This morning I brought my daughter to see “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days”. The movie was pretty unremarkable pre-teen fare, but for one thing: a minstrel-y portrayal of an Indian child named Chirag.
Chirag was only in a few scenes and wasn’t integral to the story at all. Each time he was used, it was to goof on his accent, geekiness, and “otherness.” Think "stereotyped Indian kid" and you'll have all the image you need.
The first time he appeared, it was in a cut-away scene of the protagonists’ (a white suburban middle-school kid named Greg) imagination.
Greg was about to begin his summer vacation, and wanted to be sure to get a (white, blond and pretty) girl's (Holly's) phone number. Because you know… a lot can happen over the summer, and Greg doesn't want to lose touch with her.
{The Cut-away to Greg's imagination begins}
Greg: What did you do over the summer, Holly?
Holly: Oh, not much. I just got married. (showing ring) Oh, there’s my husband now!
Chirag (thickly accented): Oh, hi Greg, what did you do over your summer?
As the movie progressed, whenever Chirag it was specifically for the purposes of leveraging the racial stereotype of a book-wormish and knowledgeable foreigner with inadequate social skills.
So here’s my question: how is this not racist? And if it is, how does it make it out of Hollywood without any noise?
I mean, this is a movie meant for kids. I'm pretty sure it was rated PG. And if I'm not wrong, it's pretty clearly mainstreaming racism among children.
Of course, some yahoo will read this and say, "But, but... Everyone loved My Big Fat Greek Wedding and it similarly exploited cultural quirks to make people laugh. For some reason, laughing at Greeks is OK, but laughing at South Asians is not. How so? Why?"
Well... Greek idiosyncrasies aren't commonly used to discriminate against them or deny them equal opportunity. They just aren't an ethnic, cultural or religious group that have a history of oppression here in the United States. On the other hand, how many weeks has it been since the Sikh Temple shooting?