On Sat, May 14, 2011 at 6:56 PM, Melissa P <[email protected]>wrote:
> I think your friend and I suffer from the same affliction: We’re getting > old and don’t remember details as well as we used to. > > > > It’s been awhile since I watched the earlier episodes, so I’m unable to > supply the specifics you are requesting, but it’s my general impression that > the show began with scenes of Todd experiencing culture shock, that is, > being repulsed by and having to get used to some of the habits and customs > and tastes he encountered when he first got to India. Those types of > scenes/dialogue disappeared as the season went on so that the show turned > into more of a typical workplace comedy with quirky characters, not all that > much different from other workplace comedies. I miss the early episodes > where most of the humor came from the extreme differences between Indian and > American cultures. > I didn't mean to cross-examine Melissa or Kevin on this, I just have been hearing in recent weeks from a friend and a few others that Outsourced had been cancelled because of the PC police, without anyone being able to give me any specific examples of anything on the show that might have triggered wide spread offense. In my view, the show has never been substantive enough to be seriously offensive to anyone. So I went on a little google surf, and think I have a better sense of what is going on here. I did not pay any attention to this show until it first appeared this fall. In fact, I did not even have it on my season pass list for the first few weeks, it was just an accident that I happened to be in a position to record it the first few weeks when I noticed a comedy on NBC's schedule on Thursday night. My search suggests that most of the uproar about the show being "offensive" was in response to the pilot episode, and surfaced a year ago around the upfronts. A lot of this seemed to be re-hashed when the show premiered in the fall. Perhaps some groups criticized or even protested the show even after the first week - but if they did, from what I can tell it was mostly based on the buzz from the reaction to the first episode. Melissa says she missed the early episodes when the humor came from the culture shock (or, in my view, was supposed to come from the culture shock) - but the producers of the show claimed even a year ago that the show would mostly be a quirky workplace comedy. Indeed, I think the best way to look at this show is that it (much more than what Parks & Rec has become) is intended to be an "The Office" clone, with the quirky supporting case and officious "second in command", and a boss whose bizarreness is derived not from his personality idiosyncrasies, but cultural differences from the rest of his staff. So, in the last two episodes, the central conflict is generated by the boss giving an employee a bachelor party that is seen by the locals as a perverted American custom (though the exact same device could have been used with almost no change in an American office setting, substituting conservative Christians for the traditional Indian family of the bride). I still maintain that this show failed because of its execution of its basic premise, not because the premise offended too many over-sensitive ethnic or liberal pressure groups. If only this show has been set in Pakistan instead of India, how many more opportunities for offensive humor what they have had for next year's shows? Any way, I guess if I had been attending to the media buzz about the show when the pilot was picked up last spring, or when it premiered this fall, I would have at least understood the narrative that Kevin and Melissa have been referring to here (while still disputing it). I suspect that 90% of the public offense to this show stemmed from that pilot. Here are two typical stories I found about the so-called "offensiveness" of the show (note that at least part of the offensiveness narrative was not about offending Indians, but offending American workers who may perceive they lost work to outsourcing). It seems that most of the really "offensive" material is dialogue from the Charlie character, who of course is supposed to be offensive. This is along the lines of saying All in the Family is offensive to blacks because of the things Archie says (and yes, I am old enough to remember that their were some black people who were offended for just this reason, but they were obviously wrong; as I argued to Kevin, if All in the Family began today, the group that would be crying like babies about being offended would be working class whites from Queens - and their affluent exploiters at places like Fox News). The other issue here of course is the usual problem with any pilot that feels the need to cram as much exposition and character set up into the first episode as possible. It also seems implausible that any middle manager would be sent to India in such circumstances with so little even basic understanding of the culture - was the pilot for this show written in the first years of the Reagen Administration? A lot of the so-called humor here is the equivalent of a similar show set in Japan and finding laughs in an American expat who is surprised that people bow so much and eat a lot of rice. Even the out of context punchlines below illustrate the real crime of this show - it was not funny. The best line here is the one about Frogger - I think I might have smiled at that, in spite of )more likely because of) its derivativeness from a classic Seinfeld episode. I will say again that I watched every episode of this show because it was promising, and the characters potentially interesting, and eventually likable. But the show never really did anything with them, or found a way to put many funny lines in their mouths. ******************************************************* * http://blog.ajchristian.org/2010/09/23/the-top-10-most-offensive-lines-in-outsourced/ * * * The buzz on *Outsourced* was mostly that it was offensive<http://www.deadline.com/2010/05/is-nbcs-outsourced-funny-or-offensive/>and would be swiftly canceled… Now that I’ve seen it, I can say it’s not as bad as I thought, though clearly a little problematic. There is, of course, the premise: “white guy goes to India to lead, train and acculturate them!” But let’s be real, that happens and is encouraged by corporations every day. Beyond that, we get a lot of jokes about India from the America perspective, and jokes from Indians about America, but we don’t learn much about India itself. But I expected worse. Anyway! I collected what would be considered the most offensive lines. Judge for yourself — completely out of context!: *10**. White guy Charlie Davies <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0046033/> on white guy Todd Dempsey <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2999419/>‘s new team of workers: “Looks like you got the B team. I bet they don’t know squat about America. I wouldn’t unpack if I were you.”* *9**. White guy Todd Dempsey <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2999419/> in the streets of Mumbai for the first time: “It’s like Frogger but with real people!”* *8**. At the cafeteria, which is full of Indians: “Creepy isn’t it? It’s like they’re pod people or something.”* *7**. “Your name is man meat?” It’s Manmeet<http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0189018/> .* *6**. At the sight of a cow: “Well, I guess you don’t have to go far for the creamer.”* *5**. “As far as I’m concerned you’re not a superpower until you’ve’ got a cheese named after you.”* *4**. “Aren’t all the workers here kind of the same?”* *3**. “In the meantime, I’m not sure what religion you guys are, but this is your new Bible.” It’s the company catalogue.* *2**. “You guys have got some pretty crazy looking hats yourselves….mostly on the women though.”* *1**. NBC to viewers: “Watching **Outsourced** online is one of our sacred customs!”* http://www.deadline.com/2010/07/tca-outsourced-not-about-ethnicity/ “At today’s TCA session on NBC's *Outsourced*, the producers and actors made the claim that the already controversial<http://www.deadline.com/2010/05/is-nbcs-outsourced-funny-or-offensive/>sitcom about a U.S. company that outsourced its call center to India, serves as a “point of departure” for what is essentially a comedy about character rather than ethnicity. One questioner asked pointedly: “If a person were to say that this show traffics in a very large number of Indian stereotypes, would that person be wrong?” “I would say wrong,” replied a slightly testy Robert Borden, executive producer with Ken Kwapis. “I think where we approach this is certainly not a mean-spirited place. A third of the writing staff is Indian. We’re not wallowing in that kind of stuff that you are insinuating, but we are going to have a lot of fun with relatable characters in a workplace comedy.” Added Kwapis: We’ve all had experience talking to someone working at a call center. What we’re trying to do is put a face to the voice at the other end of the line.” The producers also addressed questions about whether Americans, faced with massive unemployment stateside, would find outsourcing a less than amusing subject. Replied Borden, “That’s not what the show is about. It’s workplace comedy with a big fish-out-of-water component. If there’s a little bit of risk, is that good? Yeah, I think so.” -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
