Why pick on only Indian accent for cheap laughs on radio?

[makapaaa]

Apr 7, 2010

Why pick on only Indian accent for cheap laughs on radio?

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I WOULD like to hear from Harvey Norman, the sponsors of the traffic update on the English-language radio station Class 95FM, about what it thinks of yesterday morning's deejays reading a large portion of traffic news just before 10am in a mock-Indian accent.
The deejays seemed to find it very funny to mimic the way Indians speak. And they have done it lots of times.
In fact, for most of Singapore's modern history, radio deejays who are not of Indian descent have enjoyed doing mock-Indian accents on English radio.
Members of the ethnic Indian population do not bring this up partly because they will be dismissed as lacking a sense of humour. So they grin and bear with it for years and years.
And you have to tell yourself what your inevitable critics will say on radio tomorrow, 'Get a life'.
As someone interested in media, I also listen to Chinese, Malay and Tamil stations, and I am grateful to the deejays on Chinese and Malay stations for avoiding this easy path to cheap laughs.
The defining factor is that I have never heard radio deejays on English stations mock Chinese or Malay accents.
Is it that they think people of ethnic Chinese and Malay descent have less of a sense of humour than those of Indian descent?
Or is it that they know in their hearts they are doing something distasteful and so pick on only those that they can?
Ravi Veloo

 

[xebay11]

91.3's Zhen de ma? Is that not mock Chinese accent? Wat about Sum Ting Wong also 91.3? Then the Singapore Idol recruit on 91.3 mock Malay accent.

Why Indian always cry racist?

Zhen de ma?

 

[sufferwell]

ravi veloo listens to english, chinese, malay and indian radio stations..
quite unbelieveable right?

 

[Received_by_Kings]

That is because you are not 10% and a number of you are quite snobbish already despite being of humble caste and you also openly love sucking up to your brighter albino Aryan friends in the West.

It is a great joy and an uplifting moment tailing and walking behind them since the colonial days right? And these bleached diseases also really love relating to you willing slaves too no doubt. It's genetics, we understand.

 

[SneeringTree]

Ravi Veloo is wrong. Chinese programmes have been mocking Malaysian Chinese accents and recently mainland accents for donkey years. I think he is just pissed because it is other ethnic groups that make fun of Indian accents. Or maybe he is just pissed that it is the Chinese that make fun of Indian accents.

 

[Received_by_Kings]

And also, from the sum of my encounters I find it easier to relate to foreign Indians (like the foreign Chinese from Malaysia and China) as they are actually much nicer to me than most of the locals.

So in this matter alone as for what you guys think and what my siblings think I don't need to care at all as your joint biased negativity is unimportant to me. Because my own experiences are different from you all.

 

[Received_by_Kings]

Yup. I offer no apologies whatsoever for nothing that I have done wrong.

 

[Ramseth]

I don't see Tharman Shamugaretnam, S. Jayakumar, Kenneth Jeyaretnam or even Thambi T. Durai offended by that. It's mimicked for amusement because it's amusing. If any Indian feels offended, go learn to pronounce some real English instead of vhat ees thaat and vhere is thair? Indians are good at grammatical coherence, as most Indian languages are multi-syllabic and Indo-European grammatically in syntax.

Chinese accented English has always been mimicked for amusement too. However, unlike the the curly and swirly Indian accent, it's a mono-syllabic and hard-edged accent. It breaks up every syllable of of polysyllabic English, ignore grammar and inflection, and sounds amusing in the sense of ruggedness, so the Chinese don't seem to mind making amusement out of it, sometimes even take pride in their broken English as macho pidgin on its own. Even Chinese who could speak proper British or American English do that in daily life when not in formal occasions.