Master of Representation

Aziz Ansari's Netflix original series, Master of None, premiered in 2015 to rave reviews from critics and general audiences alike. In the show, Ansari plays a 30-year-old actor named Dev who is struggling to find satisfaction amid post-modern ennui in New York City. Episodes touch on a variety of subjects, from Plan B, to street harassment, to the lack of ethnic diversity in television casting.

 

 A particularly striking episode comes in the form of Parents, wherein Dev and his friend Brian take their first-generation immigrant parents out to dinner in an effort to bond with them. They use this opportunity to ask their parents about their unique experience as immigrants, like what life was like when they first came to New York. Their mothers bond over an early fear of answering the telephone because of their heavily accented English. This is interesting because it acknowledges the differences in each individual's immigration experience while also highlighting similarities that people from totally different cultural backgrounds may encounter. Both Dev and Brian find it difficult to make time for their parents because of their busy lives, and because of the deep generational divide between parent and offspring. Dev's parents are from India, and Brian's parents are from China, so they all come from cultures much more conservative than modern-day America, providing different sets of frustrations for the parents and the children. This dynamic is especially authentic and effective because Ansari's real-life Indian immigrant parents play his parents in the episode.

Dev is an important, complex character who juggles his own identity as a modern American with his familial roots. Most notably, Dev is not constricted by any Indian stereotypes seen in commercials, film, and television (taxi driver, IT tech, etc.) Brian and his parents show that, contrary to the 1942 Superman clip that depicts little to no difference in its Japanese characters, Eastern Asian people have identities unique to their ethnic background and personalities. Master Of None is a wonderful show that tells the rich stories of people so often overlooked by television.