Desi Making Waves

Conversation with Comedian Russell Peters

(Yes--he's South Asian!)

By Angilee Shah

Russell Peters seems to have two major weaknesses: fashionable sneakers and women.

So perhaps the Beverly Center mall was not the best place to get to know the Indo-Canadian comedian. "It's stupid," says Peters bewildered. "There's so many beautiful women here [in Los Angeles]--it's stupid. It's hard to get anything done."

But Peters is one of the hardest working comedians in the business. With his off-the-wall style, free-for-all cultural comedy and propensity for facial contortionism, Peters, 34, has enjoyed considerable success in Canada, on TV and on tour. Nominated for five Geminis--the Canadian version of the Emmys--Peters has been featured on several comedy shows, including Comedy Now, one of the Canadian Comedy Network's most requested programs. His comedy has also been picked up by Comedy Central and the BBC. In South Africa, Peters has become something of a celebrity. He was in the Smirnoff Comedy Festival, 2001 and he's had sold-out shows in Cape Town six times since. In January, Peters will be appearing at the famous Yuk Yuk's, Toronto and then will be off to China for performances in Beijing and Shanghai.

But Peters' real desire is to break out in the United States so, beginning in February, Peters will be appearing all over the States. In early December, Peters kicked off Piyush Dinker Pandya's (writer, director of American Desi) Gurus of Comedy U.S. tour--the first South Asian national comedy show--with fellow Desi comedians, Aladdin (American Desi), Paul Varghese (Last Comic Standing, NBC) and Anand Chulani (American Chai). ABCDLady caught up with Peters the day after the sold-out show.

While Canada has given Peters a considerable fan base on the touring circuit, after 15 years of work, Peters still waits for his chance to get a sustained role on television. "They [Canadian networks] should have given me a sitcom four, five years ago," says Peters. And his opinion is not without merit. Reruns of the series premiere of Comedy Now, which Peters starred in, had the same high ratings as the first time the show aired.

So now Peters is working on a sitcom of his own. While he is generally tight-lipped about the project, he says that the story is an autobiographical account of a fledgling South Asian comedian. US

networks have expressed interest in the show, even though Canadians are slow to respond, says Peters. "If I were a pretty white boy, they'd [Canadian entertainment industry] put me on TV," he says. "In Canada, I'm kind of the people's champ instead of the industry's hero," he says.

Peters is a pioneer for Desis in the business of comedy. He was one of the first South Asians to develop a long-term career in comedy. "I was the first [Indian] guy to become successful at it," he says.

Breaking the ice for South Asians is not an easy task, though. It requires tough career choices that other comedians might not have to face. Peters, for example, has been many chance to be in movies. "I get offered a lot of roles but I refuse because they want me to play the Indian guy with the accent," he says. "You can only get type-casted if you let them. At the end of the day, I can just do standup." While Peter's is ok with being "the South Asian comedian," he says, "It was never my intention from the start."

"I get offered a lot of roles but I refuse because they want me to play the Indian guy with the accent."

Peters himself is a potpourri of cultures--with his non-Desi name, Indian parents, talent for doing Chinese and Jamaican accents and hip-hop attitude (he spied a t-shirt with the Notorious B.I.G.'s face on it from across a store), Peters picks

up material from everyone he's around. So it's no surprise that Peters' favorite performances are in front of mixed crowds--"Then I can make fun of everybody," he says. No one is off-limits--from the bargaining Chinese store owner to the ultra-cool Jamaican and African Americans to his hometown Canadian aye-sayers--Peters plays all the race cards in his shows, literally turning stereotypes into jokes.

Being in front of a predominantly South Asian audience has its upsides, though. "When I'm in front of our people, I speak about what we really do, what we're about," says Peters. He says that while the entertainment industry is starting to recognize that South Asians are here, "unfortunately they're recognizing us the wrong way." Performing comedy about South Asian gives Peters a chance to break away from stereotypes perpetrated by mainstream media. But Peters doesn't think of himself as an activist. When asked by audience members how some of his more controversial comedy helps heal racism, Peters says, "I'm not doing it to help racism. I just do it to do it--I do it to get laughs."

Yet, between looking for the perfect pair of Sean John jeans and charming store clerks, Peters says that as a child in the multi-cultural suburbs of Toronto, he faced considerable racism. He recalls walking past a man's house; the man yelled, "Go home Paki!" and sprayed Peters with his garden hose. The event scarred him. "That's why I focus on race and culture," Peters says.

As for the sneakers, Peters owns 19 pairs and resisted picking up several more at the Beverly Center. But he only brought one pair to Los Angeles, a challenging choice for this fashionista funny man.