(Muslim names and) Aziz Ansari's Netflix series "Master of None"

Cafe Society
1

(Is my search technique just dismal or are there really no threads about this show yet?)

I just finished watching Season 2 of Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series Master of None. This is just a fantastic show and the second season builds upon the first.

I.

Before I get into my general thoughts about this show, I have one question for the Muslim members and South Asian members of this board, especially those like AK84 who are both Muslim and South Asian.

The main character of the series is an American-born Muslim of Indian heritage, just like Ansari is in real life, and Ansari’s parents portray the character’s parents as well.

What kind of confuses me is that Ansari’s character’s name is “Dev Shah.” Now, “Shah,” from what I understand is a common family name among Muslims, especially in northwestern India and Pakistan, but it is also common among Hindus, particularly Gujaratis.

However, “Dev,” so far as I know is a distinctively Hindu name, coming from the Sanskrit word for “god.” It would seem to me very unlikely that an Indian Muslim would have the name “Dev,” because it would create the appearance of honoring the Hindu idea of god, which, being a polytheist religion, would not seem to be a popular sentiment among Muslims.

It would seem kind of like a Hindu named “Muhammad.” (Which, I suppose is possible, but seems unlikely unless the person giving that name was trying to make a particular point.) I’ve even been told that expressing a belief in the existence of devatas (divine beings as recognized in Hinduism) would be punishable by death in the eyes of some Muslims.

I’m sure that even if Aziz Ansari himself were not aware of this, then at least his parents, who are Muslims from India and who participate in the production of the show, would have told him this.

So, I’m wondering whether there is some error in my understanding of this issue. Maybe Ansari is trying to make a point by giving his Muslim character a distinctively Hindu name? Can anyone help me out?

II.

Okay, now that that I’ve got that out of the way, I’d love to talk about this show. I think it’s absolutely fantastic in the way it portrays the experiences of many different minority groups in America—immigrants, the children of immigrants, religious minorities, African-Americans, lesbians, etc. And the stories seem to be very authentic, actually written by and portrayed by people with those actual experiences.

It also does very well just on the humor front, and the lives of young single people in New York and in the lower rungs of the entertainment industry. It has beautiful portrayals of friendship. The scripts and dialogue are fantastic.

And Season 2 kicks it up a notch, exploring cinematography and style—the first episode is a stylistic takeoff of Italian realism. There’s a fake show-within-a-show that is in every way exactly what is shown on the Food Network.

The one weakness in my view is the acting. A lot of the acting is not top-notch. Of course, Ansari’s parents are not professional actors and they’re the weakest, but even some of the other characters, especially the ones playing Dev’s closest friends, and sometimes even Ansari himself, give very clunky performances. The one exception is Italian actor Alessandra Mastronardi as Dev’s friend Francesca—she’s great (and lovely and gorgeous and wonderful, too).

There are some really brilliant episodes this season, especially one about Dev’s relationship with his religion. Dev, like Ansari, isn’t comfortable with religion, especially because they want to stop him from doing things he loves, like eating pork.

Besides friendship, another dominant theme of the show is food. Ansari loves food (I believe his girlfriend is a chef) and so does Dev, and Dev and his friends are always eating, talking about, enjoying food. One episode in Season 1 was all about Dev’s search for the best taco in New York.

Anyway, I hope that’s enough to get a conversation started.

2

I have no knowledge of the naming issue, and am interested what more knowledgeable folks say.

Season 2 was among my favorite seasons of any show. The stylistic risks Ansari took were just so fun.

The quality of the acting never bothered me. Even his parents, in their clunkiness, are adorable. Yeah, it sometimes takes me out of the story, but I never was irritated at that; instead, I’d think, “Awww, they’re having so much FUN!” I can see how that wouldn’t work for everyone, but I was fine with the acting.

3

Not seen the show, but it might be a nickname. While rare, it’s also not unknown for names to be used across ethnic and or religious lines. One of my colleagues is Anila Chauhan and she is a cutter Muslim.

4

Cutter? I’m not familiar with the term in this context. I assume from context you mean that she’s very much Muslim.

5

My first guess is that it has something to do with genital mutilation.

If we were talking about a Sikh I would guess it’s someone who cuts, trims, shaves or removes hair.

6

Its a word which is used in S Asian English which means more than devout but less than extreme. Often used as a mild pejorative. Not just religious though. It is also used or political affiliation a Cutter Congress Party supporter

[QUOTE=Ascenray]
My first guess is that it has something to do with genital mutilation.

[/QUOTE]

:eek:
What the ever loving fuck? FGM is not a Sub-Continental practice

7

The Bohra community practices it, for what it’s worth.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/static/fgm-indias-dark-secret/

8

Yeah, there actually was a doctor arrested not long ago from that community in the news, as well as an NPR story about one of their employees from that sect relaying her personal story, so that could be informing Acsenray’s initial guess.

Anyhow, thanks for the explanation AK84. I always enjoy learning some of the unique words and turns of phrase in South Asian English (all varieties of English, really)

9

Aside from the homage to the Italian neorealist film The Bicycle Thieves which the first episode hits almost beat for beat, the show references narrative and cinematic styles from Linklater and Allen to Godard and Scorsese. It’s not clear that he has any overarching theme or reason, but he clearly loves good filmmaking.

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
The quality of the acting never bothered me. Even his parents, in their clunkiness, are adorable. Yeah, it sometimes takes me out of the story, but I never was irritated at that; instead, I’d think, “Awww, they’re having so much FUN!” I can see how that wouldn’t work for everyone, but I was fine with the acting.
[/QUOTE]
It doesn’t bother me at all because the performance of their characters are so unmannered. Dev’s father in particular is great fun to watch because his manner is so abrupt and awkward (ending every pronouncement with an affected, “Man!” just like a Pakistani grad student I used to know), and Brian’s stoic father is pretty much every uncommunicative father. Bobby Cannavale’s Anthony Bourdain impression as an entertainingly over-the-top asshole gets just the right amount of screentime without going overboard. The only performance I cannot stand is Eric Wareheim’s whiny Arnold, which is essentially the same character that he plays in everything. If anyone stands out, it is Alessandra Mastronardi, whi looks and acts like she should be have a fight and then passionate lovemaking with Marcello Mastroianni in a mid-period Fellini film rather than slumming with a neurotic cupcake show host. She fits the general theme of the show but she’s far too adept an actress to not upstage everyone on screen.

Stranger

10

The gold standard test in discovering whether any person is Pakistani is asking them to say “Fantastic”. They will either say “fun-Tah-stick” or over-enunciate every syllable.

11

Interesting question about the names. This is not an answer, but a related data point: in Indonesia, plenty of Muslims are named Dewi or Devi. (Here’s an unquestionably Muslim FB page to prove it: Redirecting...) “Dewi” means “goddess” in Indonesian, presumably from Sanskrit. Certainly it doesn’t bother anybody there.

12

This is more MPSIMS than relevant to the discussion, but your suggestion reminded me of a funny incident at work several years ago.

We used to have meetings each week with my boss, the other database programmers, our database administrator, and a project manager. The PM was clueless; about all he ever seemed good for was taking notes, and sometimes, not even that.

One week, when my boss was out, we met anyway, and the DBA, who was Indian, was talking about gathering statistics on the database. All the technical people in attendance knew exactly what he was talking about: if the database’s optimizer has current statistics for the objects stored in it, it can make better decisions about how to execute jobs that involve searching through or retrieving large amounts of data. Conversely, having outdated statistics can result in poor performance when the optimizer makes bad guesses based on them.

The PM dutifully recorded all of this in the meeting minutes to share with the boss when we were to re-convene next week.

Next week’s meeting rolls around, and the PM is going over the minutes from the previous week, and declares that the DBA plans to gather “status sticks”. We all look at each other, and the boss asks, “what the hell are status sticks?”

:smiley:

Epilogue: Prior to our meeting the following week, I got a fist full of wooden Popsicle sticks - the kind you can buy in bags for craft-making at a place like Michaels - and wrote the word “STATUS” on them with a Sharpie. I then deposited them on the table in the meeting room that morning prior to the appointed time.

Hilarity ensued, although cruelly, it was at the PM’s expense.

13

I finished watching Season 2 and I felt basically the same as with the first season: the funny parts are great, and the serious parts are hit and miss.

For instance…
Dev reflecting on racism and sexism = interesting
Dev moping about his romantic relationships = meh

I found John Legend’s dinner party song to be the most cringe-worthy, self-indulgent moment of the whole series. But I really liked the “Bicycle Thieves” episode and I thought the episode with all of the internet dating was very funny.

14

An ex-girlfriend worked in a certain mathematics department as an undergrad. She answered the phone one day and a man with an Indian accent asked for the department’s mailing address. She gave him the address and thought nothing more of it until a few days later while opening the mail. There was a letter addressed to the “Department of Steady Sticks”.

15

The First Dates episode was top notch. The editing was pretty much perfect.