June 02, 2008
Outsourcing "Exotic" Indian NursesArts and Entertainment
Trailers for books are pretty commonplace nowadays, but bestselling author Robin Cook (mastermind of the medical thriller) and former Disney head Michael Eisner have cooked up (no pun intended!) an online plot that takes this concept a step further: Foreign Body, a “50 episode exotic thriller” (each two-minute episode can be watched for free on your computer or downloaded to your cell phone) that’s essentially serving as a prequel and promo for Cook’s forthcoming novel of the same title, which will be published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in August.
A doctor by training, Cook began writing medical thrillers 36 years ago, and has made his name with books such as Terminal, Shock, Seizure, and his most popular Coma , which was published in 1977.
In recent years, he began noticing that his readers weren’t getting any younger. “The trouble is, now there are so many other things trying to get people’s attention – in particular, the younger people — and rather than try and fight it, you really have to kind of use it,” Cook told NPR’s Nate DiMeo. [see full NPR story ] last week.
To the rescue is this low-budget ($500,000 budget) “exotic thriller” which zig zags from Malibu, California to New Delhi, India and has at its heart a plot of intrigue and drama about outsourcing—of the medical kind. That is, the growing industry of medical tourism in India, which brought over 500,000 foreign patients to India for medical care in 2005. (Estimates project medical tourism could bring India as much as $2.2 billion per by 2012).
The story:
A group of dangerous Indian beauties, brimming with hope and desire are brought to the sunny shores of Southern California and are promised the American dream. They are taken in by a group of young, cutthroat medical entrepreneurs who hope to train them and cultivate their nursing skills for their own mysterious ends. The women soon become seduced by the brash and ambitious charmer who lords over them, but for him, his lust for the one, mysterious, unattainable beauty threatens to unravel the very conspiracy he built. But who is seducing whom and what exactly are the women really being trained to do? With freedoms in America they could never imagine, the girls discover they just might get what they want, no matter the consequences or the risks involved.
If you’re rolling your eyes or arching your eyebrows already, don’t stop. The first episode has a bunch of bikini-clad Indian nurses frolicking in the Southern California beach and the second or third episode has a scene where a US-based entrepreneur is interviewing candidates to come to the US. The opening scene has a quote from the Bhagavad Gita.
I started watching the series as soon as I heard the NPR story on its launch date. My impression so far: Think Baywatch meets ER meets Zee TV drama meets daytime soap with a twist of “here’s another reason to vilify globalization and outsourcing” thrown in. Of course, I don’t know how this will end, but it’s leading up to a novel about a “sinister, multilayered conspiracy of global proportions” so, need I really say anymore?
Here’s a compilation of week one’s episodes.
Sandhya on June 2, 2008 11:11 AM in Arts and Entertainment · T·r·a·c·k·b·a·c·k address · Direct link · Email post
Ive seen better acting in Tamil porn.
They're acting in that?
+++++
Ah, this is more like it. Simultaneously 'exotic', beautiful, sexy, alluring, but ultimately dangerous Indian babes, full of the mystery and strangeness of the East, sirens seducing innocent white men into danger and betrayal with their hindoo wiles and erotic temptations.
Expect a glut of these roles in the near future folks. The guys get to play terrorists to get killed by white men, the women get to play erotic wenches to get f**ked by white men. Know yourself, desis.
I wouldn't get too worked up over it. It's ultra low budget pulp fiction.
3 · KXB said
i think even negative images creates/raises brand value. remember shah rukh's baazigar that propelled him to big league
i guess it is ALL about the image. the promotion for this BOOK is a web mini-series. it used to be that the book came out before the movie. how many other books are going to be coming out this year with a video advertisement ? Is this going to be the new way for books to be promoted?
we won't have to think up images of what we are reading anymore as we will already have them set in our head.
Not equating the Namesake to this book/series in anyway but what would happen if the movie The Namesake came out before the book?
I wish I would have read the book before watching the film. When I read the book I can't get the actors' images out of my head.
Ah, this is more like it. Simultaneously 'exotic', beautiful, sexy, alluring, but ultimately dangerous Indian babes, full of the mystery and strangeness of the East, sirens seducing innocent white men into danger and betrayal with their hindoo wiles and erotic temptations.
How many of us men only WISH this were true?
It's a piece of fiction.
have a feeling Jeff that most of those men aren't reading this blog.
Clothes vill get vet? Really? 'Dollar signs'! Tamil porn is notches above;)
Tamil porn?
Are you kidding?
Nothing happens.
9 · Jeff Snipers said
Are you kidding?
Nothing happens.
Ah subtle, subtle. The notes not played...
1 · ShallowThinker said
Tamil porn? There is no such thing. There is only Malayalam porn from the south.
Damned block quotes...
6 · Jeff Snipers said
LOL. Even more funny is that many desis of the deluded jingo variety are probably eating this up and sharing it with their coworkers: see, massa thinks we are beautiful and alluring! Pass the sweets around :)
Too bad most Indian women I meet ain't like that. Where do these types hang out?
Funny how the Bhagavad Gita is quoted in the beginning of the clip. The creators/directors/producers (of this silly little story) must fancy themselves to be hifalutin philosophical geniuses by simply providing us with a Hindu scripture quote. Perhaps they and their "great" intellect can help me figure out why we torture ourselves by watching this. Is it due to some vasana or bad karma from a previous birth? I am reminded of a phrase from the author Joseph Conrad (from The Heart of Darkness) whenever I catch myself looking at a smutty newspaper photo or watching melodramatic fertilizer like this. It is "fascination with the abomination." (Sort of like looking at end results of a bad car crash, etc.)
I am eagerly waiting for the Scrubs version of this show. Foreign Body is begging to be riduculed and made into a satire. Shouldn't be that difficult. (My sincere apologies to anyone who liked this show. I guess different strokes for different folks.)
I think it's similar to watching Bollywood films. Intrigued with the corniness.
13 · Valmiki said
yeah: in fact, a bunch of my desi friends and i are quitting our jobs and moving en masse to hollywood. first, model-waitressing, and then, cornering the fast-growing market for desi/south american/semitic roles. now that brown is beautiful, we're fabulous arm candy and a prize on the casting couch circuit. finally, my wildest dreams are coming true! thank you, gwen stefani.
valmiki -- you're being even more out of touch from reality than usual. your comments are particularly unwarranted given the unsympathetic reactions to 'foreign body' on this thread. what happened? everything ok at home and work?
eeewh, or ick, or whatever. and I looked at the clip without any sound, which I think would have made my eyes roll straight out of my head.
This video is not available in your country. Is anybody else in Canada having that problem.
Well, if I were an Indian woman I would exploit the situation to the max for $$$ as much as possible.
That is the American Dream, afterall - $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Kk..Kkk..Karen!
the clip made me laugh but these comments are making me sad :(
Comments which refer to women as "hoes" will be deleted. You should know better.
But what if they are in different area codes?
You can store your garden implements wherever you want, but don't tell us here.
OK, so I watched all five clips--gm's car-crash metaphor in #15 is apt indeed! I wonder what's driving the Indian theme here--vast preponderance of foreign nurses are, of course, from the Philippines. The whole thing is kind of funny, yet creepy.
Apparently, Thailand is the world's leading destination for "medical tourism." Pretty interesting industry!
This is Gurinder Chadha's wet dream
15 · gm said
Actually this is the continuation of the "hippie" fad from yesteryears which has manifested in many ways like weapons testing devices being named after hindu dieties Shiva, Shiva Star and not to mention the quote from Gita by Father of American nuclear bomb after the first nuclear explosion
29 · Priya said
Oops missed the link to Shiva laser
I love Robin Cook....I think his all time best was Chromosome 6.
17 · portmanteau said
yeah: in fact, a bunch of my desi friends and i are quitting our jobs and moving en masse to hollywood. first, model-waitressing, and then, cornering the fast-growing market for desi/south american/semitic roles. now that brown is beautiful, we're fabulous arm candy and a prize on the casting couch circuit. finally, my wildest dreams are coming true! thank you, gwen stefani.
This is so pathetic. She actually bought into the "beautiful and alluring" BS! If that were actually true ABD desi females would not have such a hard time finding mates in America.
And just for your information, desis are not lumped together with south americans and semites. Thats just another one of your wishful delusions.
Something like this by Shakira ?
Give these guys a little credit. At least they got Indians living in India who actually sound like they are speaking Indian English unlike Apu!! Grab a lassi and enjoy the bikini clad women y'all. With the dems making absurd promises to get in to the white house, we may not see much of outsourcing anyways for sometime.
34 · Ardy said
Interesting point. If the young Indian ladies spoke like Apu from Simpsons, then the mood of the whole show would certainly change. I think Bollywood provides plenty of bikini clad women so there will be no shortage.
To quote the principal in the Kid-n-Play classic "Class Act" - "Why would you get offended if he called your mother a garden tool?"
Not the first time that that title has been used for a story involving Indians and medicine:
36 · Asha's and Anjali's Dad said
Actually, the quote was from the movie "House Party"--but a good guess though.
i like it. i really do. espeicially the beach scene where she says she can't go swimming b/c she'll get her clothes wet. so what does the friend do? she takes her clothes off! Brilliant! Never say that coming. James Joyce never thought of shit like that.
why this bias against lingerie? are bras not full clothes too? don't three-fifth them! i dream of a world where clothes are judged by the color of the skin of their models...
Now with more obligatory 'holy' cows eating garbage shots.
40 · angel said
angel look, i'm not anti-lingerie. some of my best friends wear lingerie. but really, lingerie needs to wait its turn. your support among hard-working Americans, non-lingerie wearing Americans, is weakening again, and regular clothes who have not completed college are supporting me. And i'm doing even better with hats.
im confused, where can u watch this it sounds interesting?
42 · Manju said
sweetie, does this angel have to denounce the trinity before it has a shot?
37 · Vikram said
That was my first thought too, Vikram. Victor Banerjee played the Indian doc, not long after his role as another desi doctor who gets into trouble with British women in Passage To India. Incidentally, Peter Sellers also played an Indian doc opposite Sophia Loren in The Millionairess (1960).
I saw the first part of the clip. Liked that strategic shot of the cow on the road. Doesn't complete the picture of urban India without one of those animals, does it? Also, the scene of the nurse walking down the corridor reminded me of Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill.
44 · angel said
Carlie says, Farrah kan do whatever she wants.
39 · Manju said
Yes, Joyce could never think up something so uncompromisingly naughty like that. He was too preoccupied with churning out dull, impenetrable verse, like the following:
[link totally awesome, NSFW]32 · Valmiki said
no, you ass, i was pointing to the fact that brown substitutable for one another in hollywood roles.
OUCH!
49 · Jeff Snipers said
you mean sole mates ?
Whats the 4th episode going to be? Any guesses?
Topcat,
You are falling behind quickly! There are already no fewer than 6 episodes up!
Of course, it will only take a few minutes to catch up. ;-)
Some people find their sole mates, and others just flounder.
Oh but I am a wild Nubian Ass plus burro hybrid, which is so superior in intellectual and other endowments compared to the deluded subcontinental Hindu street kalathai (based on my extensive "fieldwork" in Tijuana).
http://www.collider.com/entertainment/reviews/article.asp?aid=7903&tcid=1
If this review is correct then Mr. Shyamlal should have been a doctor.
Yay.... Obama won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
56 · jillu said
its not over till the fat lady sings
56 · jillu said
Word on the street: Michelle Obama reveals in a tape at the church of her dislike of whitey. Could be a campaign killer.
Whatever.
Doesn't matter who gets in the White House. Not much will change. The war in Iraq will not end. USA will continue to create more wars.
The system has been set many, many decades ago.
The only thing that will change is that we will have a president who is easier on the eyes and intellect than Bush. No matter who wins.
Getting back on topic, the funny part of the first episode is, was that the old guy in charge actually said, "So should we scare the public about Americans dying in these 3rd world hospitals?" As if fear had NEVER been used to move the American public to a certain point of view...
Please stay on topic otherwise your comments will be deleted. Repeated offenders will be sanctioned. Thanks.
Sounds as good as the new Shymalan movie.
What happened with the democratic nominee thread? someone complained and it was taken down? I thought SM was free to post any topic and people here debated the merits. Not to long ago there was a thread calling Gandhi anti-semitic twice and those stayed up. What gives?
"You got twelve weeks!" What a crock.
i think if i cringe any more my face might stay like that