Outsourced - Episode 1

The "India" that serves the purpose of the set for Outsourced is very much the environment the organizers of the Commonwealth Games want the world to perceive as India. It's sterilized, organized, and seemingly efficient. The unfortunate truth is that that India doesn't exist. One of the reasons Slumdog Milllionaire was so popular in America was that it gave a fairly decent representation of what urban India actually looks like, including the office where the star was a pantry boy serving tea (yes, that job really exists). That reality is also one of the reasons I believe it's not a terribly popular movie in India. In fact, the only time I've heard it mentioned is in conjunction with AR Rahman and the music he produced for the film.

My point is this, if you're going to produce a show about an American working in India, at least make it look like he's working in India.

In addition, if you're going to produce a show about an American working in India, don't consume all the stereotype jokes in one episode. In fact, you could center entire episodes around a single stereotype and address then in balanced, informed, and funny manner. Arranged marriages? There's an episode. Religious head wear? Another episode. Food? Probably two or three episodes. Personal space? Traffic? Another couple episodes. Cows? Yep, you guessed it, yet another episode. The reality is that differences in culture creates a healthy curiousity which could easily be explored in a manner which is funny without going for the obvious jokes that cater to the lower end of the comedic spectrum.

That being said, I could identify with bits and pieces of the show. Building relationships (i.e., eating with the team) isn't the worst decision you can make. I too, when eating the Indian food at the office (which is admittedly rare), still tend to base my selections on color: I consider red good, yellow average, and green bad (just my personal preference).

The most accurate part of the episode from a business standpoint was when one of the characters was asking about the context of mistletoe as it relates to Christmas. Without that context, these items are simply items. It's easy enough to tell someone from another culture what a thing is, but without also teaching them context, that thing has absolutely no meaning. Of course, the writers took the opportunity to create a mistletoe belt that could be worn for novelty purposes to to try and garner a kiss "down there". The only bright side to this entire exchange was that lead to the only funny line of the episode, when the character responded, "This is how you celebrate the birth of your God?"

Bottom line, the show just wasn't very funny. As mentioned above, there's any number of topics this show could explore around living and working in another country that could prove insightful while still being extremely funny. The producers and writers of this show seem to have taken the easy way have fairly low expectations of what Americans might think is funny. Daniel Fienberg made the best observation I've read about what the show could have been in his review:

"On one imaginary hand, you could have a show about a young American worker who's so grateful to have a job and so intrigued by the idea of moving to a foreign country that he embarks to India determined to eagerly experience a foreign country and having a professional adventure while he's still young enough to enjoy it. Maybe he doesn't love everything he discovers there, but he's constantly having his expectations challenged and he knows that when he returns to the States in a few years, he'll have the sort of stories and experiences you can't pay for. Some weeks he could laugh at the Indians. Some weeks they could laugh at him. Occasionally the writers would have to do a bit of research to learn something about the country they were setting their show in. I would watch this show."

At the end of the day, the premise of this show has potential, and who knows, maybe future episodes will take advantage of that; however, the filtered view it presents of today's India will limit its appeal (and it's longevity). Plus, it just isn't funny.

Cow Tapping

It took over 8.5 months, but my driver and I had our first contact in the car this evening with a cow. And before I continue, you'll be relieved to know that it wasn't serious. In fact, it seemed much less serious than the time he hit a stray dog.

We were weaving through back roads in Gurgaon to stay away from traffic. Upon coming to a narrow part of the road (the road really wasn't that narrow but there was only one passable path since the roads have basically disintegrated in the monsoon rains the past couple weeks). A cow was on the left, standing parallel to the car. As Kailesh slowly navigated the potholes, the cow turned its head, and well, the car's windshield tapped the cow. I happened to be on the front end of a conference call and the contact surprised me enough that I exclaimed, "Oh Shit!"

When asked what happened (it was a familiar enough group that the profanity was, while unprofessional, not totally unacceptable), I told the truth. Safe to assume it wasn't what they expected to hear. It's also safe to assume this is a scene that has at least been considered in the minds of the writers for an upcoming episode of NBC's Outsourced. Though from the reviews I've read, the show is apparently insultingly awful enough that it sounds unlikely to make it out of October. More to come on that after it premieres tonight.

No cows were harmed during the act described in this short post. Upon tapping the cow, the author looked back to see the animal still standing unfazed in the middle of the road.

Outsourced

I read this morning that NBC picked up a Thursday night sitcom for the fall called Outsourced, which I would assume is at least loosely based on the 2006 film with the same name (surprisingly, I haven't seen the movie but have heard it's very good). The show will be based on a manager whose department gets offshored and he's asked to move to India to either manage the operation or transition the job. While there are likely parallels here with my life, I'm actually curious to see how the show presents India and whether or not the show will even be aired here.

(Note, there are a number of American television shows here though few are aired in real time. I think the only "live" program I've heard of is American Idol though I think that's now only aired the same week. Typically, a show will be a season (or two) behind which helps explain why Hulu and other streaming media isn't accessible from outside the United States. The final season of Lost just kicked off here last night when the U.S. is only two episodes from learning the fate of the castaways.)

Regardless, with the help of my trusty Slingbox, not only will I be able to watch the Lost finale before I head to work next Monday (which I'm going to need to do because someone will invariably post some sort of spoiler on Facebook), I'll also be able to check out Outsourced in the fall. Whether or not it's worth comparing to the actual experience remains to be seen. Also remaining to be seen is whether or not there's wide enough appeal to the American viewing public to be reminded on a weekly basis of what many feel is a primary cause for the unemployment problem in the U.S. If there's not much interest in that, this show will have a very short run.