Are Immigrants TV's New "Coons" ?

So I think there's a new trend that I'm gonna have to go ahead and dislike.

I'm sure many of you have seen the show The Big Bang Theory, which features 4 geek friends. One is an Indian scientist named Raj, and a good number of the jokes surrounding him focus on his Indianness. But he's still smart, he's not any sillier than Wolowitz or Leonard, and when drunk is pretty successful with the ladies. And the Wolowitz character is far more stereotyped, in terms of his Jewishness. So... let's say we give it a pass.

But this evening I decided to tune into two shows I'd never seen before: Franklin and Bash, an American law dramedy; and Mr D, a new Canadian sitcom. And they both had a Southeast Asian Ha Ha The Funny Asian character. Though the shows are from different countries, different genres.

The one on F&B was Pindar, a sci fi nerd working for the two (white) heroes. He was the episode's clown.


The one on Mr D was the school janitor, about whom the big joke was he talks unintelligibly. He was a mega-clown. (Eg. Showing up to a bar in sequined disco slacks, and an orange shirt, tucked in over a big belly, and then dancing away, flirting with the ladies, etc.)

I couldn't believe it--two in one night.

I don't know if Big Bang Theory started the trend, or if this is part of the larger trend of "ethnic comedy" amongst stand-ups. I'm not against ethnic comedy since it's usually done by the Ethnic Person in Question, though there's the whole question of Are people laughing because they get the satire, or because they think it's true? (It's something that made my Jewish friend uncomfortable halfway through Borat, and it's one of the reasons Chappelle stopped his show. Given that Jeff Dunham* is the third most popular comedian in the US, I think Chappelle and my friend have something.)

Dunhams' José

But this oh-the-funny-Indian-accented-guy in the context of regular television is what's referred to amongst African-Americans as a "coon" character. A 21st century version, which plays on our perception of immigrants as these incomprehensible buffoons with funny accents.

   

The issue goes beyond the character being represented in a stereotypical manner. The humor is often derived from the character daring to be something he so obviously couldn't be, like a good dancer, or a ladies' man. (A ladies' man with that accent? Oh please! Ha ha ha it's so funny.) The real nub of the situation is best summed up by a line from Spike Lee's Bamboozled: 

"The network does not want to see Negroes on television unless they are buffoons."

My first school year in Quebec was in a special class for learning French, so all my friends were immigrants. My best friends were two interesting, intelligent Pakistani sisters, each completely different from the other, and not fitting any stereotype. My classmates were from every corner of the globe, and none were Weird Funny Foreigners.

Yes, sometimes when people speak in a second language / with an accent, it's funny. When we moved to Quebec our francophone step-relatives laughed at my brother and I all the time, for reasons we could never quite figure out. And when my brother's Indian father-in-law stopped taking photos at the wedding because "you are a silly bunch" it was funny. But there's a difference between someone who's occasionally funny, and reducing someone's culture to a joke.

Incidentally these characters tonight reminded me of the Latino immigrant played by Oscar Nunez of The Office in movie The Proposal. So maybe the new Stepin Fetchit will be multicultural. ...Yaaay.

__________
*Like most comedians, Dunham claims he's an equal opportunity insulter. But then admits that he doesn't go after the Christian Values jokes because he was raised on them, and it's the majority of his constituency. ...So there goes that excuse.