This has been forwarded to me ~15 times and you are all right, it’s some seriously funny shiznit. “Yo Momma” is an MTV series that looks for the best trash talkers around the country. I watched last season end to end (ah, the miracle of Tivo) and it was ridiculously good. This time around, the show’s been infiltrated by a desi dude who’s donned the character “Pak Attack” and if he can keep the gimmick going, he’s actually got what it takes to go all the way & win the show.

You smell so bad that people would rather sit next to me on an airplane…

In this clip over at MTV.com, he DESTROYS his yo momma competitor, Osa. Set aside ~10 min of your life to watch a Russell Peters worthy performance. Except, of course, there’s a much higher improv quotient here & Pak’s strictly amateur. (His myspace page indicates that in real life, he’s probably a GeorgiaTech engineer. )

Now I’ll warn you, gentle mutineers, that there’s a certain brand of humor you’ve gotta be ready to accept on any show called “Yo Momma”… with that caveat in mind, a couple of Pak’s laugh lines -

“It is true, it is true, I work at 7-11, but just like my store, yo momma’s legs are open 24-7”

“The only difference between my camel and your momma, my camel spits”

Social commentary?

Well, I love it. Pak’s humor pokes as much at the purveyors of prevalent racial / ethnic stereotypes as it does his opponent. He’s obviously a buffoon and therefore, so must be the folks who actually buy into these stereotypes. Despite clearly being a harmless, good natured, Pakistani guy, most of his material is about being confused as both an Arab and a terrorist (by ignorant, racist idiots). Laugh with him and you therefore laugh at them.

Strategically, he finds both content and an unassailable perch of power by revelling in every nook and cranny of the character ad absurdum. Given Yo Momma’s competitive format plus the modern rules of PC, Pak’s allowed to leverage nervous laughter from these jokes. The competition however, can’t follow him into that territory without appearing, well, racist. It’s an unexpected reversal for many of the black kids on the show who throw around N*gga jokes left and right leaving their non-black opponents staring into the camera wondering if they’re even allowed to laugh…

So eventually there’s The Question that dogs any desi we find in the media. In this case, for desi’s as whole, I contend that Pak’s a positive image. As discussed here in relation to Aishwarya showing up in beauty commercials, pop culture vehicles like Pak leverage the same dynamics that made Will&Grace (arguably) better drivers of Gay social acceptance than QueerNation. Smart non-desi folk should readily recognize that Pak Attack is donning a character but they’ll also suspect that the real guy under the salwar khameez seems like a pretty cool dude to hang out with. And voila he’s now a “real guy”.

Of course, none of this would matter if he weren’t genuinely funny.