‘Aliens in America’ walking on very thin ice. [updated]

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‘Aliens in America’ walking on very thin ice. [updated]

By: Karthik :+: Under: Brown in America, Entertainment, Media Watch, Opinion, Racism
On: ⋅ October 2, 2007 ⋅

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After managing to watch all those episodes of ‘Scrubs’ and ‘Family Guy’ on my DVR when I finally managed to get to those episodes of ‘Everybody Hates Chris’. As I was forwarding the commercials, I saw a South Asian kid on this new show - Aliens in America, starting October 1st on CW.

The first place to look at was youtube and this is what I found.

~~Propagating ever known stereotype, this show rubs me the wrong way. Well that was until I figured that I was not alone. [ 1,2,3]~~

~~Ooh BTW Raja Musharaff, the name of one of the characters, is not really Islamic or Pakistani for that matter. And that music does not help.~~

~~So how does everyone else feel about this stupid show?~~

[update]

The problem with writing about stories without completly knowing all the details is not a good thing to do. And it has come back to bite me, you know where.

Aliens was very different from what I expected. I started thinking that the joke was on us, but as the show progressed, it became clear. The joke was on them.

I did not get the reason why Raja was wearing the ’showler kameez’ to school, they answered it. I did not like the ‘apu get me my slushie’, then again I guess that is what South Asian kids go through here. And did not like the music when Raja was praying, but in the show it did not seem so blatantly racist and scary as it did in the trailer. DId they edit the music?

All in all it was better than what I expected. It still falls below my standards for a smart and funny comedy, but it was way better than the initial impression I got from watching the trailer.

Sorry for the late update, this is from my phone and I am some 25000 feet up over middle america. I will update this post with what other bloggers think as soon as I find a computer. Until then stick around UD where we do make mistakes, but we also are not ashamed to admit that we are wrong.

Discussion

9 comments for “‘Aliens in America’ walking on very thin ice. [updated]”

1: shlok | September 23, 2007, 2:22 pm | Direct Link

Manish over at UB did a thing on this too. I can’t tell you how angry the concept, and the way they go about it, makes me.

2: Karthik | September 23, 2007, 9:42 pm | Direct Link

Crap I thought I checked UB and SM for posts on most topics. Think this one slipped thro the cracks. Need to get off the Old Monk.

Thanks shlok.

3: muralimannered | September 23, 2007, 11:24 pm | Direct Link

i did actually see the whole pilot and it’s really par for the CW course. I didn’t expect it to be anything other than Van Wilder for the Lifetime/CW set, and so it is.

I wonder if the kid knew this while he was auditioning and just did ‘awkward indeterminate-origin furriner mooslim” to the hilt, knowing that such a spectacle would bag the part for sure.

4: Karthik | September 24, 2007, 5:01 pm | Direct Link

I didnâ€™t expect it to be anything other than Van Wilder for the Lifetime/CW set, and so it is.

I did not see the show, I thought that it was supposed to be out in October. Ahh well, guess I did not miss much.

I wonder if the kid knew this while he was auditioning and just did â€˜awkward indeterminate-origin furriner mooslimâ€ to the hilt, knowing that such a spectacle would bag the part for sure.

True dat. Who would not want such a kid on television, given the world events and hey if he was willing to portray such a part just to break in, he might have made a costly mistake.

5: shlok | September 24, 2007, 7:19 pm | Direct Link

Karthik, sorry bro. Didn’t meant to call you out. Especially when you’re holding it down without Santosh.

But about this show…I just can’t get over the insensitive dialog: too many to recite (actuallly, too f#%ed up to repeat).

6: Karthik | September 25, 2007, 10:47 am | Direct Link

Karthik, sorry bro. Didnâ€™t meant to call you out. Especially when youâ€™re holding it down without Santosh.

It’s cool shlok.

But about this showâ€¦I just canâ€™t get over the insensitive dialog: too many to recite (actuallly, too f#%ed up to repeat).

I have set the show to record on Monday, hopefully sometime next week, I will have a review.

7: Aliens in America « Lakshmi Gandhi’s Blog | September 27, 2007, 12:01 am | Direct Link

[...] Many blogs have noted that the name Raja is not typically a Muslim name.Â Wikipedia says that Raja is usually a Hindu or Sikh name. [...]

8: Über Desi | Halloween “speshul”: Desi exchange student horror story | October 31, 2007, 11:04 am | Direct Link

[...] one of the most sought after girls in school and how well everyone treated her? And more recently, Raja in Aliens in America has been the new face of the exchange student program in American pop culture. Raja while not [...]

9: Über Desi | CW cancels Aliens in America | May 20, 2008, 10:33 am | Direct Link

[...] Looks like you are new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Remember how apprehensive we were when this show (Aliens in America) started and how a few episodes managed to change our perception and we actually started liking it? [Previous UD post on Aliens in America] [...]

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