May 17, 2007
A Third Serving of CasteComics
…via SAJAforum. This ran in the WSJ today, as we were still discussing caste on this blog. What excellent timing for a barely-mediocre cartoon.
What do you think? Over at SAJA, commenter Sendhil had the following to say, which left me giggling:
If this is from the WSJ’s “Pepper… and Salt” spot, it’s not unusual that it’s not funny. Those cartoons are funny less often than “Fred Bassett”. I have concluded that they must serve some other, hidden, purpose, like sending coded messages about tomorrow’s Dow performance to the members of the Trilateral Commission.
Fred Bassett? Ouch.
anna on May 17, 2007 03:41 PM in Comics, Issues, Short · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Now you're just competing with yourself when you're a scant 5 from 400 on the other one! Patience!
What "caste" would a dopey white xenophobic WSJ reader be anyway?
what about mary worth (RIP) versus fred bassett?
Mary Worth is dead?!!!?!!? The guys at Comics Curmudgeon must be so sad...
I hope there's a Patel out there I can talk to...
What "caste" would a dopey white xenophobic WSJ reader be anyway?
WSJ editorial page is not xenophobic at all so the regular readers cant be that xenophobic either.
Loopy and wrongheaded? Yes. Xenophobic? probably not.
By the way I am regular WSJ reader (by far the best reporting in the U.S.)
siiiiiiigh, y'all are too stuck on "accuracy" and such. Ok, what "caste" would dopey xenophobic fans of this cartoon be? Better?
"what caste would a dopey white xenophobic WSJ reader be?"
I dunno. What caste would a dopey socialist-lite (viva la middle-class revolucion! And, what about tech jobs being outsourced!) Boston Globe reader be?
I dunno. What caste would a dopey limousine-liberal New York Times reader be?
*Come on, guys. You can do better media criticism than that. It's a silly cartoon, but it's not evil.
This has nothing to do with the Wall Street Journal. It's just not funny. That's what's really wrong with it.
BTW, I was talking to Neale with that last comment, not ANNA. For ANNA, I have this: do you know there is a movie based on Joy Division coming out? Looks pretty stellar.....great reviews at Cannes, etc.
"I told this tech support person; 'I'm Harry John' and she just hung up?"
The funniest comics are Pearls Before Swine, F Minus, Get Fuzzy, Close To Home, and lately I've become a fan of Diesel Sweeties too.
Sorry, I'm all 'caste system'd out.
I meant the "e", too.
I'm with Pondatti: I don't think it's funny, but I do think it's sort of New Yorker cartoon circa 1985. Seriously. Take a look back - that's exactly the kind of cartoon you'd find.
Pondatti, yours is the one handle on SM that makes me smile every single time I see it.
This is, hands-down, the best comic ever. EVER.
Links please. You can't drop news like that and not leave links.
Pathetic. Only second gen kids of stupid brahmins would have this funny or not discussion when only I feel the pain of billions of Dalits in India. Say I am right. Bow to the power of irrelevant data. NOW. OR I WILL POST THE SAME COMMENT OVER AND OVER. AND OVER.
Google PoweR!
At Cannes, a Biopic of Joy Division Star
Anyone else want to see Norah Jones new movie which is showing at Cannes?
OR I WILL POST THE SAME COMMENT OVER AND OVER. AND OVER.
LOL.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6667197.stm
"Control" Joy Divsion film.
staying with caste, i found that some people from the north of england sort of looked down on people from London. more of a class and money thing. not really with the desi people though.
Thanks rudie, looks great, this from the Telegraph too.
Norah Jones, daughter of Ravi Shankar, who belongs to the sitar caste, gets good reviews at Cannes.
She's so lovely. I bet women are so jealous of her. Talented musician, beautiful, successful, and now acclaimed actress in movie made by art house genius.
"So I told this tech support person; 'Your job should be reserved for Americans' and she said; "Oh, I didn't know Americans have been classified OBC."
i found that some people from the north of england sort of looked down on people from London
That's just because the folks in Yorkshire have way cooler accents than the folks in London.
"That's just because the folks in Yorkshire have way cooler accents than the folks in London".
Do they Ekk!!
Red Snapper,
She suffered for her art. There were ridiculous number of retakes of her kissing scene w/ Jude Law, sez the hon’ble NYT.
I am curious about the looks of the movie. The great Christopher Doyle was not on board here. But then again Darius Khondji + KWW could be a dynamite team as well.
Well, Jude Law has a Manchester accent in his movie with Norah Jones so you could be right.
Jude Law suffered too, she is so lovely.
Where it concerns caste cartoons, the old one of a ballot box in India saying "vote your caste" (instead of "cast your vote") is much funnier than this one. This particular cartoon reflects a typical stance among even the most "progressive" non-xenophobic westerners (or perhaps especially among them): once it concerns caste, Brahmins, devadasi, etc., they suddenly go on the old colonial "Indian culture is backward and immoral" trip. One cannot change three-hundred years of reproduction of the same story about India in a few decades, it seems.
Damn straight- I am neither white nor dopey or xenophobic. And I agree- it is by far one of the best papers in the United States.
Man, SM really needs a "delete my bad joke" button :-/ Apologies to all WSJ readers ok?
Hopefully it will continue to be so
Nooooo, If I had to put up with it, so do you. Well unless we can go back in time and delete.
I hope Murdoch really mucks them up.
Finally, my dream of seeing Myspace and the WSJ owned by the same company is one step closer to becoming reality.
The advertising industry discounts WSJ non-subscription readership figures by at least 30%, which it then credits to National Enquirer's numbers.
Can we talk about cricket now? Or anything, mangoes? guava even
Fred Bassett? Ouch.
Holy crap. I was curious after reading the wikipedia entry, and my god! It takes skill to be so relentlessly not funny!
dude, you sort-of have the same name up there! Its cool though
Holy crap, it takes skill to mispell your own name. In my defense I am home sick. :-p
haha....it's all good
levity!
Sorry to change the subject but has anyone heard anything about that new movie "Blind Dating"?
It about this white dude who is blind who after being set up on bad dates by his brother falls in love with an Indian girl who's parents are coercing her into an arranged marriage with Sendhil Ramamurthy of all people. Of course in typical hollywood fashion she falls for the white dude and ditches Ramamurthy. I am surprised with all the Ramamurthy love on this site no one has said anything about this movie. But just to be safe I apologize if it has been mentioned in a comment somewhere else.
lol.. i thought the cartoon was pretty funny!
Suman, intruiged by your mention of this movie, I visited IMDB to investigate, and was rewarded by a quite delicious piece of critical invective:
+++++
it's amazing to me that a society which has mastered the concept of fire is capable of making a film this bad. Too insipidly, cloyingly cutesy to be edgy, too crass, juvenile and vulgar to be cute, and not funny enough to be either.
Additionally, there is not one single iota of genuine wit, emotion, or originality in even one frame of this odious film. It's as someone took "At First Sight", "Daredevil", "My Big fat Greek Wedding" and "Bend Like Beckham" (among others) and threw them in a blender. Worse than that the film is insulting to every group it portrays: blind people, Italian-American, African-Americans, Indian-Americans, limousine drivers, therapists. Even the portrayal of prostitutes is somehow beneath the dignity of the profession. [link]
+++++
Is it a sign of wickedness or cruelty to be tickled and inspired by such fearsome words? How I wish I had written this line, funny, original and devastating:
it's amazing to me that a society which has mastered the concept of fire is capable of making a film this bad.
I am this reviewer's humble servant. Make more bad movies, so that we can have more reviews like this.
Additionally, there is not one single iota of genuine wit, emotion, or originality in even one frame of this odious film.
This makes me giggle so much! I'm going to plaigarise the fire line too. Crappy diaspora movies inspire such a wonderful reaction! I fear they bring out the evil side of me.
Seriously!!! I can't imagine how any movie could be more entertaining than the above. :)
Red Snapper,
No, Norah's one of those women who women adore. Now if she had an attitude, instead of a doe-like insouciance and humility, things would very different...
The joke in the cartoon is not on the Indian call center operator supposedly asking whether the caller was of the right caste - the joke is in the irony that a cartoon from the very culture that exported the jobs to India also projects its prejudices onto Indians.
I say we play 'Get the punchline right on this one'.
'Martha, he sounds black, I'm going to tell him we sold the car.'
Chachaji - You're right, that's much better.
Wow, DJDP! You're a whiz. Will you, or Anna, or someone also post it to the SAJAForum? Thanks again!
you are right red snapper and bytewords if nothing else this film does inspire some awe inspiring criticism =)
Rupert, save us all!
Well Chachaji, with the "I'm going to tell him we sold the car" bit, the joke is clearly at the expense of the white guy...and his attitudes...it makes the white guy look bad. But in the caste version, the joke is still at the expense of Indians (and their attitudes). It's designed to make Indians look bad.
Amitabh, you're right, the 'caste version' is designed to make Indians 'look bad'. I guess I was trying to say in #50 that the premise of the WSJ cartoon is not merely improbable, it is farcically ridiculous. The only joke is on whoever wrote it - thinking it was going to be funny - they were just projecting their own prejudices on to Indians, thinking Indians would behave the way the guy in the 'car version' behaves.
Yes, and non-desis are more likely to find it funny.
How many of you laugh out loud at New Yorker cartoons?
Damn straight- I am neither white nor dopey or xenophobic. And I agree- it is by far one of the best papers in the United States.
Yassah! Best!! (and I avoid opinion columns of all papers anyway). Neale, rehne de yaar. Sabko hota hai!
I don't understand the appeals to Murdoch. As far as I understand, the WSJ reporters are all normal god-fearing Adam-Smith reading social liberals; it is the editorial board that is still holding out against global warming, and generally is the sounding board for the less nutty among the right wingnuts. This cartoon, offensive as it is, is a reflection of the Journal's editorial policies, which is markedly different from their reportage and financial analysis. Getting Murdoch is going to turn the Journal into USA Today meets Businessweek. I am hoping the shareholders hold out before the Journal sinks into the putrid cesspool of mediocrity that most financial journalism is.
Long live NPR!
How does that even make sense??
Manju, I like your alternate captions. :)
The cartoon isn't funny. The caption-writer doesn't "get" (or has a very hazy notion of) the caste system.
How about this alternate caption:
"Honey, the tech support guy speaks with an accent -- does this mean we're not the master race anymore?"
I can't believe that the commentrs on this forum can get their underwear in a bunch over a cartoon...maybe the American cartoonist has more of an insight in the real india than a bunch of latte sipping,upper caste progeny living the yankee dream on the backs of their priviledged brahmin/landowning caste dad's success...
I agree spoilt brats in the US of A cannot be expected to have an idea of what goes on in hot filthy streets of rural or urban India, maybe reading news reports will be a good way to start?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/08/wsurv208.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/01/08/ixnewstop.html
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/nov/15amber.htm
My vote goes to Chachaji's caption.
Funnier by far.
I like a good "Indians are racist/caste-ist/chauvinist" joke but the WSJ one just didn't do it for me. Real life experiences are almost always funnier (and cringe inducing).
Now why didn't I think about how the cartoonist obviously grokked India more than second generation desis did when I saw this; oh right, it's because he doesn't. Your rant has nothing to do with the cartoon, the unfunny joke or anything. You just wanted to spew.
Maybe you should read a few thousand posts on this site before you assign us anything, since you obviously haven't been here or done that. You're the one with your knickers in an anti-ABCD twist. My condolences, it's obviously very uncomfortable for you.
Another cartoon crisis!!!!
Delhiite - apart from what others have already said in response, which I agree with, your comment shows that you are not thinking about the "joke" or "criticism" made in the cartoon in relation to its intended audience of non-Indians. Those of Indian/South Asian heritage who live in the US (whether first or second gen) see such references to India in the media, made by outsiders for outsiders, primarily in the light of what they say about perceptions of India and Indian-Americans by the rest of American society. Because we live in the US, we care about how our segment of American society is perceived and treated by the rest. Sitting in India, this is obviously of little concern to you, but since you don't understand our reactions, I'm trying to explain it to you.
Even the portrayal of prostitutes is somehow beneath the dignity of the professionOh, and this was my favorite line from the movie review :)
Oh caste has come up again, can some wise and amazing desis from the desh (DFDs) enlighten all us latte swilling clueless diasporic second/third/fourth gen'ers? Desi, please.
Paging SM Intern:
Can you delete # 48 please .Thanks
"It's designed to make Indians look bad."
All jokes that perpetrate stereotypes, especially racial and ethnic ones, are designed to make the receiving end look bad, but end up reflecting quite poorly on their originator. In this case, the "joke" pours fuel on the They're Stealing Our Jobs sentiment (which is quite alive and well in the IT departments of several firms I'm familiar with).
"I agree spoilt brats in the US of A cannot be expected to have an idea of what goes on in hot filthy streets of rural or urban India, maybe reading news reports will be a good way to start?"
This type of comment is naive and getting really old, so kindly keep it to yourself. Second and third generation subcontinent-Americans have an experience unto ourselves and this forum is one way, one outlet for navigating our way through it. As if you know what occupies our minds and, more importantly, happens on the hot, cold, filthy and clean streets of rural and urban America. The world, including America and India, is not so black and white, cut and dried. Besides, the cartoon was made for an American audience, you know, for us to spew that latte out our noses while we contemplate how we're viewed by some non-Indian-American counterparts.
A thought that this cartoon and comments from the uber-desis (the ones in India) brought up: As persons born and raised in nations outside India, we're made to feel like we're diluted or not "whole" to some degree. From one end we have "you never lived in India so you can't be Indian" and from the other there is "even if you were born here or outside Indian, you're not white or black, so you can't be American." Again, I'm aware that not everyone views us as such, but the topic of this post and its comments brings up that aspect of our condition (which, thankfully, I don't contemplate on a regular basis or I'd call myself insane).
I reject this diluted or fragmented identity that is pushed on us and state that our experience is whole albeit a very different one. Even in India today, we see people of various communities and nationalities coming together. As we go into the future, the world, its people and their relationships change. The only constant is that change, and it's high time we got comfortable with the concept of principled adaptation, i.e. hold on to the core of who you are and go forth and metamorphose.
Just my loose change.
For a country where manual scavenging is still prevalant : where untouchability is still an issue : me thinks the cartoon raises relevant questions...India shining notwithstanding.....
Sure.
India is 3 for 295.
Mangoes are 10 for 35.
And the weather in Houston is just nice enough to play local Boy Johnny Nash’s Guava Jelly. You couldn’t go wrong w/ Marley version either (he wrote it). The truly masochistic can go w/ Barbara Streisand version.
I'm amazed, infatuated ---- so she's even more perfect than I though she was. There's nothing better than a lady who likes dirty jokes. I bet she's even not ashamed to burp in front of her boyfriend after drinking a glass of beer wit him, that's also how gorgeous she is. So, beautiful, sexy, hyper talented multi million selling award winning singer and musician, acclaimed actress is art house genius movie, gorgeous, and even the ladies seem to love her.
"For a country where manual scavenging is still prevalant : where untouchability is still an issue : me thinks the cartoon raises relevant questions...India shining notwithstanding....."
OMG...REALLY???!!! Thanks for pointing that out, I'm sure none of us knew about that....idiot.
Are eco and delhiite both prema? ONly sm intern call tell.
I meant can tell
haha! very clewer
This cartoon is obscenely ass-backwards. Exactly the opposite happens:
http://www.warprofiteers.com/article.php?id=12813
"While irate calls are a mainstay of customer service work in any country, many Indian call-center workers say they regularly face particular abuse from Americans, whose tantrums are sometimes racist and often inspired by anger over outsourcing.
This vitriol has fueled a "searing anger" among the Indian employees, says Vinod Shetty, a Bombay lawyer who has formed a collective for call-center workers. "A lot of trauma is caused."
Debalina Das, 22, a computer help-line agent in the city of Hyderabad in south India, punched the button last winter for a call from the United States.
The caller greeted her with a torrent of racial and sexual slurs, accused her of "roaming about naked without food and clothes" and asked, "What do you know about computers?"
"Das, who quit the job after four months, said she learned to dislike Americans. "Rarely, there are people who are good," she said by e-mail, "but then others remind me that all they believe in is cursing, and they don't have respect for others."
Her opinion is not uncommon among many workers in India's burgeoning call-center industry."
"On the Web forum Is Your Job Going Offshore? (isyourjobgoingoffshore.com/forums/) contributors variously describe India as depraved, as a haven for terrorists, a "giant leech" and a nation of "back-stabbing cowards."
It is this kind of commentary that has shaped a perception among India's customer-care workers that Americans are intolerant. "Everybody thinks like that," said Samik Chowdhury, assistant manager at an IBM office in northern India. "Every time, it's racism only."
"Indian offices have taken measures to thwart such attacks: Agents typically adopt anglicized names, undergo "accent neutralization" and U.S. cultural training, and sometimes claim to be located in the United States. They are taught to suffer attacks politely and try to calm customers. Failing that, many offices now offer callers the option to be transferred to agents in the United States.
These humiliations, say observers, are tolerated by a labor force that savors the opportunity to join India's growing middle class. With monthly incomes of about $200, call-center employees live well in a country where many are poverty-stricken.
"They feel like it is their duty" to swallow insults, says labor researcher Babu Remesh."
"A group of SBC call-center workers, also in Noida, sat recently on the clipped grass in front of the silver-glassed office building where they field Americans' Web connection problems. Callers often dismiss them the moment they detect their Indian accents, they say.
"A whole lot of the time, people are yelling," says Kapil Chawla, 23. "They just want to talk to an American."
Saurabh Jha, a 22-year-old in blue jeans, says a woman phoned from Texas recently and told him that, thanks to outsourcing, "You are getting money, food, shelter. You should be starving."
Maybe thats the "joke" here? Racist americans refusing to talk to indian call center workers are given a taste of their own medicine by casteist indians...
Which is always fun. :) But it is unlikely to be the point of the cartoon since, as is also the case with people all over the globe, many Americans do not recognize their own racism.
Saddening anecdotes in #80, by the way. I probably drove some voters away when I made calls for a local candidate a couple of years ago...got lots of people yelling and hanging up on me until I realized they probably thought I was calling from a call center in India. So I just picked a common American name to give and got a better reception thereafter.
"They feel like it is their duty" to swallow insults...
Insults never hurt anybody, they just expose people who have no power to change anything and indulge in that kind of nonsense. It's not about "swallowing" insults, it's about being wise in a given situation.
Obviously a lot of customers also giving vent to frustration at customer service levels in general and of course intrusive marketing calls. It's funny that the do-not-call registry was announced with such fanfare, should have been the other way around (people shouldn't have had to add their numbers to any list unless they wanted to be called).
This cartoon sucks. Yet another example of searching for something messed up in some far corner of the world and flogging it in order to feel better about oneself. The response from whomever the man is talking to could easily be:
"That's nice... did you already give that little macaca money for the pizza or should I pay him?"
substitute derogatory epithet of choice for "macaca"
The fact is that the accents and fast paced speech of these call-center workers is very difficult for most Americans to understand. Right now I'm watching a documentary on Akrit Jaswal and they have subtitles for him --- he's speaking English.
Those accent neutralization courses just take off the hardest edge, that's it. Especially older people in America have a really, really, really difficult time understanding these call-center folks. That makes them frustrated and makes them wonder why these "American" companies are not employing people who can be understood.
High IQ link to being vegetarian: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6180753.stm
:)
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/05/21/caste_of_mind.html
Metro Now, Delhi's tabloid, today has a front-page story about how in the country's top medical school lower-caste students have been shunted into hostels away from the higher-caste medics.
"Fuck off or we will throw you out of the hostel in ten days" was the charming note slipped under the door of one low caste student's door.
In rural India the situation is worst. Dalits are killed for daring to fall in love with someone from a higher caste. Countryside schools have segregated classrooms. Just to complicate things in villages it is muscle from just one rung up the caste ladder that perpetuates most violence on dalits.
Maybe the (white?) cartoonist has a better idea of indians than you ABCD brats?
Interesting. Link 1. Link 2.
Of course in typical hollywood fashion she falls for the white dude and ditches Ramamurthy.
I kept reading the summary of the film and thinking "She must be the blind one, right?"
Stupid idiot who wrote it. doesn't make any sense
at all. racist.