Seeing Brown: “Master of None” and Young Indian-American Viewers

By Jenny G. Zhang / Medill NU ‘16

Barely two weeks since its Nov. 6 premiere, Aziz Ansari’s comedy “Master of None” may already be the hit of TV’s fall season, generating buzz and earning rave reviews from viewers and critics alike.

Created with fellow “Parks and Recreation” alum Alan Yang, who wrote and produced for the beloved NBC sitcom that introduced Ansari to viewers as the fast-talking Tom Haverford, “Master of None” stars Ansari as Dev, a 30-year-old actor in New York City. Funny and heartfelt, the Netflix series easily immerses viewers in the charmingly offbeat world of Dev as he attempts to navigate relationships, work and life.

But for young Indian Americans, “Master of None” offers more than a few hours’ of entertainment — it represents a rare chance to see their own stories portrayed honestly on a screen long dominated by white faces.

“It really spoke to a lot of things that I grew up with — things that I feel like a lot of minorities face,” said Malini Desai, 21, an American-born college student who was raised by immigrant parents in New York.

The series’ second episode, titled “Parents,” particularly struck a chord with viewers like Desai, who recognized her own experiences in the complex relationship between Dev and his parents.

In the episode, Dev and his friend Brian (played by actor Kelvin Yu) learn about the sacrifices that their parents made so they could provide better lives for their children in the U.S.

“It made me reflect on my own experiences,” said Karishma Satapathy, 20, a college student born and raised in Michigan. She recalled stories that her dad told her about growing up poor with six siblings in India, their mother often forgoing meals so that her children could eat more.

“It’s so easy to overlook the fact that they did so much for you,” Satapathy said of her parents. “They left behind their family, their friends, everything they had and grew up with, to come here and give us a better life.”

While the show features themes of race, ethnicity and cultural differences, young Indian-American viewers applauded the fact that “Master of None” is ultimately about one man’s story and thus normalizes the Indian-American experience as just another part of Dev’s character and his narrative.

“It’s not just the Indian-American experience, but the millennial experience,” said Gaurav Kulkarni, 24, who came to the U.S. from Mumbai with his family when he was six months old. “The reason why that’s powerful to me is, because you can see it as either, it lends the fact that I’m not so different.”

Imagining the quintessential American millennial usually conjures the image of a white person, he said, even though he and other non-white Americans have also grown up in the U.S. Shows like “Master of None” offer an alternative to a lifetime of being seen as the “other,” according to Kulkarni, who now lives in San Francisco.

“The fact that something is so universal and features a brown guy — that’s powerful,” he said.

Genuine, non-stereotypical representation matters, according to young Indian Americans.

“On the basic level, it just makes you feel less invisible,” said Kumar Ramanathan, 22, a recent college graduate who came to the U.S. five years ago to study at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

More importantly, seeing similar stories and experiences reflected on TV can create opportunities for discourse and chances to connect on a deeper level, said Ramanathan.

He recalled friends who were able to use the episode “Parents” to open up conversation with their own immigrant parents in an accessible way.

“It gives people the ingredients with which to actually talk about these things in our lives,” he said.