Blackface on primetime
India’s Zoom channel is running a cricket-themed comedy show for the World Cup called Yo Maan. It stars comedian Suresh Menon in blackface with a silent bimbo by his side.
Here’s Menon in real life:
Watch the clip:
The hypocrisy is stark. This show metes out the Peter Sellers/Gunga Din treatment to the Caribbean, and the character wears exactly the kind of wig that South Indians complain about in Bollywood. This show would have been smothered in the crib in the U.S. Mainstream Indian media are quick to complain about racism and just as quick to inflict it.
See also: Should I use blackface?
on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007, 6:45 pm in Issues, TV, Video clips › 
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You are so right. It reminds me of an article I read about African students studying in India and how they face racism everyday.
Also, I wonder what you would call it when Bollywood has non-Sikhs playing Sikhs with what are obviously very fake looking beards and sloppy turbans, and acting like a doofus’? Sikhface?
Yes’m.
Disgusting, but not exactly surprising. People here never seem to realise, just how offensive they can be when it comes to racial/ethnic humor. I call people out, and am constantly told, that its not meant maliciously…. I dont know what to say to that, other than you dont have to be malicious, to be ignorant.
wow — outrageous (though alas not surprising). thanks so much for posting this, manish.
p
What I find even more surprising is the ad that Brian Lara does for MRF.
He approaches the guy at the entrance of the hotel whose job it is to call the driver over the loudspeaker so he can come around from the parking lot to pick his passenger up. The guy says to Lara “What’s the car number? Driver’s name?”
And Lara replies “I ain’t sure, man.”
Didn’t he object to that line? Why wouldn’t he just say “I don’t know”? Is he more ‘authentic’ if he speaks incorrectly?