I binge-watched this a couple of months ago. Definitely uneven, but the good stuff is very good. I love the parents.
Played by his actual parents!
Also shouldn't you be studying, ogged?
Yeah, I liked it a lot. Netflix really does have a remarkable hit rate with its originals, especially so with comedy, which is normally so hit and miss. The new Gillian Jacobs/Paul Rust show Love is pretty good too, though less consistent than Master of None.
This week is something like a a time-out, where we're expected to work about 50% time on our group projects. Bootcamp itself isn't in session.
Tangential: Do Indian-Americans (contra Indo-British and Pakistani-British people, for example) expressly resist inclusion in the plate-tectonic term of art "Asian" or do too many Americans not know that the subcontinent is part of Asia?
I've seen the first five or six episodes. Ansari is a terrible actor (in this) but the woman he goes to Nashville with, H. Jon Benjamin, and the over-the-top action guy are all very good.
the woman he goes to Nashville with, H. Jon Benjamin
H. Jon Benjamin isn't a woman, neb.
To be fair, I may be self-selecting myself out of ones I'd dislike, like the Adam Sandler movie. Of the ones I've seen:
Arrested Development (hit, but not as good as the old seasons because of the production constraints)
Bojack Horseman (palpable hit)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (hit, though more of a smile than a laugh kind of show)
Master Of None (hit)
W/ Bob & David (palpable hit)
Wet Hot American Summer (hit)
Love (hit, most of the time)
A Very Murray Christmas (miss)
Then there are all the stand-up sets, which are more predictable in quality, but I give them enormous props for giving some fantastic comics like Jen Kirkman, John Hodgman and Bill Burr the platform
He is an over-the-top action guy though.
I watched an episode of Master of None on the day I (had already decided to) cancelled my streaming plan.
5: I've tried to be careful to say "South Asian", since unqualified "Asian" in the US is so tied up with "East Asian" (and possibly "Southeast Asian", but I'm not even sure about that being used consistently). Have thought about saying "Desi" but it isn't clear to me if that's okay for someone outside of the group to say. I've yet to hear any complaining about "Asian," though.
How about "subcontinental"? Is that offensive?
Master of None and his book (Modern Romance) are both really good, but as kind-hearted and generous as his stuff usually is, he's got a weird blind spot when it comes to fat people. It's jarring.
Relatedly, I just got some great positive reinforcement on the value of keeping my goddamn mouth shut when I feel the impulse to ask about people's ancestries. Went out with a lady who I assumed implicitly was South Asian. At the end of the first date, saw her surname which looked Spanish, said to myself "Hey, look how wrong I can be." On the second, it came out naturally that her family came from Goa by way of Pakistan.
(Very agreeable company, too.)
I have no idea whether "subcontinent" and "subcontinental" are offensive, but if they are I'm very sorry for using the former. I thought it was just geographic!
11: I have heard "Desi" out of the mouth of only one person, an actual Indian on a student visa. My closest Indian-American friend would never, I think, use it.
(Very agreeable company, too.)
Congratulations.
I watched it all, but I'm not sure what I have to say about it at this point. I'm not particularly agreeable only company these days either. (But yay, Minivet!)
Go Minivet!
So is the third date when we get to give her a nickname?
Nice work Minivet.
I like Master of None a lot. The social commentary comedy stuff often feels effortless and light-handed, which is super hard to pull off.
I feel like Ansari's "terrible" acting kind of makes the show. His kind of slacker/naif/aost breakimg the fourth wall thing works and keeps the whole thing at the right tonal level. A "better" actor with a more true to life performance would fuck everything up.
Congrats, Minivet!
"subcontinental" is one of those words that sounds simultaneously really cool and possibly derogatory. Positive words don't start with "sub"! (Except sandwiches, although those are properly hoagies.) Then again, "continental" reminds me of free breakfasts and trips to more interesting places where I will eat those breakfasts. So I'll probably avoid it out of idiosyncratic aversion unless it's clearly the preferred word.
My problem with subcontinental is I'm leery of using terms that end in -al to describe groups of people (yeah yeah I've probably opened my self up to all sorts of smartass comments here). Oriental, Aboriginal, all no bueno.
My Pakistani-American roommate calls himself Desi, and I've used the term when talking to him, but I'm not sure I'd use it more generally. I usually say South Asian.
26
I avoid calling South Asians subalterns unless I really know they're big Spivak fans.
"Positive words don't start with sub!"
Sublime, submarine, Subbuteo, Subaru, subfusc, substantial, submachine gun...
Actually I think I feel a film script coming on now.
The use of the word "subaltern" in humanities academia is so weird. I guess it's mostly just a classy somewhat obscure word that starts with "sub." I prefer to call my branch of postcolonial Marxism "NCO Studies."
27: Good point about the "-al"--I guess the root issue is using a modifier referentially, thus potentially implying that that trait is sufficient to describe the referent? Like, "Aboriginal Australian" isn't deprecated, is it?
29: Oh, ha ha, yes. Although the first definition of "subfusc" I found is "dull; gloomy." But you got me at 30, and 31.
Thanks to everyone for the words, though I'm probably jumping the gun in telling you.
Have we any ... South Asian commenters? I'd like one to interfere with our speculation by telling us what he or she would prefer to be called.
36. Imaginary internet friends are about the best venue possible for musing anonymously about your love life I think.
Also, bored introverts-- you are providing a valuable point of focus less abstract than say the horrific siege of Aleppo or the state of blogging today.
I would help out in kind, but am basically really happy right now, so feels like kind of bad taste to mention too many details. I will say that I was defenselessly making breakfast when she put "Free to be you and me" on the speakers this morning. I managed to fish out the bits of eggshell though.
Persia is east of the Urals and you can't go much farther south, maybe one of those somewhere? I've used terms like "Bengali" or "Pakistani," much as I would prefer others to say "Czech" rather than say "Eastern European" to describe my ethnicity.
There's probably some limit to localizing-- "Trevian" is basically insulting, while "Midwesterner" is pretty neutral. Smiley.
You can just use "Hindu" to describe anyone who looks like they're from those parts.
40: and wearing a turban is a big part of looking like they're from that area, right?
You can just use "Hindu" to describe anyone who looks like they're from those parts.
No, I'm sorry, it must be spelled "Hindoo" (including in your head when you're saying it aloud) or it won't do.
I've seen "Asian Indian" in government statistics, which is useful as the vast majority of results you get from a CTRL+F on "India" are unrelated. (The semantic drift in "Indiana" and its derived terms is amazing.)
Speaking of TV and Ogged, I've been watching the 90210 reboot (don't ask) and am amused that they have a Persian (self-described) character. So far, hilarious choices regarding his father (porn director), house decor, etc (although, no black BMW's in sight). He's like, the only nice character in the whole show, too.
Oh, and I love Master of None. I showed my in-laws the Parents episode and they too loved it.
6, 7: this would have been averted if you had used AP style. (Though the "all" does indicate >2 subjects so it is possible to determine the author's intent).
37
So, I asked my roommate, and he said his American relatives are fine with South Asian, Desi, or Pakistani from The White Man. They're also ok with Indian as a more generic term for South Asian, but they prefer Pakistani.* "Packy" (sp?) is an acceptable in-group term, but not for outsiders. His British family prefers to be called Asian or Pakistani. He also said they still use Oriental for East Asian.
*Since he is also half Mexican, he prefers "Mexistani" for himself, but is fine with being identified as either Pakistani or Mexican separately.
49
Yeah, that looks better. Packy is an elephant name, right?
ISTR this coming up before - "Paki" is basically the British Asian equivalent of "nigger". Definitely best avoided.
I can't remember where I first encountered it but it might have been in an issue of Granta. Whatever it was, the author was explaining the incredibly advanced British capacity for irony (compared to the enfeebled American capacity for same) using as the leading example a white Briton telling a Pakistani immigrant (or child of immigrants?) "P-ki go home".
Maybe the whole thing was supposed to be ironic.
51
Interesting. According to my roommate, in the US it's a jokey, slightly-derogatory-but-not-always in-group term. He said it wouldn't be cool for an outsider to use it, but it definitely isn't the N-word.
I wonder if there's any sort of historical explanation for that discrepancy.
Yeah, I've heard a few Americans use it innocently, on the basis that it's jusputting talking about Brits or Aussies. It really isn't though.
The historical explanation is a lot of screaming mobs in the 1950s to 1980s yelling "Pakis out" and putting bricks through windows and occasionally worse.
I believe it's also N-word level offensive or near it in Canada, though I am not a native informant.
How many mayoral candidates typically have proposals this detailed?
On Master of None: I liked the parents episode a lot, similarly the casting stereotypes episode.
The depiction of "ordinary" ostensibly likeable hipsterish people navigating relationships left me with the same feeling I had from Seinfeld: apparently I was intended by the producers to like the people on the screen, but mostly I did not like them (Lumbering friend is horrible, Dev and Brian seem well-intentioned but aimless; no books anywhere, no passion about anything much at all, a lot of interest in brand trivia). Sometimes that dissonance is pretty rich, but not in these episodes for me at least.
On the other hand, occasionally genuinely funny, spots of cleverness and compassion, and not insulting or vicious, all this unlike much contemporary comedy. Amy Poehler's work hits all of these for me as well, Tina Fey's by contrast I find often belittling and cruel, though perceptive.
48: Thanks! I'll probably use "Desi" more, then, at least when I think it'll be understood, as it's less of a mouthful than "South Asian."
60: You aren't supposed to like the characters on Seinfeld. At best, you should feel a revulsion at any shared characteristics you might have. They are monsters.
56.last: Somewhere in Allston, the last New England follower of Carrie Nation is wondering why people are calling her racist.
The historical explanation is a lot of screaming mobs in the 1950s to 1980s yelling "Pakis out" and putting bricks through windows and occasionally worse.
I was actually thinking of the Raj, but I can see how that would be a factor too.
Is this the TV thread? Because Heidi and Spencer are still surprisingly lovey-dovey after all these years, the weirdos.
60: no passion about anything? Food and music aren't things now?
65: you just know the reporter's eyes lit up when they heard this: "[The Hills getting cancelled] was our 9/11"
66. OK, fair point about food.
60. I am not sure that this is consensus, for JS especially. My reading is that the show grew out of his pseudoautobiographical standup. Any episodes you can point to that show self-awareness in JS's writing or plotlines? He's a less-ridiculuous Kanye West in self-love, I claim.
The big lumbering friend really is horrible. But H. Jon Benjamin is pretty solid!
68.2: Well-- most obviously in the series finale.
Kanye West incidentally has also shown himself to be quite self-aware at times. That's what makes the other times so bizarre.
70. Finale written by the sociopathic Larry David I thought. First Two seasons would be the place to look, I claim, after that it's a commercial enterprise first and something expressive second because all the actual ideas have been used up. I could be wrong, but that's my reading and my basis for it.
Also, 68.2 to 62.
64: Pakistan didn't exist under the Raj - it was an acronym for Punjab Afghan Kashmir Sindh baluchisTAN which fortuitously also meant Land of the Pure, and was only formed after Indian independence. So whatever Brits called Indians under the Raj, it wasn't "Pakis".
72: That makes it especially impressive how quickly it was abbreviated to form a racist epithet.
It may not have been racist originally. When you hate people enough, whatever you call them becomes an epithet. "Er ist ein Jude" is not a neutral sentence. Neither is calling someone "a coloured man".
Following 1947, was there more immigration from South Asia to the UK, or less?
The article Heebie linked in 65 is really great. Excellent long-form journalism.
Partition was not a good time - they slaughtered each other by the hundred thousand. Trains full of dead bodies. And more were displaced by dam construction in Pakistan.
And there were good jobs in the Midlands, and small existing Indian and Pakistani communities.
he prefers "Mexistani" for himself
The inevitable South Asian and Mexican fusion food that has gotten a foothold in Austin over the last couple years has been disappointing so far. Just give me a Chicken Tikka Masala Enchilada.
We're getting that too, naturally. Often taking the form of burrito-like wraps with Indian ingredients - a place by UCB campus that's almost a Chipotle clone, and another in downtown SF with "burrotis".
82: If it's the place across from McDonald's on Shattuck, that was a burrito place for years and has been doing the fusion thing since at least 2010. Actually, I don't think I've been there since 2010, so maybe it doesn't exist anymore.
Because businesses live or die by my patronage, of course.
83: No, a much smaller place on Euclid. I remember the place you're talking about, though.
Everyone in the Bay has or has had a strep-like throat bug! Me, neb, a co-worker, Mallory Ortberg...
Often taking the form of burrito-like wraps with Indian ingredients
The one place in particular that I am thinking of is basically this--only tacos instead of burritos, because Texas.
83
My roommate has been there. He was also disappointed by it.
Have we any ... South Asian commenters?
We have had at least one in the past.
bored introverts...less abstract than say the horrific siege of Aleppo
This is possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
The inevitable South Asian and Mexican fusion food
Starting here too. For decades the only* "Mexican" places outside London were run by Chileans who had arrived post 9/11**, but now there's a YUGE one that's started up in Sheffield, owned by (South) Asians and largely patronised by (South) Asian yoof, who see it as a welcome alternative style without being completely tasteless. It is of course halal.
* Only in the sense of there not being much of an actual Mexican population in Britain, but I'm sure there must have been a few authentic restaurants here and there.
** 9/11/72.
AIMHMHB, there's a Mexican/Polish fusion place in Mayfair. Though to be honest it's less fusion than half a Polish menu and half a Mexican one.
93: that's probably a good thing, on balance.
My retirement plan used to be to open an Indian restaurant in Prague, because there wasn't one, and every Czech I knew went absolutely nuts for Indian food. But I've been beaten to it. Ah well.
re: 94
My wife used to teach Czech to the staff* at an Indian place in Prague, in 2001. Even then it wasn't the only one.
* Indian, so all excellent English speakers but little or no Czech.
It is possible that my retirement plan was never actually viable for exactly that reason.
Last time I was over there I had an Indian meal in a restaurant in a shopping mall. The place really has changed.
I was in that particular place one time, with a group of Scottish friends, celebrating a birthday. We were staying behind after the place shut, because we were drinking with some of the staff.
An English stag do, who were also in, got properly lairy and tried to kick off a big fight when asked to leave. I think they must have made some racist assumptions about what might happen, and then they were quite surprised when the Indian barmen didn't back down, but physically chucked them out, and showed themselves to be quite handy.
Maybe open a decent Chinese takeaway in west London? Because I'm fucked if I can find one. And although I live within walking distance of Southall, most of the Indian takeaways are crap, too.
The ones in Acton were pretty terrible, as I recall. But then, everything in Acton is.
71: I thought we were using the auteur theory . I remember hearing Seinfeld tell a story that one time the script had Jerry doing something that Jerry knew he would never do -- (if I recall correctly it involved making a great effort to help somebody that he had reason to feel guilty towards ) and so Jerry made them change it, so that George would do it instead.
Then I got the idea that Jerry and George are like Bugs and Daffy. I spend too much time around someone that talks about cartoons all the time. (no, not you, bob)
re: 99
It's odd, because I use to have easy access to several really very good Chinese and Indian takeaways in Glasgow. I've moaned about this on Unfogged before.
Not sure what's odd about that.
I guess it's the assumption* that as 'the' metropolis, London will be better served. But, it has more of everything, not better of everything.
* naive.
I recently noticed a FB friend of mine referring to herself as "East Asian," which struck me as new. Back in high school, we had the "Asian" kids, and the "Indian" kids. The Indian kids are now South Asian 40 year-olds.
Well, there are plenty of very decent Chinese and Indian takeaways in London. It's just that being somewhere specific in London doesn't ensure "easy access" to them.
Positive words don't start with "sub"!
In my place of work, protocol requires us to refer to the Caribbean subregion. As in, the Caribbean is a subregion of the Latin America and the Caribbean region. It strikes me as a major communications clusterfuck, when we have to talk about "subregional initiatives" and such, which basically undermines whatever point we are trying to make to a Caribbean regional audience.
93: The Mecican restaurants I went to in Poland were all pretty bad, but the one in Prague was much worse. Slovenia and Hungary tied for the best.
re: 107
I've had really terrible Chinese food in Prague. Recognisable as the same sort of food I'd expect in a generic (i.e. southern Chinese/Hong Kong) cheap Chinese restaurant here, but with way more salt and MSG.
Mexican-Polish (really Habsburg) fusion is responsible for Mariachi and Norteno music, but I can't think of obvious food crossovers, except that both cuisines like rendered fat.
Mexican-Polish (really Habsburg) fusion is responsible for Mariachi and Norteno music
I have a friend (more of a friend of a friend) who studies the diffusion of accordion music across Latin America.
Enthusiasts of such matters have established a festival in San Antonio:
http://www.internationalaccordionfestival.org/about-us.php
109
Sour cream.
The worst Mexican food I've had was in China. Also the worst Indian food, which is slightly more surprising.
The worst everything food I've had was in China. Their desire for cosmopolitanism exceeds their ability by so, so much.
They can't even do proper Pho in 广西, and that's on the Vietnamese border.
Guangxi. My phone autocorrects to Chinese.