Aziz Ansari says than Ben Jabituya was the first Indian character he ever saw in a movie. Before he realised that Fisher Stevens was a white man, it meant a lot to him to see people that looked like him/with the same heritage as him, appear as a prominent character in a mainstream American movie (the sequel goes even further by making Ben the lead character, one who has a romantic interest).
This is what he said about the character:
'The first time I saw an Indian character in an American movie was “Short Circuit 2,” a 1988 film in which a humanized robot named Johnny 5 goes to New York and bonds with an Indian scientist named Benjamin Jarhvi.
Seeing an Indian character in a lead role had a powerful effect on me, but it was only as I got older that I realized what an anomaly it was. I rarely saw any Indians on TV or film, except for brief appearances as a cabdriver or a convenience store worker literally servicing white characters who were off to more interesting adventures. This made “Short Circuit 2” special. An Indian lead character? With a Caucasian love interest? In the 1980s? What’s going on here? A bold foray into diversity far ahead of its time?
Not exactly.
One day in college, I decided to go on the television and film website IMDB to see what happened to the Indian actor from “Short Circuit 2.” Turns out, the Indian guy was a white guy.'
And here's the rest of the article, where he expresses his sense of betrayal, before getting to meet Stevens in person:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/arts/television/aziz-ansari-on-acting-race-and-hollywood.html
reply
share