[silk] Er, Are We, Like, Confused Or Something?

["Udhay Shankar N" <udhay@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wow. Reeta *really* lays into some random new movie. So, what would the 
movie you make be like, Reeta ? ;-)

Udhay

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?sid=1&fodname=20010502&fname=reeta

Er, Are We, Like, Confused Or Something?

Or did they make American Desi because they wanted to just make a movie. 
Any movie? 

Reeta Sinha  


I?ve always wondered what trade magazines mean when they call something ?a 
sleeper-hit.?  

Now I know.  

While some may think the ABCD flick American Desi is creating not-so-small 
waves in the puddle known as the diaspora, it?s the number of yawns the 
film generates that makes it impressive. 

American Desi, the current box-office darling of Indophiles and ABCDs, is a 
pathetic excuse for a film and an embarrassing debut for those who expected 
much, much more of ABCD movie makers (why they did, of course, nobody 
knows). The movie had been touted as a fresh new look at those who struggle 
to fit in as Indians in America (or Americans among Indians).  

Instead, we got a predictable boy-meets-girl story line with ridiculous 
attempts at humor. Written and directed by ABCD Piyush Pandya and produced 
by Gitesh Pandya and Deep Katdare, American Desi turned out to be a 
Bollywood masala film with an American accent. 

Not there?s anything wrong with Bollywood. Some of us aren?t ashamed of our 
passion for these masala entertainers. But, many ABCDs are closet Bollywood 
fans, coming out only when it?s cool to be seen at the latest Aish starrer. 
More importantly, though, they keep saying they want to make movies for 
everyone, crossing ethnic lines, stories with universal appeal.  

So what do they do?  

They make a movie that caters solely to desis. It?s even distributed by 
those who screen the usual Bollywood fare every weekend across the US. 

No surprise there.  

Basking in the afterglow of box-office sales, the cast and crew have 
fulfilled what seems to be the deepest desire of...er, creative ABCDs: to 
walk among the stars. Bollywood stars, that is.  

It?s no wonder these kids get so bent out of shape when their NRI parents 
push more academic fields like medicine or law. Poor misunderstood ABCDs. 
Don?t Mom and Dad get it? Their kids just wanna be the next Shah Rukh Khan 
or Karishma Kapoor. And with American Desi, Pandya & Co., the poster-
children for ABCD film makers, have proven just how easy that is to do. 

Make a movie and people will watch it, advises leading lady Purva Bedi. Uh-
huh. That?s been Bollywood?s motto for decades. From all the hype, you?d 
think these American desis would have something different up their 
sleeves.  

Hardly.  

It?s painfully obvious watching American Desi that the crew did nothing 
more than just make a movie. Forget about making it well. That obviously 
wasn?t the point. Have camera, will shoot, hey, we?re done! 

The film got off on the wrong foot when it suffered an identity crisis of 
sorts. When the movie?s title was changed from ?American Born Confused 
Desi? to American Desi.  

For the uninitiated, ABCD stands for American Born Confused Desi - a term 
used to describe the children of Indians, mainly of those who came to the 
US in the 1970s. Before that, there weren?t enough Indian kids around to be 
called anything. Watching American Desi, some of us now wished it had 
stayed that way. On the other hand, the movie does demonstrate just how 
accurate the moniker is, in general, no matter how vehemently ABCDs reject 
it. 

The movie?s original title was changed because a handful of vocal-but-
insecure desis protested saying ?confused? presented a negative image of 
American-born and/or raised Indians. "We are not confused!" scream most 
ABCDs when they see or hear the term. 

Oh really? 

They say it?s our story.  That it's about growing up in the US. Searching 
for our identity as we exist squished in between two cultures. That it's 
the first movie by ABCDs for ABCDs about ABCDs. That it's about being 
confused.  

They got that right.  

The makers of American Desi are so confused that they ended up with a movie 
about FOBs - the perpetually fresh-off-the-boat Indian immigrants that 
ABCDs can?t stand and hope they don't grow up to be. 

But, never mind all that. The title had to be changed so it wouldn?t upset 
anyone. That simply would not do. For good little ABCDs, being accepted is 
much more important than some director?s vision thing. Nothing confusing 
about that. 

If anything epitomizes the American Born Confused Desi state of mind it is 
not knowing what it is that you?re really about in the first place. It 
means letting others define you. It means adjusting your actions, your 
beliefs, your vision, even yourself because someone said you?ll have a 
better chance of being accepted if you do. 

This should have been the story.  

Instead we get hackneyed "I hate Indians!" dialogues with bhangra playing 
in the background.

The story, then.

Krishna Reddy is an American desi boy who can?t stand anything about his 
Indian family and life. Freedom comes in the form of that all-American 
experience known as "freshman year" at college. Poor Kris, as his karma 
would have it, he arrives on campus to find that his roommates are all 
desi -- an ABCD Sikh, a FOB Muslim and an Afro-centric desi homeboy. After 
much groaning and insisting that his name is Kris-not-Krishna, he meets 
Nina Shah in Engineering 101. Not realizing that her brown skin is desi 
skin, Kris falls for Nina and hormones rage (a.k.a. true love). 

Nina is as Indian as an ABCD can get -- she garbas, she watches Bollywood 
movies, she understands Hindi (but oddly enough, can?t pronounce the name 
Patel) and even has a sleazy boyfriend she thinks of as a brother, like any 
nice Indian girl would. Comic relief is provided by all non-ABCD 
characters -- a Bengali teaching assistant, a Gujarati grocery store owner 
with buck teeth, a drunk "I wanna get laid by an Indian" Caucasian American 
female, and of course, the Indian parents of ABCDs. 

Wait. There?s drama and action too.  

We have that wide-but-shallow cultural gulf between Kris and Nina. He 
says, "I don?t wanna be Indian!" and she says, "You better be Indian or you 
can?t have me." Kris decides to become Indian (surprise!). Nina teaches 
Kris a few desi moves and just when you think the movie is over, the sleazy 
villain boyfriend tries to beat up the now unconfused American Desi Kris-
okay-Krishna.  

After the requisite free-for-all, the American desi couple bhangras happily 
ever after. 

(Re)viewers have set the bar pretty low for the movie. It?s not bad for a 
first movie, they say, the music is good, and the oft-repeated line, it?s 
the first movie about ?us.? The truth is, it really isn?t the first movie 
about Indians growing up in the US and the movie barely skims the surface 
of the identity issue. And, making a movie for the first time is no excuse 
for shoddy craftsmanship. Any way you look at it -- from the shallow 
characters, implausible portrayals of Indians and the desperate attempts to 
get a laugh, American Desi makes most B-grade summer high-school flicks 
seem Oscar-worthy. 

But, to an Indian, ABCD or FOB, nothing spells success like m-o-n-e-y and, 
in that sense, this film is a hit. ABCDs and some FOBs have flocked to the 
movie and, for the most part, have found the juvenile antics of its cast of 
characters amusing. 

Still, what?s frightening is that the film?s makers and many ABCDs seem to 
believe this is groundbreaking cinematic work. 

Why?  

Just because it is made by ABCDs?  

It?s glaringly evident the writer doesn?t have a clue about Indians who 
emigrated to America. What?s even worse is that the director didn?t lift a 
finger to find out, screwing up in the most obvious ways possible. 

For example, Kris Reddy comes from a very North Indian family. This we 
glean from the fluent Hindustani Kris? father speaks and the strains of ?Om 
Jai Jagdish Hare" (a la Purab Aur Paschim) we hear as our young man leaves 
home for college.  

Leaving aside the small matter that the bhajan usually isn?t played at a 
bidai, I?m sure some gushing reviewers will say this fluent Hindustani-
instead-of-Telugu was a clever way to introduce the North/South desi divide 
(an issue never fully explored in Bollywood films, of course). In reality, 
Pandya seems to have taken the easy way out. Everyone knows that all 
Indians in the US are Reddys (or Patels) and everything Indian sounds like 
gibberish anyway. A little incense, some chanting - whatever - the audience 
will buy it. 

The film?s comedy routines are equally slipshod and cliché. Take the 
teaching assistant who is unaware the fly of his polyester pants is open as 
he asks students for a rubber. This sketch, like so many others, is shoved 
into the film, for the predictable audience response. One can almost 
imagine the movie makers sitting around drafting a list of must-have 
scenes - rubber joke, check; desi accent, check... 

Kris? Sikh roommate has a strong desi accent despite being an ABCD like 
Kris Reddy and some others in the movie. It?s never explained why just this 
one ABCD has the Indian accent. Simple. It?s the oldest joke in the ABCD 
book. Every ABCD knows how hilarious the desi accent is. We cringe whenever 
we hear our parents open their mouth in public. So how could it be left 
out? Even if they have to put the accent on an ABCD. 

Some call this satire, a caricature, entertainment. If it is, it doesn?t 
work. Not for me.  

This juvenile approach to the identity issue is just one of the reasons why 
American Desi fails miserably. To craft a work that explores such an all-
consuming, life-defining topic means having the ability, and perhaps even 
the guts, to hold a mirror up to one?s self. It means having resolved, or 
at least attempted to, one?s own Indian-American dilemma (or have the 
talent to take another?s experience and tell the story). To poke fun at 
those ?other? Indians and churn out the same old-same old is easy. To do it 
badly is even easier, as this movie shows us. 

It may be near impossible for this new generation of Indian-American film 
makers, for ABCDs, to tell their story honestly, with humor (self-
deprecating, perhaps) and sensitivity. There?s too much they want to 
ignore. They?d much rather explore a FOB peeing on an American lawn, it 
seems, neatly tap-dancing around urine and the real stories of ABCDs. 

An honest look at ?us? means including characters like the young South 
Asians who trashed a San Francisco hotel recently during a conference (were 
they ?confused? or just drunk?). It means dealing with issues such as 
abortion and eating disorders, not that ABCD girls have horrible Indian 
parents who want them to have arranged marriages. ?Our? movie would 
show ?grown-up? professional ABCDs at an annual convention playing musical 
bedrooms, with our women in lingerie running up and down the hotel halls 
looking for men to sleep with (were they rebelling against their Indian 
culture or just horny?).  

Finally, instead of making fun of their accent and religion, ?our? story 
would show desi parents as they deal with (or deny) the behaviors and 
problems of their good Indian boys and girls. 

ABCDs aren?t ready to tell these stories just yet.  

In their rush to jump on the immigrant-experience bandwagon, they 
constantly confuse normal teenage crap with their ?Indian upbringing.? So, 
if they aren?t sure what their Indian story is, why not just tell a story?  

As Kris asks Nina in American Desi, in the only memorable scene of the 
film; why does everything have to be Indian? 

Why does being Indian become the raison d'être of so many American 
born/raised Indians, to the point that it overtakes their identity as young 
men and women, as individuals? You?re Indian, you have Indian parents, 
you?ve known that almost since you were born. Get over it and move on with 
your life. Your life. 

If only this had been Kris?s story. Because Kris is not questioning his 
identity. The entire premise of American Desi is flawed. Kris is about the 
only one in the movie who knows what he wants. Kris knows he doesn?t want 
to be Indian. He knows what he likes and what he doesn?t. He knows he has 
the hots for Nina. He doesn?t care what she is, he just wants her. 

It is Nina who?s not sure who she is. Nina who thinks watching Bollywood 
flicks means she?s Indian, Nina who thinks cracking a few sticks together 
means she moves to a desi taal. Nina who comes on to Kris and then, slaps 
him when he does what she wants him to do, because she thinks that?s what 
an Indian girl is supposed to do. Nina who doesn?t have a clue about her 
Indian heritage. 

Is there anything good about the movie? Yes. It?s less than 3 hours long. 

It also clears up for the audience just what being ?Indian? means to some 
ABCDs. It means you can bhangra, you know what naan is and you wear Indian 
clothes, sometimes. 

No wonder they call us confused. 
  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

-- 

((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))