feeling conflicted

so we ended tonight's class by watching "curry-n-rice girl" performed by indian rappers ludakrishna and mc vikram to the tune of "hollaback girl" by gwen stefani. in it were all the familiar (to me) references about the kind of girl (fair, slim and who can cook) a "nice indian boy" would want to marry. familiar b/c i would read the personals in the back, front and middle of the indian newspapers that would be readily present in my childhood home. but that's not from where my conflict arises.... rather, it is tied to the very video itself, and what i understand it to represent.

as someone who has maintained a healthy distance from her culture of origin, i find it unsettling to watch this odd hybrid of east-meets-west-meets-immigrant. if i were to deconstruct this reaction, i might go in a few different directions: i didn't like the original, so why do a remake? why use media to make this when you one could follow in the tradition of "born into brothels"? why would indian people help make themselves the butt of the joke? and why, oh why, do i laugh and think it's funny?

i remember ian mentioning that one of the reasons given for dave chappelle's departure from his tv show was tied to his inner conflict over whether his intentional un-pc-ness was perpetuating some of the negative and hurtful stereotypes that currently circulate. a similar thread runs through discussions of "all in the family" when tv historians critics muse what happened when the "uninformed" viewer watched the show.

so i return to curry-n-rice - as a meal, it's quite nice. as a performance, i'm not sure.