If you knew me in these past few months, you knew that I was working on a paper about Family Karma for my AMCULT class. Well, here it is; slightly condensed, more digestable, and full of thoughts about this new Bravo reality show. Hope you enjoy, and please leave a comment with your own thoughts!

It’s Monday night. You’re comfy in your pajamas, your phone is fully charged, and the television is ready to stream. Predictions of this week’s installment have been a major topic of conversation at work, and you’ve spent the past week arguing over whose outcomes would be proven right. The anticipation is positively murderous and tonight, you’re more than ready to find out what happens. “It’s just a show,” some might say, but you know what it really is. It’s a moral quandary, asking the most difficult question of our generation. Not who are we? or what is our purpose? No, tonight, we’ll uncover the long-awaited answer to the question, who will get the rose? because it’s Bachelor night.

Reality TV has long been the guilty pleasure of the masses. From cooking shows to family dramas to live contests, we can’t seem to get enough of this low-brow culture. It’s a feeling of catharsis to watch the dramatized lives of others on television for the sole purpose of our entertainment. Something about reality TV ironically provides an escape from reality in a way that no other fiction does. But what makes this low-brow culture so worthy of consideration is that it has the potential to reveal, and even inform, our mainstream American culture.

Some reality show makers realize the weight of the platform they carry as it reaches a wide audience. Bravo is one of these. Purveyors of the reality show space for a long time and known for picking up diverse casts and concepts, they have released a new show called Family Karma that features the first all-South Asian cast in a docu-series on American television and tells the story of seven young family friends from Miami, Florida.

Bravo knows very well that it is making history with this show, and they make it part of the show’s mission to share and represent South Asian culture for an all-American audience. But shows like Family Karma beg the question of minority representation on television; are they actually telling a truly representative version of the story?

Apu from the Simpsons and Raj from Big Bang Theory — Apu from the *Simpsons* and Raj from *Big Bang Theory*

Historically, representation of South Asian Americans on television has been far from great. We’re talking stuff like Apu from the Simpsons, Raj Koothrapali from Big Bang Theory, and the likes. Where the characters and storylines are meant to be South Asian, they’ve been laden with marginalizing stereotypes. One of these stereotypes is the exaggerated accent. Shilpa Davé, an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, argues that this accent is not just a phonetic, linguistic accent, but that it:

“can also be defined as an accessory or cultural characteristic that is designed to highlight a dominant look, feature, or "race-neutral" (white, heteronormative, American middle class) story line, such as inserting a subplot about arranged marriage to contrast Indian cultural practices with American ideas of romance”.

With recent progress in the media space, we see that South Asians have begun to win more progressive roles, like Priyanka Chopra’s Alex Parrish from Quantico or Aziz Ansari’s Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation, which both feature Indian-Americans living regular, accent-neutralized, American lives. Davé notes that these types of characters are emblematic of producers’ attempts to turn a color-bind eye to casting and representation. However, she qualifies, the plotlines of these assimilated characters essentially bury racial and ethnic markers in favor of an assimilated storyline. Davé, therefore, has identified a binary that racial minority representation operates on in American media:

“Most of the roles are written as "race-neutral" or characters who are written as white, so when a nonwhite actor is cast, the backstory or dialogue does not reflect ethnic or racial experiences. When race or ethnic roles are needed or emphasized, there is an inevitable exaggeration of racialized characteristics, or… an accent”.

So, basically, what this means is that representations of South Asians are typically put on what I call an accent binary; their South Asian-ness is either exaggerated with accents or is assimilated into a dominant, race-neutral narrative. This is a binary dynamic that many South Asian second-genners are probably familiar with; we’ve lived our lives growing up in an accent binary dynamic, being as American as possible to fit in at school and being as South Asian as possible at home or back in the motherland.

That’s one way that media reflects reality, but representations of South Asians in American television have many more parallels. There are numerous sociological implications of these stereotyped representations of South Asians in American media – these representations are informed in large part by what’s actually happening in society and the stereotypes or storylines that media-makers actually see in their own lives. And the trouble is that South Asians, at least up until now, have been a minority both in real life and on television. We don’t see many stories or representations of South Asians, which means that when we do see a South Asian character, it carries the burden of representation for the entire diaspora.

That means that one story, because of the fact that it’s often the only of its kind, needs to represent or speak for every South Asian person that exists in the world. That, we know, is impossible. I mean, it would be like saying that the Kardashians are representative of all the white people in America. We know that that’s not true, because we’ve seen lots of other stories told about lots of other kinds of white people. We’ve seen rich and poor, straight and gay, male and female, tall and short, all kinds of white people on television.

But we typically only see one kind of South Asian; the Hindu-Indian model minority that’s super smart and works really hard. Or, for the sake of diversity, the gas station/convenience shop owner. And we know that’s not representative of the whole diaspora.

So, the way to break those stereotypes is to add more stories to the mix. It’s not to replace “bad” stereotypes with “good” stereotypes, but rather, to include more stories and more representations.

That’s exactly what Family Karma is trying to do. Their mission, as they’ve said, is to replace the marginalized stereotypes with more representations of the success stories that South Asians have. So, our question becomes, does Family Karma actually add to the narrative landscape with new and diverse stories, or does it instead perform once again on Davé’s accent binary?

On one hand, Family Karma presents an arguably diverse set of characters. Where traditionally we’ve seen tokenism, we’re now seeing a lot of South Asians with varied experiences. There’s Amrit Kapai, who came out to his family as heterosexual in his 20s. Bali Aunty is a 44 year-old single mom, who has been divorced twice. Vishal and Anisha chronicle the experience of marriage pressures within the culture from parents and relatives. Monica shows off a proud desi identity, while Brian shows us a version of American assimilation with less knowledge of or connection to desi culture. The representations are fresh, with diverse storylines that are not often represented on TV alongside the South-Asian identity.

The cast of Family Karma — The cast of *Family Karma*

One example in particular is the show’s discussion of marriage. From minute one, the show is fixated on the marriage stereotype in South Asian culture, but in an arguably refreshing way. An obsession with marriage is a stereotype that often accompanies South Asians on screen, with lots of pomp and circumstance, highlighting all of the strange, overtly colorful, vibrant, and loud rituals. It’s viewed through a sense of exoticism, that “appreciates” and yet, others.

Family Karma, however, strays away from those glorified, exoticized representations of marriage and instead has real discussions about it that reflect the diasporic experience. It takes a nuanced approach to the stereotype through many different lenses, whether that’s career-focused Anisha facing family pressures, whipped-fiancé Vishal, perfect bride-searching Brian, or twice-divorced Bali Aunty. It moves closer to complex discussions of the diaspora’s experience with and navigation of the concept of marriage, often offering a critical interpretation of the pressures within the culture.

It isn’t just marriage that gets a healthy roasting from Family Karma, though; not even the aunties of the community are safe from the show’s critiquing eye. The show, argues Sajena Sathian in her New Yorker review, corrects and refreshes the hagiographic representations of immigrant parents often portrayed on television.

Sathian discusses Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, and his choice to bring his actual parents on set to play the main character, Dev’s, parents. Sathian analyzes this choice, “...the casting felt treacly and avoidant. It kept the show from treating Dev’s parents as full, flawed characters, and demonstrated a protectiveness that’s bad for art—no viewer would dare judge Ansari’s adorable, hardworking mom and dad”.

By contrast, Family Karma isn’t preoccupied with protecting its elders. In keeping with the reality TV trope, the aunties are fully here to stir the pot and cause drama – they are flawed, dynamic, and above all, real. This is a far cry from the dichotomies we have seen in the past, ranging from the racist “FOB” parent stereotype to the pedestal-placement of immigrant parents.

In those ways, the show definitely does serve to widen the window of representation at least a little bit, but it still seems to fall short. While the show has distantly resonated with some, what many more in the audience came across when they sat down to watch was a feeling of discontentment. “It’s funny and it’s kind of like us, but that’s not really what we’re like. It’s too dramatized.” This is a common sentiment I’ve heard from viewers of the show.

As Ishani Nath puts it in her Juggernaut article, “The problem is that reality TV still has to be entertaining — and what is good for television isn’t always good for the community”. The show, even while presenting nuanced representations, is still laden with stereotypes. For one, the characters are all Indian, upper-class and upper-caste Hindus. They perpetuate the model-minority stereotype by portraying a limited view of South Asians in high-class, successful careers like doctors, lawyers, and engineers. The show, even as it moves away from some negative accent stereotypes, perpetuates a narrow representation of the diaspora and essentializes in different ways.

In America alone, we see that the diaspora is made up of an incredibly diverse group of people. The term South Asian is used to refer to people from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal. It includes people from many different faiths – including the Hindu, Islamic, Christian, and Buddhist faiths – and from every class (and for Hindus, caste). And yet, media representations like Family Karma depict a homogenized version of the term, one that defaults to upper-class, Hindu-Indian – and oftentimes, the model minority. In aiming to represent the entire South Asian diaspora, Family Karma falls incredibly short, and perpetuates popular media’s tendencies to erase the diversity of experiences within the diaspora even as it reports nuanced and intersectional experiences for Hindu-Indians.

But even if we were to properly classify the show as one about Indian-Americans instead of South Asians, it’s still slightly problematic. It can be argued that for Family Karma, the chosen structure of a reality TV show serves only to mock Indian culture.

The show exaggerates representations of Indian culture with sitar music transitions, cast members that are fully decked-out in traditional wear during confessionals, and plotlines thaat are centered around cultural functions like the extravagant “Diwali gala”. These over-emphasized representations are told in conjunction with the regular petty drama of reality TV that is purposefully exaggerated and made to be ridiculous, which serves to trivialize the entire culture. In a sense, while you’re rolling your eyes at the aunty drama and the cat-fights, you’re also rolling your eyes at the exuberance of Indian culture. For Americans who rely on this as a representation of all Indians in America, the show that claims to proudly represent the culture does no better than to mock it through the low-brow reality TV trope.

Anisha getting the evil eye removed from her chakras, a scene that is followed by a confessional with Anisha where she laughs at how ridiculous the whole thing is to her. It’s good, because true reflections of culture should include criticism and te… — Anisha getting the *evil eye* removed from her chakras, a scene that is followed by a confessional with Anisha where she laughs at how ridiculous the whole thing is to her. It’s good, because true reflections of culture should include criticism and telling the ugly truths, but at what point does the reality TV trope go too far?

Family Karma, I would argue, is a hybrid of Dave’s accent binary; the show exaggerates certain cultural elements to overemphasize an Indian identity while still fitting the story into a neutralized, American experience with the American reality TV genre. Theoretically, this should help progress representation, showcasing the dynamic nature of intersectional identities, but whether this dynamic will actually translate into popular perceptions will rest largely on the legs of the reality TV genre. For now, it’s clear that the show certainly opens up many opportunities for dynamic representations, if it can push not only the boundaries of the reality TV genre but also the boundaries of its narrow depiction of the diverse South Asian diaspora.

Family Karma Better Get Ready to Face its Own Karma