support@essaywritingexpert.org
This analysis aims at examining how “Master of None” uses the visual elements, dialogues, and character dynamics to explore themes of cultural identity and generational separation between immigrant parents and their American-born children through Postcolonial Theory.
Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None” masterfully employs various filmic elements to illustrate the complex relationship between first-generation Americans and their immigrant parents, particularly in the standout episode “Parents” in S1:E2 (Decoding, 2020). In the episode, we see the deliberate use of camera work, parallel storytelling, and careful manipulation of lighting to explore the sharp divisions between the immigrant parents’ sacrifices for their American-born children and their relative privilege in shaping cultural identity in modern America. For example, Dev’s Indian parents’ experiences and Brian’s Taiwanese parents’ experiences are juxtaposed for their past and present lives.
The flashback scene about the parents’ early lives is shot in muted colors and with a camera, which emphasizes its historical authenticity, examining the hard life of parents. This visual starker contrast with the bright, shiny world of present-day scenes renders this to the generational distance between parents and children, and the show gives a study of the cultural identity, which speaks to the ideal (as postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha) of ‘hybridity’ of an immigrant cultural formation that is very complex. As scholar Sarah Ahmed notes in her work “Strange Encounters: In Post-Coloniality, second-generation immigrants generally experience a “third space” between their parents’ culture and the culture of their adopted homeland (Ahmed, 2016). This theoretical framework allows one to understand Dev’s character’s hemisphere struggle between cultural authenticity and provision towards filial undertaking.
One particularly powerful scene shows this concept in both dialogue and visual composition. When Dev and Brian take their parents to dinner, the camera loves to frame the parents on one side of the table and the sons on the other, literally and metaphorically. As the generations start talking about the same stories, the lighting changes subtly through the scene warming up while they slowly help bridge the cultural gap. Sound design also plays an important part in the show’s use of themes. The soundtrack is filled with the parents’ native languages, which are without subtitles in the flashback sequences, leaving English speakers in a position of linguistic alienation similar to the confusion that filled the parents’ heads when they arrived in America. The immigrant experience is conveyed powerfully with this technique, both in terms of disorientation and isolation and the degree to which language divides generations.
In deconstructing stereotypical media portrayals of immigrant parents, character development throughout the episode shows an exploration of the many facets of immigrant parents. Instead of giving us one-dimensional characters preoccupied only with their children’s success, the episode shows us that the parents have their own dreams, struggles, and the like. By means of intimate close-ups during key emotional moments and the dialogue, the parents are able to put forth their own views of the American Dream; this characterization is achieved. The episode’s climactic scene brings Dev and Brian to acknowledge their parents’ sacrifices. The static shots are switched to more fluid camera work that at least hints at the breaking down of rigid generational barriers. The lighting becomes notably warmer, and the background music develops Western and Eastern musical elements, a symbol of civil harmony and the ability to understand.
Ansari shows in ‘Master of None’ how today’s television can do this in a thoughtful way that is entertaining and accessible. Filmic elements of the show enable its exploration of cultural identity and the generation gap, but through two very different sources of legitimacy, at once sophisticated and nuanced, that depict the experience of the modern immigrant family in America. The focus of this analysis of “Master of None.” is to show how visual elements, sound design, and narrative structure can work together to tell a very specific story about cultural identity and generational disconnect. Using these different filmic techniques and drawing on postcolonial theory, the show makes compelling case studies of the immigrant experience and the lasting effects of immigration on family dynamics in today’s America (Darraj, 2019).
“Master of None” shows how television can become a great agent to handle these complicated social problems with the vertical quality of the work and the soundness of the emotionality. The reason the show has been so successful in talking about these issues through both style and substance is because it’s contributed to modern conversations about cultural identity and generational relationships between America.
References
Ahmed, S. (2016). In a constant state of flux: The cultural hybrid identities of second-generation Afghan-Canadian women (Doctoral dissertation, Carleton University).
Darraj, M. (2019). Investigating the problematic of migrant identity in South-Asian and Arab postcolonial fiction in English: a cross-cultural comparison (Doctoral dissertation, University of Essex).
Decoding, N. (2020). Master of None. How to Watch Television, 3, 144.