#indian representation

Mumbattan

Lets talk about Earth-50101, Mumbattan, Pavitr's home dimension. Mumbattan is displayed as a beautiful, colorful dimension with lots of traffic, lots of people, and lots of culture. When we see Gwen, Miles and Pav swinging through Mumbattan, we see people wearing saris, people driving scootys, Indian-style billboards and even temples in the surroundings. This is an extremely accurate depiction of large Indian cities.

Mumbattan on the left, Mumbai on the right

See how similar these look?

Now compare this to how Hollywood's Slumdog Millionaire movie depicts India.

Every single movie depicting India made by Hollywood portrays India as a country full of slums and dirty people. I have never seen Hollywood portray India as the beautiful, culture-filled country it is, and I have never seen one of the many beautiful temples, or the advanced cities represented in western media until now. Slumdog Millionaire is a fantastic movie, but India isn't only made up of slums.

Hollywood tends to romanticize struggle and when depicting India, makes it seem like a very depressing country. Yes, there are slums in India. Yes, there are people struggling in India. But that doesn't mean that India isn't beautiful. It doesn't mean India is behind. Mumbattan is the first depiction of India I've seen that I feel portrays the beauty and culture of India well. It is a fantastic representation.

2. Pavitr's personality

One of the most recent and most popular Indian representation series right now is the show, Never Have I Ever. In my opinion, this show is terrible. The main character, Devi Vishwakumar, is the stereotype of all stereotypes and doesn't accurately portray most Desi girls. She is rude, selfish, and extremely narcissistic. Her entire personality is being Indian and I find that extremely hard to watch. They make fun of her by addressing stereotypes like an excess of body hair, fashion, and even accents but instead of shutting down these stereotypes, they amplified them by making fun of them.

In western media, Indians are either portrayed as IT workers, scammers, grocery store owners, or nerdy, try-hard teenagers. Every show with an Indian teenager in it portrays them as cheap, unhygienic or unattractive which I, as an Indian, find extremely offensive.

Pavitr is portrayed as an optimistic Indian teenager who's smart and strong, without bragging about it, proud of being Indian without making it his whole personality and genuinely funny. He isn't portrayed as some skinny, nerdy guy with glasses. In fact, he's literally shown flexing his muscles, and performing well in class without going overboard about it. He's so full of culture, I can't even begin to explain it because I'll never stop. His suit, his mask, his webs, the way he moves, the way he fights, its all beautiful and I could watch for days on end without getting bored.

We were finally served an attractive, funny Indian character who isn't a walking stereotype, who loves and embraces his culture and just seems like an awesome guy to be around. Seeing him on screen made me feel so proud, of my religion and my culture. I hope Hollywood takes notes on this and continues providing the media with proper Indian representation and strong Indian role models for characters!

This article explains everything I said a little better, because I know my writing style can be confusing sometimes. It really goes into depth on how impactful it is on Indians to see this kind of representation for the first time in western media and how important this is.

He's so pretty <3 I'm so proud that I look like him

Movie: A Nice Indian Boy

Director: Roshan Sethi

I need to share a few words about the masterpiece that is A Nice Indian Boy, directed by Roshan Sethi.

This queer romcom film is a marvel, a gem that takes your heart in and gives it all the warmth that makes smile wide and laugh loud! 💗🫶🏾✨💯👏🏾 This movie is already everything to me and imo among the best queer movies of the year + of all time! The indian culture is wonderful to see! It's integrated in ways i didn't except!

It's a film around love, self-joy, family, motherhood and fatherhood. As a black queer muslim demiwoman, I never excepted to feel this much seen in this movie! I see my life, my feelings, my thoughts and how I view myself. I see me. And, that's somethg that rarely happens for me which makes this film even more greater!

WE NEED MORE QUEER ROM COMS LIKE THIS!!!!! 💗🏳️‍🌈🙌🏾

GO WATCH A NICE INDIAN BOY

Here is the trailer:

my whole life, western media has fallen back on the stereotypes that indian men are annoying nerds and indian women are whitewashed haters of their culture. everything about being indian felt wrong because it felt like i was either playing into the stereotypes that were making fun of me or i wasn’t indian enough.

watching atsv was an amazing experience and a huge part of that is because of pavitr. he’s unapologetically indian, he loves his culture, his portrayal doesn’t just rely on the stereotypes.

mumbattan is vibrant and colorful, a bustling city of people who feel real and genuine compared to the scenes of slums i’ve come to expect from depictions of india.

pavitr himself is smart and hardworking, but it’s not played as a joke and it’s not his only character trait. he’s loyal, he’s funny, he’s a little insecure but he doesn’t show it.

hell, his spider-man costume is so clearly indian inspired! I’m so happy that atsv took the time to really distinguish pieces of each character that are different. little details that tell us about who the person behind the mask is. pavitr isnt hiding his heritage, he’s bold even when his face is hidden behind a mask.

AAAPI Books: Bobbi Kaur l Tastes Like Shakkar by Nisha Sharma