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Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian American Studies Shilpa Davé

Cinema Journal, Volume 56, Number 3, Spring 2017, pp. 142-147 (Article)

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Racial Accents, Hollywood Casting, and Asian American Studies by shilPa davé

In the episode “Indians on TV” of the Netflix comedy series Master of None (2015–present), Emmy Award–winning cocreators Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang chronicle the trials and tribulations of an Indian American man auditioning for acting jobs in the American television and film industry. The protagonist, Dev Shah (Ansari), who is an actor in New York City, questions himself and others about whether or not he should do a “funny Indian accent” to land a role. In discussions with his friends, his agent, casting directors, and network industry decision makers, he muses about why Indians and Asians are sidekicks in most Hollywood plotlines and why there can’t be two Indian characters who are friends and talk to each other in a mainstream comedy. The show also brings up the role of Asian American representations compared to representations of other racialized groups, and how nonwhite entertainers and actors operate when confronted with racism in the industry. The decision to use or not to use the constructed Indian accent translates into a cultural and professional crisis of identity for Dev. To perform the accent means success and recognition in standard Hollywood narratives, but it also denies the individuality, variety of experiences, and diversity of the actors who long to challenge the preexisting character stereotypes. While representations of Asian Americans in the US media are dependent on visual politics, casting choices, and acting performances on-screen, another factor that marks Asian Americans, South Asians, and in particular Indian Americans as a racially identifiable and distinct group is the presence and performance of vocal and racial accents. Increasingly, as cultural and social debates proliferate about language and word usage, communication and political correctness, and racial, gendered, and class rhetoric, the study of the relationship between race and language and accent offers a lens through which to examine the complex and variable nature of racial hierarchies presented in and by mass media. Master of None’s narrative offers a frank appraisal of the racial representations of Indians and Asians in a complex hierarchy of racial and gendered relationships and depictions and specifically points to the prolific representation of Indian and Asian accents of English as a particular racializing trope for South Asian Americans and Asian Americans.1

1 Similarly, Stephen J. Kung’s film A Leading Man (2013) depicts the trials and tribulations of

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The accent is representative of stereotypical roles that have enjoyed longevity and commercial success in Hollywood. The animated character, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, (from The Simpsons [Fox, 1989–present]) has been on television since 1990 and has been followed by other incarnations of Indians speaking English with an accent on TV, including the popular Raj Koothrappali (played by Indian actor Kunal Nayyer) on the long-running comedy The Big Bang Theory (CBS, 2007–present). As I have previously argued, representations of Indians and South Asians have been racialized by their accents or “brown voices” in American TV and film.2 “Brown voice” is the act of speaking in accented English associated with Indian nationals and immigrants and is a combination of linguistic and phonetic markers that include stress points on particular words, cultural references, and words out of order. The performance of brown voice is adopted and used by South Asians and non–South Asians (most famously by Hank Azaria as the voice actor of Apu). More significant, brown voice operates as a racializing characteristic among South Asians that suggests both foreignness and familiarity in a US context. Historically, industry executives, producers, and casting agents tend to privilege physical difference or the visual contrast with the dominant white characters in their casting practices. In her book on colorblind television casting, Kristen J. Warner con- curs, pointing out that “Hollywood logic discourse suggests progress in diversity is at the level of skin color.”3 And yet although the casting process may be called colorblind, Warner points out that most of the roles are written as “race neutral” or characters who are written as white, so when a nonwhite actor is cast, the backstory or dialogue does not reflect ethnic or racial experiences. When race or ethnic roles are needed or emphasized, there is an inevitable exaggeration of racialized characteristics, or what I have called an accent.4 Thus, accent is not limited to sound or the performance of brown voice; it can also be defined as an accessory or cultural characteristic that is designed to highlight a dominant look, feature, or “race neutral” (white, heteronor- mative, American middle class) story line, such as inserting a subplot about arranged marriage to contrast Indian cultural practices with American ideas of romance. On the screen in the episode of Master of None, the choices among the offered roles are slim for Dev, and the conflict for Asian American actors or emerging nonwhite actors is to take the job in the hope it will lead to a successful series with good money and exposure or wait for (or create) another role that allows for some variety and flexibility. So while some may have qualms about the roles, nonwhite actors are driven to take the roles that pay the bills. In “Indians on TV,” Dev’s fellow actor Ravi (Ravi Patel) first performs in brown voice but then later refuses to do the Indian accent, thus creating an opportunity for a job and a role for Dev if he does agree to use an accent.

a Chinese American actor trying to forge a career in Hollywood, where success means playing stereotypical roles of Asians speaking broken English and the comic relief sidekick.

2 For more on accent as a racializing trope for South Asians, see Indian Accents: Brown Voice and Racial Performance in American Television and Film (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013); and “Apu’s Brown Voice: Cultural Inflection and South Asian Accents,” in East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture, ed. Shilpa Davé, LeiLani Nishime, and Tasha Oren (New York: New York University Press, 2005).

3 Kristen J. Warner, The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting (London: Routledge, 2015), 131.

4 Davé, Indian Accents.

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Brown voice or accent racialization is most often used in conjunction with comedic narratives and representations. The proliferation of Asian American and South Asian American leading roles and characters who are identified as racial minorities and who address their race and ethnic background in the narrative arc of the story appear primarily in comedic genres. In progressive sitcom TV series that feature Asian Americans and Indian Americans in central roles (in front of as well as behind the camera as producers and writers) such as The Mindy Project (Fox, Hulu, 2013–present), Fresh off the Boat (ABC, 2014–present), and Master of None (Netflix, 2015–present), either the characters do not have stereotypical Indian or Asian accents or the writers do not make those accents the center of the comedic story line. Fresh off the Boat features a multigenerational family that includes an immigrant grandmother who doesn’t speak English fluently, two parents who speak with either a regional American accent or fluent English, and children who speak in fluent English with cultural slang. The show is representative of the different kinds of accents and genealogies that exist in a multigenerational family. In The Mindy Project and Master of None, neither of the main characters speaks with an Indian accent. As the star, writer, and producer of her own series, Mindy Kaling makes headlines with the topics she tackles on her show that relate to women’s body image and women in the workplace. Although it is not a principal part of her show, Kaling’s character, Mindy Lahiri, talks about her racial and ethnic heritage and presents a racial alternative—and an alternative in terms of her age and profession—to the twentysomething heroines of romantic comedies who dominate the situation comedy genre. Aziz Ansari goes even further by writing stories for his show that contemplate how his cultural heritage and ethnic background inform his everyday life, from his consumer choices to his relationships to his profession. All these series represent the variety of voices that Asian Americans bring to everyday issues of love, family, education, and employment. The contemporary comedic genre therefore includes both stereotypical roles in which the “funny accent” is part of the comic appeal of Asian American and Indian American characters and a few progressive narratives that showcase alternative representations and voices. Accents can act as cultural currency as popular references about what Indian Americans and Asian Americans in the United States look and sound like. But how does accent work outside of comedy in genres such as drama or action adventure? While the stereotypical roles of the sidekick, scientist, spiritual storyteller, foreign immigrant, and comic relief continue, there also is a trend to move away from casting visibly obvious racial or ethnic roles to the practice of casting physically ethnically ambiguous actors in television and film roles. Part of being ethnically ambiguous also means eliminating “brown voice” or racial vocal accents, or the process of accent neutralization. In the call-center industry, the philosophy behind accent neutralization when speaking English is to separate how a person talks (their accent) from what a person is talking about (an identifiable place and nationality). The call center, which relies on vocal interactions between individuals, is useful for examining how accent is utilized as a similar racializing trope both in and outside of US national borders. In her analysis of call-center training handbooks, Claire Cowie identifies different standards of proficiency of Indian English but ultimately workers were asked to develop a “neutral”

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accent—one that is not necessarily associated with American English or British, or with Indian English.5 Training is not necessarily about mimicking the American accent but instead about achieving a “neutral” voice that is dependent on pronunciation and phonetic issues. The idea behind this “neutrality” is to eliminate traces of regional or geographical raciality and instead focus on speaking about cultural norms and topics, ranging from the weather to sporting events that might be relevant to a customer. Social exchanges are designed to distract from the phonetics and instead focus on the subject, to alleviate anxiety about differences and instead allow for a reliable transfer of information. To help think about the intersection between representations of racial difference and language, and identity, I find the work of Mary Beltrán helpful for discussing how the representations of racial and ethnic ambiguity are also intertwined with racial accents. In her article on bilingualism and racelessness in the Fast and Furious film franchise, Beltrán points to Asian American director Justin Lin as influential in the Hollywood industry because he insisted on including Spanish-speaking characters and subtitles in the fourth Fast and Furious (2009) film. He also included Portuguese in Fast Five (2011). In Beltrán’s interview with Lin, he explains that even in an action adventure film, it is important to show that Americans live in a global world where they will encounter multiple languages besides English.6 And yet, despite the progressive gestures toward multilingulism and globalization along the lines of class, the narrative structure of the big-budget action adventure film continues to privilege white, heteronormative masculinity and American English speakers as the norm. The ensemble team assembles for special jobs, but individually they live on the margins and in exile unless they form alliances with the established government systems. Beltrán observes that the white and “off white” heroes “benefit from a cultural flexibility that entails embracing traits often associated with Latino/as including Spanish fluency, placing family loyalty above all else, and enacting a personal spirituality in relation to a higher power.”7 This idea of cultural flexibility is similar to the idea of racialized accents, a concept related not only to vocal accents but also to cultural accents, which evoke difference or foreignness but can be contained in the structural compositions of Hollywood scripts. This idea of disembodiment, or of separating out racial markers as performative accents or characteristics, is a long-standing practice in the representations of Asian Americans and other racial minorities in Hollywood and television, which frequently has white actors performing blackface, brownface, yellowface, and redface to play different races and ethnicities. The addition is that the emphasis is less on the physical acquisition of racial traits and more about language flexibility and accessibility as a heroic and culturally universal trait. Language works hand in hand with physical performances to achieve the appearance of racelessness or a race-neutral position for the roles in action adventure narratives.

5 Claire Cowie, “The Accents of Outsourcing: The Meanings of ‘Neutral’ in the Indian Call Center Industry,” World English 26, no. 3 (2007): 323.

6 Mary Beltran, “Fast and Bilingual: Fast and Furious and the Latinization of Racelessness,” Cinema Journal 53, no. 1 (2013): 94.

7 Ibid., 89.

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When combining the call-center idea of a neutral accent with representations of Asian Americans and South Asian Americans in dramatic roles, one way to read some of these representations is to note that when characters speak with a “neutral accent,” the plotlines erase or bury racial and ethnic markers that include family, friends, cultural practices, and holidays. Although a character may be Asian American, such as Glenn Rhee (Stephen Yuen) from The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010–present) or Indian American Alex Parrish (Priyanka Chopra) on Quantico (ABC, 2015–present), or even have an Indian name such as Kalinda Sharma (Archie Panjabi) on The Good Wife (CBS, 2009–2016), the roles obfuscate or bury the racial backstory in favor of an assimilated story line. As A. Annesh points out, “An accent becomes an accent only when transportation allows one to cross regions of speech; it is an accent only when juxtaposed with others.”8 Without a defining racializing characteristic of a vocal accent (for either comedic or dramatic purposes) and the absence of cultural or ethnic topics, race and accent are neutralized, and the result is visibly physically different characters that reflect a diverse world but support the existing racial status quo (comfortable racial ambiguity) or perhaps the creation of a new set of intersectional hierarchies that are predicated on language skills (cultural flexibility). Hollywood writers and producers are engaging in a type of racial accent neutralization for Indian Americans and Asian Americans in Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Trek: Into Darkness ( J. J. Abrams, 2013) and The Martian (Ridley Scott, 2015). One of the foremost villains in the Star Trek universe is Khan Noonien Singh. The original 1960s TV series and 1982 film Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (Nicolas Meyer, 1982) featured Mexican actor Ricardo Montalbán playing the charming and diabolical South Asian villain, who, ironically, believed in the genetic superiority of his people to overcome all odds. In J. J. Abrams’s reboot, he cast white British actor Benedict Cumberbatch as the iconic villain. Unless the audience knew the original series, there was no explanation or backstory in the film to explain why the character possessed the name Khan, and in this new universe he is playing a highly intelligent and coldhearted terrorist. In one sense, his character has been racially neutralized, and yet even though he is visually a white actor, his cultural characteristics include a Muslim-sounding name, Khan, and his actions proclaim him to be a marginalized other and a threat to our heroes. Even more puzzling is the casting in The Martian of the black British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor as Vincent Kapoor (a multiracial character with a Baptist father and Hindu mother) in place of the original character in the book, Venkat Kapoor, the Indian American director of Mars operations at NASA, and white, blonde actress Mackenzie Davis as Mindy Park, who is originally a Korean American NASA engineer in the novel.9 The Media Action Network for Asian Americans criticized director Ridley Scott for this “whitewashing” of Asian American roles. As Guy Aoki

8 A. Annesh, Neutral Accent: How Language, Labor, and Life Become Global (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015), 4.

9 See Dave McNary, “‘The Martian’ Slammed over ‘Whitewashing’ Asian American Roles,” Variety, October 8, 2015, http://variety.com/2015/film/news/the-martian-white-washing-asian-american-ridley-scott-1201614155/. This type of race neutralization of replacing original Asian American characters with white female actors in Hollywood films continues in Aloha (Cameron Crowe, 2015), Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson, 2016), and Ghost in the Shell (Rupert Sanders, 2017).

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asked, “Was Ridley Scott not comfortable having two sets of Asian Americans talking to each other? So few projects are written specifically with Asian American characters in them and he’s now changed them to a white woman and a black man.”10 This is a return to Aziz Ansari’s question in his series of why two Indian Americans can’t be seen talking to each other in a television comedy. It clearly can work in comedic forms, but the film industry and dramatic genres have been more resistant to casting more than one nonwhite character except in an ensemble series.11

Examining accent neutralization, the centering of vocal accents and sound, and their relationship to language is a vital and important method in rethinking how we examine representations of Asian Americans in the media. Visual representations are still dominant in Hollywood casting practices and audience recognition, but by rethinking racial representations through the use of the accent, we are able to see connections between other ethnic representations and to open up alternative forms of research that lead to a larger discussion about performance, national identity, and media industry practices, and to think about how accent influences our perceptions of racial difference. ✽

10 Benjamin Lee, “Ridley Scott Accused of ‘Whitewashing’ Asian Roles in ‘The Martian,’” The Guardian, October 9, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/09/the-martian-ridley-scott-accused-whitewashing-asian-roles.

11 Hawaii Five-O (CBS, 2010–present) does have at least three recurring Asian American characters, but the lead detectives are two white actors.