“It feels like a misrepresentation every day”
"Jessie" episodes perpetuating stereotypes of Indian characters on Disney Channel
Imagine never seeing someone who looks like you on your TV, and the one time you do… they’re full of stereotypes. Back when I was younger, I would turn on the TV after school or on the weekends and watch Disney channel, and one of my favourite shows was “Jessie”. The show is about a wannabe actress forced into becoming a nanny for 4 rich children. However, several unfavourable stereotypes about Indians are perpetuated in the well-known Disney Channel program. These stereotypes not only damage how Indians are viewed in society, but they also restrict the number of Indian characters that can be found on television. In these episodes, the child adopted from India, Ravi, is portrayed in a way that feeds into a multitude of Indian stereotypes. He is the nerdy-type child who is academic, has a thick Indian accent, and is the socially awkward weirdo that no one wants to be friends with. As an Indian child myself, these portrayals of my culture and my people made me not see the beauty, and only see the negative aspects of it. I began to dislike my culture after seeing not only this character, but multiple other Indian characters on TV that were misrepresented.
Specifically touching on Ravi’s character in “Jessie”, in an episode called “Are You Cooler Than a 5th Grader?”, there are so many stereotypes used and jokes made about Indian culture. For example, when Ravi wears his sherwani to school, Jessie and Luke make deprecating jokes about Ravi’s choice of wardrobe. Jessie mispronounces the name by calling it a “shaboopy” and Luke says he looks like “a traffic cone with hair”. Those are clearly insults written to make fun of an aspect of Indian culture because it isn’t a social norm in the United States. Throughout the episode, Ravi’s character seems to have no social skills, with the writers making him say things like “cheerio fellow pupil” to greet people, as well as making him seem as though he has no common sense like thinking the school bell is the fire alarm. All of this is only from the first 5 minutes of the episode. They continue to make Ravi an outcast by dressing him up in a cricket uniform to play at the park, and have Luke horribly imitate Ravi’s accent, which is quite insulting. The show portrays Indian people as foreign. The comments about how different Ravi’s culture is to everyone else perpetuate the myth that Indians are not truly Americans and do not fit into society as a whole.
My question is… would you choose to hang out with that kid in school? If you were 8-12 years old and saw someone who looked like Ravi, would you have a great impression of them and want to be friends? The way this show represents Indian kids leaves a negative impression on the rest of society. "Jessie" as well as a multitude of other TV shows limit the understanding of Indian people and culture in its audience. Seeing these kinds of portrayals on TV about Indian culture makes Indian kids feel like outcasts to the rest of their peers, and encourages non-Indian kids watching to potentially see Indian culture as a joke.
Hi Riyana! This post is extremely interesting and well written. Jessie used to be one of my favourite TV shows growing up which makes me think about how we are blind to stereotypes used in the media as children. This definitely could impact the way a child views the world if they are not taught properly (since they are so impressionable). Thanks for speaking out about it!
I find this very well said and interesting. I too grew up watching this show as a child with limited exposure to other cultures. This representation of Ravi to me as a child allowed me to only see people of an Indian background to be similar as that culture. As sad as it is I believe this is not just the case for me. After re watching the series just recently I noticed how insulting it is to people of this culture. You are right, within a very short amount of time watching the show, the character is made a complete mockery of.