E4 ‘OUTSOURCED’
An unfunny step back toward the Kwik-E-Mart
Its premise had promise, but sitcom wallows in stereotypes
by Hank Stuever
The people who made “Out- sourced,” NBC’s new Thursday- night sitcom that’s set in one of those customer call centers in India, were thinking what many of us have been thinking: Who is this? Where am I calling? (And, depending on your economic up- set level: Where did our jobs go? Where did America go?) “Where am I calling? Is this
India?” a catalogue shopper de- mands of poor Manmeet (Sacha Dawan), one of the show’s char- acters. “Am I calling freakin’ In- dia to get a mug that says, ‘Amer- ica’s Number 1!?’ ” “No,” Manmeet lies, trying to
salvage the sale. “We’re in De- troit. The city of motors and black people!” Click. You might feel a similarly frus-
MITCHELL HAASETH/NBC BAD CONNECTION: In “Outsourced,” Ben Rappaport, center, plays the new manager of a call center in India.
trating disconnect, as I did, while watching as “Outsourced” (based on a 2006 indie film of the same name) so quickly aban- dons its relevant and even top- ically vital premise for a bunch of lame jokes about sacred cows and curry-related bouts of diar- rhea. I know it’s futile to expect something more tonally sophis- ticated than poop jokes from a prime-time sitcom, and I don’t want to be a total dourpuss here. I have nothing against ethnic satire that precisely upends our stereotypes and misconceptions. But “Outsourced,” as an idea, de- served better. Ben Rappaport is Todd Demp- sy, who returns from a manage- ment-training seminar to find that the entire call center at Mid America Novelties has been laid off. “Right-sized,” an executive explains to Todd, using that dreaded word. The work of an- swering phones and taking or- ders from customers has been outsourced to India, like so much else in commerce. Twenty- something Todd is given a choice: relocate from Kansas City to India to oversee the new workers or lose his job. Faced with $40,000 in student loans, Todd heads to the teeming sub- continent. Once he gets to India (“It’s like
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OFFICE MATES: From left, Rebecca Hazlewood, Sacha Dhawan and Parvesh Cheena in “Outsourced.”
B
Frogger, but with real people,” he observes on his first, frantic cab ride through the streets), the people Todd encounters are no more or less funny than your doofus cousin trying to do his ethnically insensitive impres- sion of his primary-care physi- cian. Any of us, including the Amer- ican and English cast members of Indian descent who star in “Outsourced,” can do a cheap take on what we think is an Indi- an accent; in more amateur at- tempts, it winds up sounding a bit like Latka Gravas, the ambig- uously ethnic fellow played by Andy Kaufman on “Taxi.” (In- deed, Latka was originally based on a bit Kaufman called “Foreign Man.”)
When doing that accent we be- come a knockoff version of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Kwik- E-Mart proprietor from “The Simpsons” (who is voiced by Hank Azaria, by the way, who is from Queens, descended from Greek Jews). The real joke about Apu was that he holds a PhD from the Calcutta Technical In- stitute; managing the Kwik-E- Mart and selling Bart and Ho- mer their Squishie drinks and cases of Duff beer seemed to Apu a higher calling. There you have a nearly com-
plete story of Hollywood’s in- terpretation of the American re- lationship to very broadly brushed Indian culture — con- venience stores and the IT de- partment. Millions of more
open-minded Americans know better. Yet 20 years of Apu have not
been completely without value. From the Apu jokes, coinciding with an increasingly global econ- omy, sprang forth a multicultur- al (though not specifically cul- tural) array of Indians and South Asians, certain Africans, indis- tinctly indigenous Americans and even Middle Easterners — characters that scriptwriters have come to rely on when they want, for want of a more sensi- tive label, a Funny Brown Person (FBP). Out of that ethnically re- gressive sensibility, we got the enjoyably post-racial “Harold and Kumar” movies, as well as such talents as Mindy Kaling, a co-star (as Kelly Kapoor), writer and producer on “The Office.” NBC’s Thursday-night com- edies are now well-populated with FBPs. The standout per- formance in “Community” is not so much Joel McHale (or Chevy Chase) but Danny Pudi as Abed Nadir, the socially awkward though most likable member of the show’s study group. On the show, we have learned Abed’s fa- ther is Palestinian; in real life, Pudi is of part-Indian descent. Likewise, Amy Poehler’s sitcom “Parks and Recreation” was sal- vaged in part by the work of Aziz Ansari, who plays Tom Haver- ford and has an increasingly suc- cessful standup comedy career. Ansari was born in South Caro- lina; his parents immigrated to the United States from Tamil Na- du, India. This blurring of skin tone and background is, casting directors will argue, a sometimes neces- sary choice when finding the right actors to fill minority roles in movies and television, and “Outsourced” doesn’t rise to the level of an academic debate about the current state of minor- ity portrayals in prime time. The show is so dopey and simple that it will either resonate with an undemanding set of viewers or it won’t. By the time anyone gets offended (if they even do), “Out- sourced” might well be canceled; more likely, it will get adequate ratings and not be worth the has- sle of thinky deconstruction or protest. Back at the call center, Todd decides to start from scratch with his new team of employees. “I’m not sure what religion you are, but this,” he says, brandish- ing the latest Mid America Nov- elty catalogue, “is your new bi- ble.” Thus the bewildered workers learn about fake vomit and dog doo, and are encouraged to up- sell items like the mounted buck head that sings “Sweet Home Al- abama.” An explanation of mistletoe, and the rules of kissing under it, leads Asha (Rebecca Hazlewood, a Shakespearean actress from England, also doing her best Apu) to ask what the purpose would be of marketing a mis- tletoe belt buckle. “It means she would have to kiss you . . . down there,” Todd sheepishly explains. “This is how you celebrate the
birthday of the son of your God?” Lines like that somewhat leav- en “Outsourced’s” insipidness, as if offered as proof by the pro- ducers and writers that the real point of the show is to under- score the root cause of the de- cline of American dominance: our ignorance, not theirs. But that’s being way too charitable to the show’s true intent. By the time Gupta, the office nerd, is performing his rendition of the Pussycat Dolls hit “Don’t Cha,” we know exactly what strange land we’ve traveled to. It’s just another day in Browns- ville.
stueverh@washpost.com Outsourced
(30 minutes) premieres at 9:30 p.m. Thursday on NBC.
KLMNO the new season} fall tv preview
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2010
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