March 23, 2008
There goes the neighborhoodHumor
The big news on this Sunday is that an Indian character (human not puppet) is finally (after 39 years) moving on to the storied Sesame Street!
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Doesn’t Snuffleupagus look like he is eyeing “Leela” as food? |
The newest neighbor on Sesame Street just happens to be Indian American, because the role was originally dreamed up with no particular ethnicity in mind.“It was incidental,” actress Nitya Vidyasagar told India-West by phone last week from New York City, where she is currently taping the 39th season of the award-winning PBS children’s show. “The casting notices said nothing of ethnicity.”
But the New York-based stage actress made such a strong impression on the show’s producers that they found themselves willing to create her role from scratch.
Vidyasagar plays Leela, a young Indian American woman who runs the local laundromat. Unlike many of the other actors on the show, who use their own first names as their character’s names, she felt more comfortable with the name Leela. “My name is hard for some people to say,” she explained. [Link]
Sepia Mutiny went down to Sesame Street and conducted interviews to see what some residents thought of their newest neighbor. Would there be increased tension because a South Asian was moving in to the neighborhood?
First off, we found that the some Koreans were pissed that a desi is running the laundromat instead of one of their own. When pressed further they said, “why not the 7-11 one street over?” The cookie monster was also in a foul mood explaining, “great, one more mouth to feed.” Count von Count was excited that he may soon learn how to count in Hindi. Oscar threw a garbage lid at one of our bloggers and just didn’t want to be bothered. Elmo just kept laughing because he was so happy at the news but then Bert came by and slapped him upside the head for no (good) reason.
The only one that would speak to us in earnest was Grover. He turned out to be far more lucid than he comes across on television (and he wasn’t wearing a cape). He struck me as an old soul actually. He was glad to see “Leela” move into the neighborhood but expressed some remorse when learning that Nitya had chosen to go by “Leela” because she thought “Nitya” might be too hard to pronounce. “We have a mammoth-like dude named Aloysius Snuffleupagus that lives on this street. Would Nitya really have been that hard to pronounce? Even Barack gave up Barry,” said Grover.
The new Leela is quite an international woman, and speaks Hindi and Telugu. Born in Muscat, Oman, she moved to India with her family when she was a year old. She and her family lived in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Bangalore before moving to the United States when she was 12, and she speaks English with a delicate, yet hard-to-place, Indian accent. “They said I could speak with my accent, too,” she laughed. [Link]
Look for the new season to start in August. This post was brought to you by the number 8 and the letter W.
abhi on March 23, 2008 11:35 PM in Humor, TV · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
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laundermat? to be honest ive never seen a desi laundermat, esp telugu ppl usually come as geeky computer ppl from hyderabad. why is it that colored ppl are always placed in jobs like this in the media?
Plus one for the casting.
Minus one for the terrible costume choice (can we get Nitya a shirt that doesn't make her look like she's got muffin top, pls???).
On the fence about the name change. Most of the Sesame Street "live actors" actually did change their names, esp. the original cast; Gordon, Susan, Maria, and Luis are all character names (not actor names). Bob is Bob IRL, but most of the other ones have a different name on the show. (Dunno about new cast members; has there been a trend to keep the names the same?)
On the other hand, when I was a kid and happened to learn that "Gordon" was actually Roscoe, I felt extremely betrayed. Worse than learning about Santa Claus. :P
Please tell Grover that some of us feel Nitya on her decision to go by "Leela." American kids might be able to manage Snuffleupagus, but that soft "th" of Nitya will always be a toughie.
Meanwhile, poor Oscar, so misunderstood. ;)
... reminding us that we've had to endure eight years of W.
Gee, why can't Sesame Street get their stereotypes straight? Not like you, right, Abhi? You know where Koreans work.
And I liked your subtle commentary on minority-minority relations expressed through the resentment of "the Koreans". It's funny how minorities can be so racist to each other, isn't it? Not many people notice these things the way you do.
You are such a subversive comedy master.
Yes, but kids learn languages better than adults. Childhood is the perfect time to learn the toughies. What better plce to start the revolucion than Sesame Street? :)
I always thought Bert was the first desi as Bert looks a lot like my Rimpi chachaji. Same eyebrows, bad hair with a touch of the superior than thou attitude.
i second that. If you can teach kids these sounds when they are young, they will have an easier time of it all around, including learning new languages, new names, etc.
Besides which, don't you know Indian-English is poised to take over the globe? Better start teaching the young'uns now!
3 · Blue said
Agree, it's very distracting.
Nitya played Luv/Kush in Sita Sings the Blues!
I, too, kind of wish she had kept her name. They could make a jingle of sorts of out of learning how to pronounce her name (I mean... don't most of us have one of those anyway?) so all those hard-named kids don't feel so alone. OK OK, fine.
Also, totally agree on her outfit. What were they thinking?!?
Am surprised you mutineers didn't point out the obvious. She's lighter than Big Bird and nowhere near the PC shade of Snuffy's skin. Outrage! :P
8 · Jangali Jaanwar said
I always thought Grover was Indian. Perhaps because of my parent's obsession with Bollywood and the frequent appearance of Gulshan Grover.
2 · fallen jhumki said
There's a Bangladeshi-owned laundromat two blocks from me. (In NYC.)
Oh my gosh, this is FANTASTIC! I can't tell you how many desis I know that learned to speak English off of this show (me included)...It's great to also see that she has an accent at that.
YAY!!! I watched Sesame Street for YEARS as a kid, and to this day, I still know how to count to 10 in Spanish thanks to da Street. Woot for an Indian-American gal on the show.
But I do agree with the others, her shirt is HORRIBLE.
the magical and gentle snuffleafagus I wish to be....ah "leela" (sanskrit: play)
17 · anandi said
Alls I know is that Snufflupagus better step off my desi bahan with that trunk of his before I snufflupsidehishead. For a more flattering photo (which is just begging for a caption contest) click here. Have at it, macacas.
Now what's this I hear about Sesame Street trying to change Cookie Monster's name to "Healthy Snack Monster" or some other such rubbish? And speaking of rubbish, I've always been an Oscar the Grouch man, myself. Taught me everything I know about dumpster diving.
"...when you get to Seasame Street"....I read somewhere
Shyam Benegal did a gig with the Children's Television WS
before joining Blaze Agency in Mumbai (Bombay) in the 1970s
"there goes the neighborhood?!" abhi, thank you for making my day--hilarious. (ahem...yes...reading a day late)
can we say dream job tho!?
I hope that someone puts a restraining order on Oscar. He's such a xenophobe, and I think that he's quite racist. I think that our homegirl Nitya should have Big Garuda Bird escort her or Ganesha/Snufflapagus with her. Will
1. Sesame Street become Devon Street or Jeera Street?
2. Will Maria wear a red dot?
She is very thickalicious!
Me and my bros would not pass up a meal with her.
SO awesome
sesame street was one of my favorite shows, especially the song with the pinball machine and that story of how to make peanut butter and the orange crayons and kermit-the-frog news-- i really could go on forever.
i wish the recent years didn't dumb it down (does any kid need 15 minutes of "elmo's world"??? what IS that??)
all in all though, sesame street characters and the muppets-- ylrsing's heroes since 1981
wow, this totally makes my day! now all i want is for is a desi kid to get onto Barney and my childhood dreams will be complete haha
"'C' is for 'chutney,' that's good enough for me..."
this is great ! i'm looking forward to my kids watching sesame street again.
i agree that it's f***ed up that she wouldn't go by her own ethnic name in favor of something a little more "palettable"
on the same note its nice to see an indian person on television, especially on a children's program targeting an american audience. but honestly i think there needs to be more of a visible "indian" normal every day guy who DOESNT run the convenience store etc. not that nitya need be something is is not. On the contrary i think Nitya did a good job to call herself Leela and stick with it considering the flack she undoubtably got for doing so. If she likes the name more more pwoer to her, rarely in fictitious television shows do the actors retain their original names, they "play the part". no, my objection is more targeting the entire cast of indian actors on american television and film. so far we haven't broken through the a-typical doctors, sons and daughters of indians that immigrated, or immigrants themselves. where are the well adjusted indians that retain their cultural flavor but aren't getting their a**es handed to them ona daily basis on things like getting jobs ( and fearing racism ) or rebelling against the parents etc etc.
there seems far little work towards something better, and moreso an enshrinement of what is. Call me an idealist, but look at the african american community. They're in a very similar position to ours, but the difference is the youth really hit the ground running with music film art and it's something that permiates the entire society in america. its the culture that gives life to society, and culturally indians are dead, either dancing their same old dances emulating the "old" style. where is indian ingenuity? in a way that's typically indian. It seems we only borrow from hip-hop raeggae etc. where are the trailblazers? we could do with a few of those.
our television shows and films need not only be a documentary of the ways indians live, they can also be narratives of fantasies like ALL of the favorites of our past one hundred years in film and in print. these were rarely tellings of fact, and in the case of the lord of the rings, which has influenced EVERYTHING fantasy ever since, including dungeons and dragons, the popular game which now drives every MMO the current MASSVE cash cow of the game industry, as well as the yearly bout of 5 to 10 major box office fantasy films... all from one man, three books, and an imagination burning bright.
There's more to life than the drudgeries of day-to-day, but indians have yet to break into that wealth of material in english speaking countries. Things won't truely be equal until leads for roles aren't automatically white, male, etc. When race, and sex, are inconsequential, and the characters are measured by their grey matter and not their skin pigment.