Well, first of all, Jimmy O. Yang, the actor and comedian that interprets Jian-Yang is probably the most talented comedian of the bunch.
I do think that, humor aside, reinforcing stereotypes is unnecessary for Silicon Valley to be a successful show so they should try exploring other themes.
All the characters in Silicon Valley are one dimensional caricatures, so on the one hand it seems unreasonable that two of the characters should have their ethnicity explored in a meaningful way. The show doesn’t treat anything in a deep or meaningful way. When the caricature is based on ethnicity, however, and ethnic stereotypes particularly, then surely there is an onus to treat racial sensitivities, or attempt to do so. The slurs dressed as wit continues to grate, in an otherwise enjoyable comedy.
All the characters in Silicon Valley are one dimensional caricatures
All fiction is artifice. Conversations about how good/bad representation in fiction creates an underlying assumption that it's not crazy to expect prioritization of accuracy in modeling humanity. Fictional characters are cogs in a rube goldberg-ian machine designed to elicit an emotional response. Similarities to reality exist to make it so the set-up for the emotional punchline doesn't feel artificial.
That is my primary problem with articles like these. The presumption that ethnicity is more often explored by media, rather than just new contextual framing and stereotypes programmed into the brains of the viewer.
Creators trying to "get real" in their fiction are just using "real" as shorthand for "exploring emotional themes that are relevant to me and/or to the zeitgeist" and "reducing the uncanny valley feeling of characters that are inexorably two-dimensional."
Also: In b4 I'm called autistic for thinking cookie cutter meta-conversation that follow one of a dozen "Look for X, feel Y about Z" criticism patterns only serves to obscure, not clarify, our understanding of works of fiction.
One caveat is this article quotes a study that shows that Asians are under-represented among top leadership in Silicon Valley. One potential confounder they don't address in the study is they don't differentiate between foreign and native born. I imagine at least some if not all of the gap would disappear if you compared native born to native born.
I don't know if being foreign born is a good a reason to not be in an executive position, but I seriously bet it's a factor.
While I think it's incorrectly worded, I do think cultures encourage behaviours that in turn affects ideas like creative output, but that's not race, only culture.
Example: My native country, Sweden, has a culture of municipal music schools that are relatively cheap. Tons of kids are encouraged, and do, take up some instrument at some point. Very few take it further, but Sweden has a disproportionate number of #1 international pop hits compared to its tiny population. This is obviously also part of that pop music is something that is globally in demand (some countries produce many classical musicians, which may not be as commercially viable).
Kids in the US are encouraged to live the American dream, that anyone can make their own fortune (totally unrealistic, given class structures), and are encouraged to innovate and try things out. Clearly that culture of "self made man" produces a lot of innovation and creative output, which in turn is globally very in demand.
The only asian country I had a little insight into is India. As an outsider, I can't at all claim to understand it, but there appears to be widespread culture of learning a trade, perform that trade the way you learned it, get a good job with a big company and then focus on your family. I trained some outsourced IT staff, and no one there wanted to "stick out" or perform better than the group. People were much more inclined to take collective responsibility for solving a task than individual. I speculate that India as a consequence of this culture, isn't using its full potential for dominance globally, be it creatively, musically etc. Though there are signs of it changing.
As an Indian, it's hard to convey the breath of what happens in India. It really depends on which pocket of the country you land up in and who you are surrounded by.
You have to remember there are cities in India with populations larger than Sweden. With histories and traditions older than anything you will find in Europe.
There are so many different schools of art/music/dance/architecture/textile/food etc that teaching an Indian kid about it all in an education system geared towards economic utility is a complex issue.
Which is why most people, most Indians included, have a very simplistic and often times misguided understanding of Indian creativity.
Yes, this is why I say I really don't presume to understand much. I've seen some things, and it's questionable whether I understand what I see through my western cultural filters.
My pockets were mostly southern india and a bit of delhi and kolkata. In work contexts of IT, I (thought) I saw similarities, but I'm sure there's many subtle differences that just eluded me.
The author is casting the white characters in a good light, conveniently ignoring all of their deep flaws, and fixating on the flaws of the non-white characters.
"Meanwhile, Pakistani immigrant Dinesh spectacularly screwed up both a CEO position and a relationship."
Dinesh is perhaps the most likeable character on the show. Yes, he messed up in the CEO role. Just like Richard, and Gavin Belson, and the other CEO of Pied Piper. Just like Erlich and Big Head in running their incubator. Has the author actually watched the show?
Regarding Dinesh's relationship, he ended it, for good reason. Contrast that with Richard's recent experience.
Jian Yang is an immigrant, and Erlich's frequent references to that fact can be grating. But the argument that Jian Yang's bad app idea is racist is ridiculous. People in SV pitch bad ideas all the time. Is the author suggesting that non-white characters can't be shown failing?
If you were to follow the author's advice, next week's article would be about Asian characters on the show (a comedy show) not being portrayed accurately enough for leaving out their faulty human side. You cannot win with these types. It's best not to engage them.
Immigrants move to a new country on their own accord to (potentially) build a new life for themselves there.
An expat is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship sent abroad by their employers, who can be companies, governments, or non-governmental organisations, often with specially monetary incentives to make the (allegedly unwilling) move.
By that measure, H1-B's would be expats wouldn't they? They're not on a path to immigration, and theoretically are only working in the USA because no one with their unique skillset could be found, thus companies (theoretically) pay them premium wages.
I don't think you read what I wrote. H1-Bs are not sent to the US by their foreign employer generally (there is a different visa category for that). Also why would you think. H1-Bs are not on a path to immigration? For many people the path to US citizenship based on employment is H1 to Green card to citizenship
It was my mistaken understanding, that another poster cleared up.
I thought that because H1-B VISAs tethered one to their employer, then your situation was understood to be impermanent since if you lost your job and didn't quickly find another then you would have to leave the country.
H1-B is a dual intent visa, so someone on one could be either an expat or an immigrant. I get the impression that it is more common for them to be immigrants because someone who already worked for the company sending them to the US could get an L1 visa instead, which doesn't have the cap on number issued like H1-B does.
Although that word has meant someone living outside their country, I think it has baggage and has come to mean westerners living outside their native country.
Quite trashy article, twisting reality to fit it's agenda.
You could make the argument that the show (despite being a comedy show with caricatures as it's characters) should include more Asians and cast them in as positive a light as the other characters. I'd still disagree (you're trying to dictate how someone should create what-might-be art) but it wouldn't be as distasteful.
Instead of doing that, the writer chooses to try and tell us that the "white" characters are "grappling with the difficulty of translating genius into profit". Despite being presented as hugely flawed episode-to-episode. Despite half of them being presented as simpletons that are faking-it-till-they-fail-spectacularly.
I wonder if it ever occurred to some people—let alone the author—that Silicon Valley is not only comedy, but a merciless mockery of its real-life namesake. It is pure satire.
As such, the show takes reality and amplifies it—often to the level of ridiculous caricature.
To suggest that Silicon Valley must censor itself for the sake of people's delicate sensibilities, is to suggest that the show must cease calling out the fact racism exists in the real life Valley, and instead paint a willfully disingenuous picture.
To quote Geogre Carlin:
"It’s the user. It’s the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are completely neutral. The words are innocent. I get tired of people talking about bad words and bad language."
Silicon Valley's writing is no different. The context is that it's a show which mocks the absolute shit out of its real-life counterpart, and does an excellent job of it.
This is simply a case of wannabe censors bent on cutting off their nose to spite their face. Silicon Valley is playing for their team, they're just too stuck up to realize it.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 54.1 ms ] threadThis show opened with quite a lot of racism and sexism in its first episode. Why not just avoid the show entirely?
I do think that, humor aside, reinforcing stereotypes is unnecessary for Silicon Valley to be a successful show so they should try exploring other themes.
All fiction is artifice. Conversations about how good/bad representation in fiction creates an underlying assumption that it's not crazy to expect prioritization of accuracy in modeling humanity. Fictional characters are cogs in a rube goldberg-ian machine designed to elicit an emotional response. Similarities to reality exist to make it so the set-up for the emotional punchline doesn't feel artificial.
That is my primary problem with articles like these. The presumption that ethnicity is more often explored by media, rather than just new contextual framing and stereotypes programmed into the brains of the viewer.
Creators trying to "get real" in their fiction are just using "real" as shorthand for "exploring emotional themes that are relevant to me and/or to the zeitgeist" and "reducing the uncanny valley feeling of characters that are inexorably two-dimensional."
Also: In b4 I'm called autistic for thinking cookie cutter meta-conversation that follow one of a dozen "Look for X, feel Y about Z" criticism patterns only serves to obscure, not clarify, our understanding of works of fiction.
I don't know if being foreign born is a good a reason to not be in an executive position, but I seriously bet it's a factor.
While I think it's incorrectly worded, I do think cultures encourage behaviours that in turn affects ideas like creative output, but that's not race, only culture.
Example: My native country, Sweden, has a culture of municipal music schools that are relatively cheap. Tons of kids are encouraged, and do, take up some instrument at some point. Very few take it further, but Sweden has a disproportionate number of #1 international pop hits compared to its tiny population. This is obviously also part of that pop music is something that is globally in demand (some countries produce many classical musicians, which may not be as commercially viable).
Kids in the US are encouraged to live the American dream, that anyone can make their own fortune (totally unrealistic, given class structures), and are encouraged to innovate and try things out. Clearly that culture of "self made man" produces a lot of innovation and creative output, which in turn is globally very in demand.
The only asian country I had a little insight into is India. As an outsider, I can't at all claim to understand it, but there appears to be widespread culture of learning a trade, perform that trade the way you learned it, get a good job with a big company and then focus on your family. I trained some outsourced IT staff, and no one there wanted to "stick out" or perform better than the group. People were much more inclined to take collective responsibility for solving a task than individual. I speculate that India as a consequence of this culture, isn't using its full potential for dominance globally, be it creatively, musically etc. Though there are signs of it changing.
You have to remember there are cities in India with populations larger than Sweden. With histories and traditions older than anything you will find in Europe.
There are so many different schools of art/music/dance/architecture/textile/food etc that teaching an Indian kid about it all in an education system geared towards economic utility is a complex issue.
Which is why most people, most Indians included, have a very simplistic and often times misguided understanding of Indian creativity.
My pockets were mostly southern india and a bit of delhi and kolkata. In work contexts of IT, I (thought) I saw similarities, but I'm sure there's many subtle differences that just eluded me.
"Meanwhile, Pakistani immigrant Dinesh spectacularly screwed up both a CEO position and a relationship."
Dinesh is perhaps the most likeable character on the show. Yes, he messed up in the CEO role. Just like Richard, and Gavin Belson, and the other CEO of Pied Piper. Just like Erlich and Big Head in running their incubator. Has the author actually watched the show?
Regarding Dinesh's relationship, he ended it, for good reason. Contrast that with Richard's recent experience.
Jian Yang is an immigrant, and Erlich's frequent references to that fact can be grating. But the argument that Jian Yang's bad app idea is racist is ridiculous. People in SV pitch bad ideas all the time. Is the author suggesting that non-white characters can't be shown failing?
An expat is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship sent abroad by their employers, who can be companies, governments, or non-governmental organisations, often with specially monetary incentives to make the (allegedly unwilling) move.
I thought that because H1-B VISAs tethered one to their employer, then your situation was understood to be impermanent since if you lost your job and didn't quickly find another then you would have to leave the country.
This seems onerous compared to a green card.
To my ears it has some colonial connotations.
That's more or less the undertone of every vaugeposting, clickbait article on "representation in media."
You could make the argument that the show (despite being a comedy show with caricatures as it's characters) should include more Asians and cast them in as positive a light as the other characters. I'd still disagree (you're trying to dictate how someone should create what-might-be art) but it wouldn't be as distasteful.
Instead of doing that, the writer chooses to try and tell us that the "white" characters are "grappling with the difficulty of translating genius into profit". Despite being presented as hugely flawed episode-to-episode. Despite half of them being presented as simpletons that are faking-it-till-they-fail-spectacularly.
As such, the show takes reality and amplifies it—often to the level of ridiculous caricature.
To suggest that Silicon Valley must censor itself for the sake of people's delicate sensibilities, is to suggest that the show must cease calling out the fact racism exists in the real life Valley, and instead paint a willfully disingenuous picture.
To quote Geogre Carlin:
"It’s the user. It’s the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are completely neutral. The words are innocent. I get tired of people talking about bad words and bad language."
Silicon Valley's writing is no different. The context is that it's a show which mocks the absolute shit out of its real-life counterpart, and does an excellent job of it.
This is simply a case of wannabe censors bent on cutting off their nose to spite their face. Silicon Valley is playing for their team, they're just too stuck up to realize it.