I thought of many things I’d like to talk about for the Ted-Talk assignment and finally settled on one that I would be able to bring more personal input into. The changes in the representation of South-Asian people and their culture in the entertainment media. In one sentence this is still quite vague. To elaborate, I will examine how South-Asian people are portrayed in popular Western media; TV shows, movies, etc. I will be focusing on American media in particular. A lot of racial issues have prevailed for a very long time in American media with the use of brown face, brown voice, and demeaning stereotypes. Additionally, many women of South-Asian descent are rarely at the forefront and portrayed in a good light, and though a lot of change has taken place, there is still a lot of work to be done. Fortunately, things have changed, and we are seeing more and more characters that aren’t as problematic. There is still the question of whether these characters are less problematic to Western audiences because they have assimilated into American culture. In that case, the racial hierarchy is still maintained.

One of the sources I will be using is a survey from an existing research paper done by Bhoomi Thakore from Loyola University. Her paper examined audience perceptions of South Asian characters in American media. She conducted 155 online surveys to collect data regarding these perceptions. She generated data for particular shows and the negative/positive responses that the participants had toward the portrayals of South-Asian characters. This data will help me see which specific portrayals of South Asian people have been considered positive/negative, allowing me to further look at why this may be so. As there are many shows that can be analyzed, it is helpful that the survey focused on popular shows, which will help my arguments.

A second source I will most likely be using is a paper by Samantha Muffuletto from Harvard University, and her interviews with Indian American and Pakistani American men. Their responses regarding how portrayals of South Asian people in media affected their perceptions of these ethnic groups in real life were recorded. I think this will be a very helpful source as it takes a different perspective, and takes it further into consequences for real people. As there are many people who have South-Asian roots but have grown up in America, their perceptions add a differing but important perspective.