I'll preface this with "I'm not Indian" but...
I must admit, the whole comic screams gross caraciture, and not terribly
funny to boot. That being said, userfriendly ceased being entertaining (at
least to me) about 3 years ago.
By design though, I understand Illiad's need to yank in the generalizations
for an attempt at comedic effect -- he works in a medium that falls back on
such conventions regularly. In some respects, particularly in the case of
the three-panel daily comic, I think you need to employ caricature and
generalization to hit the succinct punchline at the end of the third panel.
That India (and to a lesser extent, Indians, are the brunt of this
particular thread) seem only to serve the current story arc, and I'm not
sure it'd be fair to extrapolate ignorance of India(ns) to the creator (and
even less so, to the comics' readership).
Given that, I'm curious, in an 'across-the-pond' sort of way -- do you ask
the same questions (or generate the same 'datasets' that Bonobashi did) --
regarding Indian comics that exaggerate or generalize about the U.S. or
Canada (or anywhere considered "away" for that matter)?
Carey
On Sat, May 23, 2009 at 10:40 AM, Bonobashi <bonoba...@yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- On Sat, 23/5/09, Udhay Shankar N <ud...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Udhay Shankar N <ud...@pobox.com>
> > Subject: Re: [silk] More on India in "Illiad" cartoons
> > To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
> > Date: Saturday, 23 May, 2009, 7:24 PM
> > Bonobashi wrote, [on 5/23/2009 7:05
> > PM]:
> >
> > > Next, if we enumerate these bits of information and
> > knowledge, we find that these do not form a cohesive,
> > intermingled whole; instead, what we have is a set of
> > bullet-points, like so:
> > >
> > > * India is a low-cost location for voice-based
> > BPOs;
> > > * Chennai is a typical Indian city;
> > > * All Indian cities resemble one another;
> > (implied in the depiction of buildings, denizens, and
> > descriptions of available food)
> > > * Chicken tikka is an Indian dish (as opposed to
> > regional, or faux-Mughlai);
> > > * Curry is another generic Indian dish;
> > > * There are no female Indians in real life;
> > > * There are mythical Indian females, and these
> > are seductive entities which cannot be resisted;
> > > * There are mythical Indian female deities, and
> > these may or may not be the same as mythical Indian
> > females;
> > > * The iconology of Indian deities is easy;
> > multiple limbs, an aggressive attitude, imminent danger to
> > mankind;
> >
> > The issue is that, if one is to apply a strict standard of
> > accuracy and
> > cohesiveness, this needs to be applied to the rest of the
> > strip's story
> > arcs as well (such as the recurring characters from HP
> > Lovecraft, and
> > the AI, and the dustbunny and so on)
> >
> > The whole thing falls apart then. I suppose this could be
> > taken as a
> > generic comment on the nature of the implied contract
> > between reader and
> > writer ("willing suspension of disbelief") and so on, but
> > there seems to
> > be more to it that this - and I am not able to put my
> > finger on what
> > this is.
> >
> > The whole story arc obviously piqued Giancarlo's curiosity
> > enough that
> > he asked twice what our thoughts on it are. I don't really
> > have any
> > thoughts on it at this point, I'm afraid, as I don't know
> > what the
> > cartoonist is trying to say.
> >
> > Udhay
> > --
> > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com))
> > ((www.digeratus.com))
>
>
> The point is, I don't think the cartoonist knows either, and seems to be
> feeling his way forward. Maybe if we track the data revealed by him, we will
> come to realise what the general idea is more or less at the same time as
> he.
>
>
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