From Invisible to Hypervisible
Posted by litdaily on August 24, 2010
Reuters seems to have caught the drift of the postings on this blog today, and their report echoes reader AD’s comment that Indians are no longer the invisible minority on American TV. The hypervisibility of Indians on the U.S. screens is supplemented by increased presence of Hollywood studios in Indian markets…more>>
In a June article for Slate, Nina Shen Rastogi outlined the reasons for this hypervisibility of Indians: changing demographics, Asian American media advocacy, more opportunities for Indian actors to play Middle-Eastern terrorists …more >>
It is indeed interesting that the timing of this buzz about hypervisibility of Indians coincides with the worst kind of fear-mongering, in both television and print media, about South Asian Muslims. Is it that audiences are happy to consume images of South Asians on screen as far as they don’t have to deal with them in real life? Or is it that they think of Indians as a category that does not include Muslims?
LitDaily 
AD said
As much as I love to see Indians in mainstream American media, its hard for me to believe that this is going to be much more than a fad. The late ninety’s brought about the era of Latin influence and culture popularity in the US. But how many Latin-Americans do you see on ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS combined these days (a handful maybe). I can’t think of more than one or two TV shows that center around a primarily Hispanic family that has been even remotely popular (George Lopez Show and Wizards of Waverly Place). Lets face it, the general media unfortunately caters to the middle-class white American. Blacks, Hispanics and Asians(including Indians) play supporting roles at best to primarily white leads. Lets hope it changes…