One Jump Ahead of the Punchline

Media. Film. TV Representation. 

For the model minority community, where do WE fit in?

Model Minorities in media is an issue of more than just “not enough representation.” For some of us, it’s about bad representation too. It’s about how our countries are depicted, how we are seen in society, and the duality it causes between who we are construed to be, and what we really are. And, it seems we’ve always ended up, just one jump ahead of the punchline, or sometimes, as the punchline itself.
I’m Nidhi Shastri and this is Model Minority, Uniquely American.

In this episode, we discuss the issue of media representation with the case study of Apu and Disney Channel's usage of Desi characters. We look at how East Asians are often equated to whiteness in films such as "Get Out." We also examine cultural appropriation in the context of Japanese culture and anime, and then talk about the "yellow filter" placed on African, South Asian, and Southeast Asian countries.

"Aladdin" by thecmn is marked with CC PDM 1.0