a blog, and an indian girl on sesame street

http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/ - this is a blog that seems quite impressive in some of the things it does. at least the 2006 archives were nice. but i am not too sure about the 2008 on postings.

nitya leela

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.