Young Dev Patel has taken the bull by the horns with his forthright statement that Hollywood is most likely to get an Asian actor to play a terrorist, a taxi driver or a smart geek. The actor feels he is being stereotyped but then that is the reality in the movie-making factory and Patel is only echoing what women and African-Americans in Hollywood have been saying for ages.
Indeed, many in India felt that Slumdog Millionaire — the film that skyrocketed Patel to international fame — was itself a giant cliché full of stereotypes about India.
Sadly for Patel, his options may well be limited at the moment as far as Hollywood is concerned. He can, of course, make a try for it in India. Terrorist, taxi driver and geek roles? Probably not. But he can choose other kinds of stereotypes. Young, clueless singing and dancing lover, crime-busting singing and dancing super hero, bad guy bashing, singing and dancing tough guy, and good old plain singing and dancing superstar — he is free to take his pick.
Bollywood, so the critics tell us, is changing especially to appeal to a new, young “multiplex” audience. Patel should make the best of it. And we already know that he can sing and dance. Jai Ho!
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