On Master of None

To a friend:

For this week's post I'll be looking at Aziz Ansari's Netflix original show Master of None. From what I read the show was a commentary on many aspects of life such as: race, age, and parenthood, as well as implementing aspects of relationships and marriage. Ansari fills it with his takes on life and with is perspectives on life. Overall the show was well directed and seemed to bring up some very good talking points for many difficult topics.
The most interesting aspect of the show was, in my opinion, the casting of Aziz Ansari as the main character in his show. The casting of a writer/director as a cameo in their film/movie is not an uncommon practice, but you don't often find a film where the main character is also the writer of the work. Often times you wouldn't want the writer/director to have too much work to prepare for the film as well as acting in it themselves, but it would appear Ansari was confident in his skills and it worked very well. Ansari didn't have to do much in terms of developing himself as a character since he himself acts very much like the character Dev in his comedy shows. He has this way about him and with his mannerisms that makes him who he is, and those are almost all apparent in his character.

Though I found the casting of the show to be fascinating there was a lot more to the episodes of Master of None that made it such a masterpiece. Unlike some shows which are based on surface tension and not deeper meanings everything in Master of None is important and every episode delves into a new topic. The first episode focused on being a parent and the challenges of being a parent. Throughout the episode and the rest of the season Ansari explores what it would be like to be a parent, to be old and alone in a nursing home, or to be from a foreign country. With all of these topics Ansari has found a clever way to express his opinions and getting his opinion across while adapting to the newer medium of Netflix originals. Somehow Aziz was able to take his comedic skill and make it into more than an hour long skit on a stage and turn it into something the people will be able to look at in the future and see what it may have been like to be an Indian trying to make it in 2016.

After watching the whole first season of Master of None I think that's it's a great show to get you thinking about controversial topics and could maybe be used to bridge a gap between our comfort zone and societal issues to better further humanity. Though I don't personally believe that Master of None will be a catalyst that leads to the world becoming a better place, but if shows like Master of None keep popping up and opening the door for change we could definitely see some change in the future.