The Mary Sue: Aziz Ansari spoke at EW Fest about his new show, Master of None, and the ways he drew from his own experiences in writing his Indian-American actor protagonist, Dev. Ansari doesn’t want to call the Netflix series autobiographical, but he definitely relates to Dev.
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I still remember accents being the butt of my middle school friend's jokes. This also reminds me of comedian Russell Peters and how he uses stereotypes and accents to portray/exploit minorities and their plights. Don't get my wrong-- I think his bits are funny, but they certainly get old at a certain point. Minorities with accents are a trope that are severely overdone and at most, boring. It's lazy and unoriginal. Going off of Wu from Fresh Off The Boat, I remember reading an article about her and her costar in-show husband discussing accents while still in the audition process. She mentioned how she was willing to portray her character with an accent (and do it with pride) because it was part of the character's experience and background as an immigrant. It's not offensive because it's not meant to be- it's accurate and goes hand in hand with the character because she's in a new country. Her costar on the other hand, refused to do an accent and called it offensive.
I hate that minority accents for supporting characters are used as such a scapegoat for comedy. Yes, it's always a little funny when someone you know who doesn't speak perfect English mispronounces a word you commonly use, but when you take a person of color and mash them with an accent that does nothing to further their character development, you're reducing them to the stereotype of foreign kid who does not and will never be "a part" of our American world. Minority accents are only useful, in my opinion, if your actor comes in with a particular background and has a 'foreign' base accent. Take the character of Laurel Castillo in How to Get Away with Murder, for example. The actress is Mexican born, and auditioned for the role as it was written for a white American woman. When she got the role, she asked if she could change the character's name from Lauren to Laurel and incorporate her ethnic background into the creation of the character. The writers agreed, and now the general ABC watching public can see Laurel as a more fleshed out, interesting, Mexican-American woman who is just as compelling as any of the other characters on the television show. It's not hard to provide a strong backing to an accent; you just have to think hard about the way you implement it into writing characters.
I think a lot of points this article brought up are really important. I agree, accents do exist, everyone has one, and standardizing accents is an unrealistic portrayal of reality, which in my mind, shouldn’t be what theater/entertainment is about, or at least not in that sense, as obviously not all stories are realistic. That being said, I agree the problem comes when the accent itself is a joke. At that point, the story is just encouraging the audience to laugh at otherness, which only leads to people being less likely to try to understand difference. In general, I think jokes become a problem when they are making fun of attributes of a person/ group of people. On the flip side, more intelligent jokes can make really poignant points about society if they used comedy to comment on more complex issues. It isn’t about being PC, it is just about humor that isn’t reinforcing harmful societal stereotypes and unnecessarily belittling people.
Thank you, Aziz. Thank you. this has always been uncomfrtable to me when I see clearly Asian American actors having to play stereotypes. The character in Silicon Valley who he talks about, actually turned me off the show. Mike Judge, who had previously created an accurate portrayal of a Laotian man in suburban Texas (who is eerily similar to my suburban Texas Laotian dad), created Yang's character as a complete stereotype. I found it so old-fashioned in such a new age show. I agree with Ansari when he says that these jokes are so outdated and overplayed. Not even just from a PC standpoint, but from a, that's just not funny anymore standpoint. Yang's character could've been a funny and insightful look at an Asian American guy in the computer science industry, but is just a charicature with a deep accent. It's not funny.
And Michael Bay- a man who plays to the masses, with things already over done, and jokes already over used. It's no surprise he has racist characters, like racist black, and Asian robots and a call center guy with a thick Indian accent.
i challenge directors and comedians to leave those trite jokes behind. Create a character who's funny for what they say, and clever lines, rather than steretypes being uttered in an accent. It's demeaning.
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