Cultural Difference

CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE MOVIE -‘OUTSOURCED’

PRESENTED BY :-

GROUP 4

SACHIN

VIJAY

SHODAN

P CHAND

CYRIL

SUBASH

Outsourced – Deals with the idea of setting a comedy within an Indian call center which deals with American customers, investigating how the Americanization of their workplace influences their cultural heritage. There’s also theoretical potential in looking at how an outsider struggles to adapt to Indian culture after being shipped to India against his will.

Outsourced is effectively the story of Todd Dempsy, whose job as a call center manager is forcibly relocated to India. With great reluctance Todd flies to India and has fairly predictable multiple culture shocks (touts, a young pickpocket, food, population density, squat toilets, even a sacred cow in the office). He wants to be called by his first name rather than “Mr. Anderson,” but everyone pronounces it as “Toad.”He is distrustful of the local manager-designate, Purohit N., who lodges him with his aunt and seems too servile to Todd. Purohit is desperate to succeed so he can marry the woman of his dreams. Gradually Todd relaxes both at home and in the office. A love interest in the office is provided by Asha. She has been pledged in marriage since she was four. The movie is not a treatise on political economy, but a (cross-cultural) romantic comedy set amidst disruptions of globalization. The staff learns a lot about America and American expectations, Todd learns a lot  about India and Indian expectations.

Cultural Observations

On arrival, Todd faces a chaotic transportation system, having to jump onto a crowded moving train, and later chasing after his suitcase which is thrown into a small auto-rickshaw, or as Todd calls it, “one of those taxi go-cart thingies.” He immediately observes different customs, beginning with a man urinating by the side of the road and continuing to the street boy who pesters him and later snatches his cell phone. At the ragtag building that has been built to...