Reception
Critics viewed the casting of the white actor Michael Bates as the Indian bearer Rangi Ram as an example of blackface, a perception that may have contributed to the programme being infrequently repeated on British television. The show's producers had been very averse to the idea of casting a white actor to play one of the Indian characters, but were forced to relent owing to the lack of high-profile Indian actors available at the time. Since the Anglo-Indian Bates, a popular actor of the day, was born in India and spoke Hindi before learning English, he was cast in the role as a trade-off between giving the series greater credibility and giving the character a degree of Indian authenticity.
Read more about this topic: It Ain't Half Hot Mum
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)