Number Two Son likes to watch the Disney Channel, and while he was watching, I noticed a trailer for a new show called Jessie. What caught my attention was a character named Ravi who gets received the bad end of prank around 0:40. I immediately thought of another Indian American character – “Baljeet” from Phineas and Ferb. Number Two Son’s opinion of Ravi: “another stereotypical Indian – nerdy, gets beat up a lot.” This article from Divanee, a South Asian News and Entertainment web site, asks the following question about Ravi: “Is Hollywood Ready for a South Asian American Child Star?
In the article, Sabrina Siddiqui wonders why Ravi, played by Karan Brar, has an Indian accent and is described as “a 10-year-old adoptee imbued with his Eastern culture, but thrilled with his new life in America“. Aziz Ansari‘s role on Parks and Recreation doesn’t require an accent. Neither does Selina Gomez‘s role on Wizards of Waverly Place.
Though it remains to be seen how Jessie will pan out as a show, one can’t help but await the day when South Asian American children have someone to look up to — a child star with whom they can identify as precisely what they are, South Asian Americans.
It’s not just South Asians who are waiting for that day. There are not a lot of Asian American lead characters on children TV shows, especially ones played as Americans who happen to be Asian. Of those characters, there are even fewer male characters, with only Paul from the Nine Lives of Chloe King (played by Ki Hong Lee) coming to mind. The producers of children’s TV probably believe that children can’t throw off the notion of Asian Americans as the perpetual outsider.
So will Number Two Son watch Jessie? He’s reserving judgment: “I’ll watch the pilot and see how it goes.”
