the foreign obsession with american culture

Thoughts after watching "The Tribe" starring Alanna Panday and other Bollywood nepo kids.

I am not the one for reality television. I started watching “The Tribe” only because I had some friends watching, and because I stumbled across Alanna Panday’s beautifully curated Instagram account several years ago when she only had a quarter of a million followers (which is still a huge feat, by the way). This may have been before or around the COVID-19 pandemic because I don’t remember her lips being her defining feature as I saw recently on the show and in her wedding photos when they went viral.

Watching “The Tribe” made me realize while us desis who grew up in America have come a long way with accepting our culture, Bollywood continues to glorify Western ideals and American culture. None of the girls on the show - Alanna, Aryaana, Srushti, Alfia, and Alaviaa - are Bollywood actresses. But they all come from either über rich families or have connections with elite film families. For example, Alanna Panday commonly has her cousin Ananya Panday in her vlogs and Instagram posts when she is back in India. There are many inferiority complex incidents in the show that made me raise my eyebrows (spoiler alert!):

• Srushti saying she goes by “Christie” when she’s in Los Angeles

• Aryaana stating she really didn’t want a desi wedding until she saw Ivor’s family enjoy the Indian customs at his and Alanna’s wedding and how seeing these white people excited made her appreciate her culture more

• The rest of the girls playing American music in their reels and side-eyeing Alfia when she made dance reels to Bollywood music

• Alanna telling Alfia she will have to accept wearing revealing clothing for their content shoots despite Alfia saying she feels very uncomfortable in wearing something like a bikini

You can tell the show is heavily inspired by the Kardashian lifestyle and the girls also make several references to the Kardashians. There’s nothing wrong with collaborating together to make content and generate income, but it’s clear this girl group called Collab Tribe is not inclusive of anyone who is not already an upper class socialite - similar to the Kardashians. The group on this show was originally supposed to be four girls, but their “angel investor” Hardik Zaveri decides to throw a curveball and put in a “nobody” with a private Instagram account so the other influencers can be inspired by her potential account growth. This “nobody” ends up being Alfia Jafry, who is the daughter of the Indian scriptwriter and filmmaker Rumi Jaffery. And it turns out Alfia’s Instagram account was public before, but after her messy divorce, she set it to private.

Alfia is still more “cultured” than the rest of the girls on the show as she states she is proud of her cultural and religious heritage and doesn’t let the other girls make her feel bad about it. But despite her having a headstrong personality, it’s the more senior members of Collab Tribe like Alanna, Srushti, and Alaviaa who call the shots. I did find myself inspired by Alaviaa who was transparent about getting lip and other facial fillers - something that many Bollywood stars are very hush-hush about.

Source: IMDB

In a way, I can see why these girls and many other girls I know are fascinated by American celebrity culture. We have certain mentalities in South Asian culture that correspond well with the culture the Kardashian-Jenner clan (unintentionally or intentionally) promotes, such as unrealistic beauty standards, materialism, and an emphasis on how one is perceived.

The effects of post-colonialism are unfortunately still present to this day in the Indian subcontinent. Both older Indian and Pakistani generations deem being fair toned and slender with small noses and straight, silky hair a beauty standard for women. This is perpetrated to this day in Bollywood and Pakistani dramas and fashion. Being Pakistani myself, I’ve seen certain actresses play in dramas who were not conventionally attractive (i.e. they had poor facial symmetry) but their “redeeming” factor was they were the color of porcelain with flushed, rosy cheeks and had bleached golden brown hair. Skin whitening creams such as Fair N’ Lovely have triggered a lot of controversy in the past, and it’s a bit more embarrassing now to admit you use these creams even in the subcontinent. However, there is a more dangerous enemy: glutathione injections. These injections lighten your skin but are associated with dangerous side effects such as liver and kidney damage. In addition to skin-whitening injections and dermal fillers, some upper class women also resort to rhinoplasty for more Eurocentric noses. And we can’t forget the colored contacts Alanna and many other girls wear to be closer to the whole idea of whiteness.

There’s a lot of brand name-dropping in the show too - something I personally find tacky but it kind of goes along with the whole logomania image the Kardashians are commonly associated with. While riding an ATV with Ivor, Alanna states she’s going to be upset if she loses her Balenciaga bag. Really, Alanna? Couldn’t you just have said you’re scared of losing your bag? And there’s another instance where Srushti and Alanna try to compete over who bought their Jacquemus bag first but can barely pronounce the brand name correctly. I do feel for these socialites though in a way: they must have grown up around other successful families and felt the need to “keep up with the Joneses” which is something even us desi common folk have to deal with.

There are other scenes in the show where Alanna’s dad Chikki Panday shames her for wearing a bralette in front of her in laws, or when Alaviaa’s dad Jaaved Jaaferi basically tells her being an influencer isn’t a real job. You still get a sense of “Log kya kahenge?”¹ throughout the show - even from the girls themselves when they’re fighting over which photos to upload so they don’t get publicly humiliated or when Srushti tries to host her swimsuit launch party.

While there were moments I found the show lighthearted and entertaining to watch, I couldn’t help but cringe over the whole trying-to-be-like-a-Kardashian thing. It’s not the most impressionable show for girls back in the homeland because it glorifies the American lifestyle and makes the United States seem like a place where you can get easy money. I can imagine other middle or working class aspiring young influencers watching this and hoping they can get an all-expenses paid opportunity to be flown out to Los Angeles from India. It’s clear that Collab Tribe is only an opportunity for the rich and specifically for the “posh” girls who think they’re above their lives back home.

If they’re open to feedback and get approved for another season, I would love for there to be inclusion of influencers with no family connections or wealth, or for there to at least be actual American-raised desi influencers on the show to offer a different perspective. Because for all the girls pretending like English is their first language and feeling too embarrassed to eat idli sambar for breakfast, there are tons of brown girls in America who are showcasing beautiful lehengas and shalwar kameez and trying to speak more elegantly in their native tongue.

TLDR; Watching “The Tribe” was fun and the girls were pretty, but the show will definitely give you brain rot. It could be better and they could have an edge above other reality TV shows if they’re willing to consider different ideas.

1. Hindi/Urdu for “What will people say?”