The Big Sick

The Big Sick is a American romantic comedy that follows an interethnic couple who must deal with cultural differences after Emily becomes ill. Uber driver in Chicago, Kumail, is a struggling stand-up comedian with a one-man show about his Pakistani background. His immigrant parents set him up with Pakistani women, expecting that he will follow their example of an arranged marriage, but he is uninterested. After a show, Kumail has a one night stand with a White student named Emily snd they begin a relationship. Kumail does not tell his family fearing they will disown him.

 After a messy breakup between the two, Kumail learns that Emily has been hospitalized with a serious lung infection and must be immediately placed in an induced coma. He signs the permission form and calls her parent. Aware of their daughters messy breakup with Kumail, they tell him to leave the hospital for he is not needed. Kumail decides to stay and become closer with her parents while dealing with Emily’s illness. Things get messy after after surgery is ineffective and the infection spreads to Kmily’s Kindeys. Kumails parents visit, who of which are not happy that he is not taking their marriage suggestions seriously. After he tells his parents that he doesn't want an arranged marriage, and reveals his relationship with Emily, his parents disown him.

 As Emily’s infection spreads to her heart, Kumail gets affected emotionally and fails an audition with Montreal Comedy Festival. But when Kumail mentions that Emily had an ankle injury that was slow to deal, the doctors realize she has adult-onset Still’s disease, a serious but treatable illness. Emily wakes up from her coma and still is pained from the breakup with Kumail. She tells Kumail to leave, but Emily’s mom Beth invites Kumail to Emily’s homecoming party. After arriving to Emily’s party, Kumail try to win her back. Emily refuses, reminding him that while he may have had a transformative experience during her illness, from her perspective nothing has changed. Kumail decides to move to New York City with two comedian friends. Emily ends up finding Kumails Montreal Comes Festival audition and sees Kumail get emotional during her coma and reveals his feelings for her. Emily trys to explain herself but before she can, Kumail leaves and she wishes him the best of luck in New York. In conclusion of the story, Kumails parents accept that he will follow his own ways in relationships and Emily visits him at a performance in New York. 

I thought is was a great story behind the multiculturalism and pin points both opinions of a interethnic relationship. As we see a lot of stories focus on mostly of a white “privilaged” men and women in relationships with someone that is non white, this movie is a refreshing pace of how another ethnicity sees the views of being in a relationship with someone that is “white”. Focusing on the multiculturalism aspects of the movie, you can see a sense of discrimination of both sides of the families between Kumail and Emily. Kumail’s parents didn’t want to accept that he didn’t want to follow is “culture” of an arranged marriage, which resulted in him getting disowned only because he was dating a white women. And Emily’s parents had a hard time not only accepting him because of the breakup, but in ways the were unaware of how to socialize and respect the culture of his ethnicity. 

I thought this was a good reflecting of the multiculturalism in America that we see in reflecting of relationships between two people of different ethnicity. It can be hard for different cultures to come together and understand and respect their differences. I feel like this story reflected this in a way that America lacks that respect of our differences and we need to learn that know ethnicity is in hierarchy in this country or in the world. We are all humans, who all have different beliefs and different traditions that we need to learn and understand about one another. The Big Sick was a perfect demonstration of how if you get to know someone, it does not matter what they look like from the outside. 

#HandsUpDontShoot

“hands up, don’t shoot” is a hashtag created by twitter and other social media platforms that originated on August 9, 2014, the day of the shooting of Michael Brown. The hashtag was created in protest against police violence. Witnesses reported that the questioned what Brown was doing with his hands when he was shot, with many claiming he had his hands in the air. A United States Department of Justice investigation, under the leadership of U.S attorney General Eric Holder, found the claims inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence and witness testimony. Tension between the community and the police escalated quickly. After the shooting, Brown’s stepfather held a placard that read “Ferguson police just executed my unarmed son!!!” and that evening, demonstators begin to chant “We are Michael Brown!” as they marched to the headquarters of the Ferguson Police Department. The communities reaction to the shooting until a day later. On August 11, the FBI promised to investigate the shooting and the NAACP organized a meeting in the community, the hands up gesture was continuing to be employed by protestors who were emulating what they understood to be the final posture of Michael Brown. 

These protests fall in line with the many movements involving black lives matter. This is an activist movement began in response to the death of Trayvon Martin two years easier, it staged its first national protest in the form of “Black Lives Matter Freedom Ride” to Ferguson, Missouri three weeks after the shooting of Michael Brown. These movements and gestures are well known around the United States and puts a statement on the ongoing discrimination of African American and other ethnicities in our country. This has generated many conversations regarding race and how we look at people of color has “criminals” even though we have nothing to prove that they are. Most become victims of police brutality because we are quick to judge that they aren't innocent. This also shows a little bit of White Privilege in ways that aren’t as obvious to the public eye. For example, police wouldn’t be quick to shoot if these events involved a white person. We view criminals as someone that is any ethnicity other than white and it stands out when none of these incidents involve a white person being the victim of a bullet. 

These movements are a good example of the multiculturalism we focus on in the material we cover in our class. The reality is, Many cultures and ethnicity that live among us in the states do not have the same freedom as some of us all because they are seen as people that are not as “superior” as whites. This becomes a major problem in a country that expresses so much love and freedom, but yet we do not see the actions of these things among our leaders and government. We would love to see this cultures thrive in our country and sometimes we look away from the things that we don’t want to see just to prevent any crisis’s such as the protests that reveal the unfortunate truth, from oblivious people thinking that these problems don’t exist in our country today. 

Work Cited: 

“Hands up, Don't Shoot.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 26 Oct. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_up,_don%27t_shoot.

“Herstory.” Black Lives Matter, blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/.

Master of the None

Master of the None is an American comedy drama web television series, which was first streamed on November 6, 2015 as a Netflix original. The series was created by Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang, as Ansari stars as a 30 year old, Dev Shah, following his romantic, professional and cultural experiences in his life. The first season takes place in New York City while the second season continues into Italy. 

I think this show influences the concept of non white Americans in their struggles and stereotypes of dating, professional life and dealing with life in New York city. The episode “First Date” is the first look into the presence of women of different racial identities in Dev’s dating life. Throughout the series, Dev has one love interest, Rachel. Which seems to bring some culture conflicts for Indians that it typically known that a biracial relationship isn’t something people find in a normality. This same episode brings up the views that relationships can view white men or women as a “superior” race and/or find them more attractive. It also brings up the conflict of how white people can be stereotyped as racist if they judge any sort of relationship between a white and another race. As most of the show revolves around this, it impacts of culture in a way that this isn’t something uncommon within our society.Another episode that stands out would be “Master of None”, which flips the script and rewrites the narrative of undesirability that Asian American men have traditionally been,  but specifically at the expense of women of color in the show. To enhance Dev’s unique personality and approach to life, Ansari places each of the Indian women in the show into stereotypes.

Master of the None is a great example of looking past racial stereotypes and what ones still exist in our culture. I feel like explains in ways of how if a man or women of color betrays American darlings, it is immediately is shown as how they should of felt “lucky” to have a white love interest in him or her, and when they don’t treat them right, they become disposable. These struggles continue with any race with relationships and can be continued into any topics we have brought up in class so far. One of the more focused topics that is covered in this show is the ongoing topic that we need to get out of the struggle that white Americans are more “superior” then any race. This is something that could help us into getting rid of the stereotypes and this constant competition of races trying to be “the better race” over everyone else. 

References 

“Master of the None” - Netflix Original 

https://tsl.news/what-can-we-learn-from-aziz-ansari-master-of-none-and-canceled-culture/