One actor in Bollywood who doesn’t like to mince words is Abhay Deol. The ace actor is known for speaking his mind. Recently, Abhay talked about issues of stereotyping in the two most celebrated film industries- Bollywood and Hollywood.
Abhay Deol who starred in an American teen drama titled ‘Spin‘ believes that it is unnecessary to stereotype communities. According to him, certain communities are stereotyped in Bollywood while in Hollywood, Indians are stereotyped often. He says in American cinema Indian men are always seen as nerds and Indian women as exotic beauties.
Throwing light on the issue, the Dev D actor said, “I think stereotyping people is a reality whether it is in Bollywood or Hollywood. Even in our cinema, we stereotype few communities. But if we look at mainstream American cinema and television, I would say, we Indians are shown in two extremes. On-screen, Indian men are usually shown as nerds, and Indian women are shown as exotic, attractive, and beautiful. This kind of stereotyping puts a community in a pigeonhole which I do not like. Having said that, I do not want to look at the past anymore because we are changing the conversation with better roles, better representation, and better storytelling. I see no reason to hold on to the past and sulk about it, we are storytellers, we rather should change it.”
After having a conversation on the issue, Abhay went on to praise Priyanka Chopra Jonas who has broken the mould. The Deol lad said, “She is the face of change that we want to see to break the stereotype of representation of South Asian characters. Casting actors like her in lead roles whether it is in ‘Quantico‘ or in films in which she played a substantial part because of her talent, is the way forward. That is the way forward, instead of casting Indian actors like ‘taxi driver’ etc.”
The actor also voiced out the issue of accent that Indians are meant to speak in Hollywood. He pointed out, “I think people also have a tendency of making Indian characters speaking with a put-on accent in western cinema. They think we talk like that all the time. Listen, there is no one Indian accent when we speak in English. People from north Indian speak in one kind of accent in English, which is different from the south. But western cinema stereotyped that for the longest time. Not all the Indian community is loud, that is another stereotype. But I am hopeful that like Priyanka, there will be more role models from South Asia to break stereotypes in the western cinema.”
The actor played a father to a teenage girl in his show, Disney’s Spin. Earlier, he also talked about how Bollywood does not mind casting a 50-year-old male actor opposite 20-year-old women and “make them look like a couple”.
Well, the actor has done a keen observation. Points Noted!