic roles. Standard. It's not INDIA that makes these rules it is the profession of theatre. A lot of Tamil actors (Kamal Hassan most notibly) are excellent but have 'Tamil accented Hindi' and the audience won't accept it - so Kamal's Bombay exploits were flops.... and you wonder why they dub?
In the west same thing: the silent films went to talkies from the 1920's onwards, and many many actors careers crashed to a halt (or lived briefly through dubs then crashed). VOICE is a huge part of the experience of fantasy for these characters, serious, melodious 'perfect' Hindi goes with being 'perfect' looking - the audience wants it. We know that from Kamal Hassan and other Southern Actors who failed to thrive in the North. The only exception is if the accent itself is in demand, as were French accents in the 1930's and 40's in Hollywood for Romantic leads.

hello people....i'm sasha. I'm in 8th grade and I live in Seattle. My mother is Hispanic..French..n English. My dad is Black..n Indian. I love bollywood. But don't u notice that all the bollywood actresses are light skined like Aishwarya. I luv all the girls...don't get me wrong and Ash is goregous but your average indian girl is not light like that. Indian people aren't white. They need to stay in the culture and put your authentic indian girls in there. They also always have white girls as the dancers in the films sometimes. If i wanted to see white girls...i can just watch American tv. So bollywood needs stay in their culture n put the beautiful brown gurls in their. *BROWN PRYDE*

Meenakshi,
You tried to contradict me but gave links of all the WRONG Kunal Kapoors. (I know 2 other Kunal Kapoors, who dont look anywhere near like any film leading men :-) )

I was talking about Karan Kapoor, who is Shashi Kapoor's younger son. Kunal Kapoor did have a semi-hit movie.

anyway its too late to debate it now