Fund This: ‘The Fob And I’ Seeks Second Look At Indian-American Culture

Welcome to the Fund This column! Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments right here.

Project Name: The Fob And I season two

Asking For: $10,000 on Seed & Spark

Amount Raised Thus Far (At Time Of Post): $9,408

Days Remaining In Campaign (At Time Of Post): 1. Hurry now!

Description: In many TV shows, South Asian representation boils down to a single brown character. Even if that character’s personality avoids the typical stereotypes associated with South Asians (e.g. nerdiness), she’s still just one person, and cannot adequately represent the billions of South Asians who live across the world.

Enter The Fob And I. Meenakshi Ramamurthy‘s web series, produced by Noopur Sinha, is a loving, personal portrait of the Indian-American experience as seen through the eyes of two characters who share the same skin color but vary wildly in terms of their personalities. Sita (Shefali Deshay) is a boisterous, Americanized Angeleno, while Jisha (Uttera Singh), as the show’s title implies, is fresh off the boat. Their adventures together, and their stunted interactions both with one another and the people around them, form the basis for fun, spirited comedy.

After releasing its first season late in 2015, The Fob And I

is looking for more. With the funds its team hopes to raise on Seed & Spark, they can fund a second season that will feature “more chai, more music, and definitely more brown!”

Creator Bio: Ramamurthy hails from South Texas. Beyond The Fob And I, her other credits include the incredibly named short film Sameer and the Giant Samosa as well as a series called MA’s, which according to Ramamurthy’s bio is a semi-finalist for the Sundance Institute’s Youtube New Voices Lab.

Best Perk: Backers who chip in at least $7 will receive their own pocket Constitution, thus allowing them to take a page out of Khzir Khan‘s book.

Why You Should Fund It: The first season of The Fob and I was in part an exercise in representation, but I don’t want to send the wrong message: This show is a comedy as much  as it is a portrait of the Indian diaspora. When I feature the show in our Indie Spotlight earlier this year, I noted that it features a large amount of heart, and the chemistry between its two leads is strong enough that anyone can enjoy it, even those of us who can’t necessarily identify with the racial themes it discusses. Ramamurthy and her colleagues have a strong vision and a clear desire to give that vision as much screen-time as possible. You can help them realize their goals.

Got a crowdfunding campaign you’d like to see featured in Fund This? Be sure to contact us here.