It don't matter if you're black or white

Or does it? My initial title for this post was 'Racism in Hollywood' - then I thought it might be a bit too harsh... a better word for it would be "typecasting"!!

My coworker (who is Asian) pointed out, during one of our water cooler breaks, that there are no substantial roles for Asians in Hollywood unless the movie is about martial arts or the Asians are playing 'nerdy' characters (but for some reason the same cannot be said of Asian women - case in point being Lucy Liu, Michelle Yeoh, Sandra Oh - although technically she is Canadian but you get my train of thought). We then started to rack our brains to see if we could come up with Asian male stars in Hollywood that were main protagonists in non-martial arts movies and we came up with.... NO ONE (we did come up with Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, but he died an untimely death so we will never know).

That got me thinking about Indians (or lack thereof) in Hollywood – with the exception of Kal Penn, I cannot think of any desi or American of Indian origin that has made it big in Hollywood. This, despite the fact that Ashok Amritraj is actually a bigwig Hollywood producer with movies like Raising Helen (the next door neighbour was portrayed by a desi I have to admit but the movie was not about her) and Bringing Down the House to his credit. Aishwarya Rai is trying to make inroads but with limited success this far. Hopefully movies like Slumdog Millionaire will help pave the way for us to shine in movies as well. As a direct consequence of the movie, I hear that Freida Pinto is starring in a Woody Allen flick – I send my good vibes & wishes her way and hope she is successful in establishing a strong, if petite, presence in Hollywood.

P.S. If you can think of non-martial arts movies with Asians/Indians (yes – I’ve already thought of Harold and Kumar but they are both kinda sorta nerdy and losers) in the main role please leave a note :)