Last night, I went to my cousin’s condo because I really wanted to watch a movie. And as I entered the door, my cousin, her boyfriend and their friends were laughing so hard. I found out that they were watching this new comedy sitcom of NBC entitled “Outsourced”. Basically, the lead character (Todd Dempsy) is sent to Mumbai, India to manage the recently outsourced Mid-American Novelties. In his new office, Todd discovers that his new staff needs a crash course in “all things American if they are to understand the U.S. product line and ramp up sales from halfway around the world”. At the same time, Todd tries to understand the Indian culture.
After watching about three episodes of this show, I started to think about hybridity as a concept of a third space. By a third space, I mean that the I and the Other are interwoven in a new third space. According to Homi Bhaba, “it is in this space ‘that we will find those words with which we can speak of Ourselves and Others. And by exploring this ‘Third Space', we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of ourselves’. Furthermore, Mudrooroo suggests, embracing the hybridised nature of cultures steers us away from the problematic binarisms that have until now framed our notions of culture. “ Simply put, hybridity is an attempt to bridge two or more different cultures.
In this television series, the hybrid identities are the Indian staff and the manager. It is because they immerse themselves in the culture of others. Once the Indian staff begin to “speak like the Americans”, they are hybridized. In a way, the Indian call center agents have to mirror the way they talk and how they think. They cannot speak their own language since English is the universal language of the call centers. Once they put down the phone, they go back to being “Indian”. Moreover, since they do not know much about the American culture, they have to constantly immerse themselves with the American way of doing things. In the show, it is quite ironic that what they sell are really Americanized products such as the cheese hat, the deer that sings “Sweet Home Alabama” and the like. The manager is also hybridized since he is the one who lives in India. He, too, has to understand the Indian culture- that meat is not allowed, that they are caste- sensitive and the like. In a way, it is important to think that since there is an absence of borders and increased interaction in globalization, the “First World actors” are not completely in control. This means that First World countries are also being affected similarly as the Third World.
The reason why I chose to blog this sitcom is to be able to relate it to our present society. At present, the rampant growth of business process outsourcing in India is also being reflected in the Philippines. It seems like we are heading in the same direction as India as one of the top BPO destinations in the world. True enough, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippines, after challenging India for the top position for several years, the Philippines is now the world leader in business support functions like shares services and business process outsourcing.
What does this imply? This means that the Filipinos should be prepared to be hybridized. In this advent of the BPO hype, we must constantly be conscious of ourselves and our identities. There is a possibility of having one identity reign over the other. Hence, defeating the purpose of creating a third space and erasing the binary opposition.
References:
Litvack, L. (2006). Key concepts in postcolonial studies: hybridity. Retrieved from http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/key-concepts/Hybridity.htm
NBC. (2011). About: Outsourced. Retrieved from http://www.nbc.com/outsourced/about/
Philippine Daily Inquirer. (2010). It’s official: PH bests India as No. 1 in BPO . Retrieved from http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20101204-306912/Its-official-PH-bests-India-as-No-1-in-BPO
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