Confusing Exotica

Ghosh opens this chapter talking once again about mass media being a major contender in determining and establishing stereotypes of racial groups. She also mentioned the danger if a group is not included within mass media because that only reinforces opinions about the group's values. Citing the Indian group specifically, Ghosh talks about the images that the media portrays of this group tends to be "narrow and cliche" because they point out that these minority groups are not seen within the dominant culture so its not important to overly represent them within the media. She calls the Indians "soujourners rather than immigrants and people needed for their labor, not for their lives" (275). She goes on to say that the most frequent representation of Indians in the media is their absence (276), "reinforcing their position in the power structure, establishing an us versus them concept, and code them in negative terms". Ghosh talks about the "exotic-ness" of India and their culture, especially within the fashion industry. Our culture paints India as a nation and culture so far removed from our own but one we love to imitate within fashion, but using American models. Ghosh ends the chapter saying American culture has " constructed India soley as mythological, sanskrited India" and the importance of moving from that view to one that sees India as "an identity that is continuously in flux, changing as the political and economic climate changes. They need to move away from pictures of a Hindu India to a more complex, complicated version of what India truly is" (280).

Obviously India is all over the news because of the terror attacks just a couple days ago. This nation that tends to be absent from American media is now all over every TV, website and newspaper. What kinds of images are getting conjured up in the minds of Americans about the Indian people? Will the fact that we have now been affected by a terrorist attack bring us together or just continue to enforce the us versus them distinction? I know many Americans get confused about the many religions and will they be able to sense the difference between the Islamic terrorists and Hindus of India? Ghosh mentioned that we need to begin to seeing India as the diverse nation it is, but will this major world event affect that from happening?