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Actor Kal Penn Reveals Racism in Hollywood

By
Megan Diane
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Have you ever wondered what kind of roles an Indian-American actor gets?

In a series of illuminating tweets actor, Kal Penn posted screenshots of various scripts he had received in the early years of his career, providing a sad and unsurprising look into Hollywood and racism.

Penn exposed shows ranging from Sabrina the Teenage Witch to “some shitty MTV show” to King of Queens, which he said he “used to love”—until he had the chance to audition for it.

The script excerpts he has provided cover familiar, racist stereotypes: descriptions of “funny” extreme Indian accents, “humorous” lines over how to pronounce Indian names, and characters who speak in a language that’s “peppered with Indian cultural references.”

Penn captioned the scripts by recounting fights over accents—“Can you make his accent a little more AUTHENTIC?”—and general stereotyping.

Penn’s tweets illustrate where Hollywood attempted to represent minorities a decade ago. Hopefully, Penn’s tweets illustrate how far we have progressed in the years since.

Pakistani actor Kumail Nanjiani, for one, saw Penn’s tweets as a blast from that unfortunate past. “I remember seeing these kinds of things when I was starting,” he tweeted in response. “We still have a long way to go but we have come so very far.”

You can check out Penn’s tweets below.

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