Appropriation and appreciation: Hollywood just can’t seem to reconcile the two. Indian culture, particularly Bollywood dance, is rapidly becoming mainstream in the U.S. — so why can’t anyone on TV get it quite right?
“I have no idea why there’s so many Indian roles all of a sudden,” actor Ravi Patel told Mashable in 2015. “For whatever reason, it feels like we’re the hot ethnicity in the last few years. I don’t know what it is, but I’m just glad it’s happening.”
Patel was referring specifically to Indian characters and actors — but Indian dance and music are also appearing more and more frequently in American entertainment.
Bollywood — both the North Indian film industry and the music and dance thereof — isn’t a formal style, like jazz, tap or ballet. While there are classical Indian dance styles that date back thousands of years, Bollywood is an amalgam: a combination of classical Indian elements, belly dance, western contemporary, hip hop and more, blended together against the fantasy of Indian cinema.
But don’t fret, Hollywood — because some of us have been studying the beautiful and crazy world of Hindi film dance since we were born. And we’re here to help.
Hire experienced choreographers and dancers — hell, at this point, hire someone who’s even seen a Bollywood movie — and you might be able to do better than these American TV series that randomly decided to feature Bollywood numbers once, then never again.
6. New Girl
This show doesn’t get enough praise for its portrayal of Indian-American Cecelia Parekh (Hannah Simone) — but then again, the very fact that we don’t talk about it proves that team New Girl makes hyphenated identity natural and relatable.
In Season 5, Jess (Zooey Deschanel) hires a Bollywood dance troupe to perform at Cece’s engagement. “Ooh La La” is sort of an odd song choice, but they make it work. The dancers plaster on cheesy smiles so as to not steal the scene from Nick (Jake Johnson) and Schmidt (Max Greenfield), but proper Bollywood tends to be more expressive. Still, it’s clearly the best of the bunch.
5. Fuller House
Who would’ve thought that Fuller House, of all shows, could manage an entertaining and inoffensive — albeit utterly random — Bollywood flash mob? The episode, “Partnerships in the Night,” has its culturally tone-deaf moments (“Swami Tommy with his hot mommy”) — but when the dialogue mercifully stops and the music plays, the resultant dance sequence is actually adequate.
The Tanner/Fuller/Gibbler crew dress in full Indian formalwear, though the women need dupattas. The choreography is simple and fun, exactly the kind of thing that’s taught at beginner and intermediate-level Bollywood dance classes around the country. Sure, it’s completely unnecessary, but so is all of Fuller House.
4. Psych
The episode gets away with a lot of culturally insensitive and generally un-funny moments by putting the onus on Shawn (James Roday). These dancers are clearly experienced, with the exception of lead actress Azita Ghanizada, so the camera cuts around her — but what little is shown of the sequence is promising enough.
3. Sense8
First off, you’ve gotta love that video title.
You’d think a Bollywood number filmed in Mumbai with Indian dancers would have a little more self-awareness, but the choreography really screws the pooch on this one. Purab Kohli saves the first half, sweetly sincere as he performs this prepared dance for his fiancee. But then Kala (Tina Desai) and her friends just happen to have a whole counter-dance of their own.
To be clear: Indian people love to dance, but we do not have set choreography simply hardwired into our DNA. In musicals and Bollywood movies, people can break into synchronized dance without explanation. In the world of Sense8, it makes no…well, sense.
2. Smash
I love Smash deeply because of the immense care the producers put into staging elaborate Broadway numbers on a weekly basis. It’s disheartening, then, to see that they didn’t make the same effort when stepping outside their comfort zone. This song’s title and subject matter draw on Middle Eastern folklore, so the sequence conflates exotic cliches of Asian culture from the very beginning.
The background dancers are cut from the Broadway cloth — experienced, but not at this. There’s no formal training required for Bollywood, but dancers familiar with the style should be more comfortable and less mechanical. You may also notice that none of them are Indian; the few South Asian actors hired for the scene were relegated to standing in the balcony and clapping.
1. Limitless
WHERE TO BEGIN??? Just a few weeks after New Girl gave me fresh hope, Limitless used a brief but potent Bollywood-based “dance” debacle as a euphemism for two characters having sex. The choreography is erratic and straight-up ugly; dance is a visual art form, but none of the background dancers here know what they’re doing.
Choreographer John Carrafa allegedly watched lots of Bollywood videos for research (that’s the credentials you want for a choreographer: “uses YouTube”), but I’m disinclined to believe him. He would’ve been in better shape if he watched even one video: the original song.
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