#BadmaashWeek: Getting high with Harold & Kumar

Posted On

By Fareeha Molvi

(This post was originally published to Instagram on November 20, 2020)

Couldn’t wrap up a week about brown people misbehaving without mentioning Kal Penn playing Kumar in “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle” in 2004. It’s funny that a goofy, stoner flick starring an Indian-American (Penn) and a Korean-American (John Cho) as leads was so affirming for young Asian-Americans who had never seen themselves represented like that before. The film itself inspired a generation of brown and Asian kids to chase careers in entertainment, instead of traditional careers in medicine/law/engineering. In fact, Hasan Minhaj admitted that seeing Kal made him believe a career as a brown performer was even possible on an episode of Armchair Expert Podcast with Dax Shepard.

Plot-wise, Kumar famously blows off a med school interview to get high with this pal (Cho). They spend the rest of the movie in search of burgers from Jersey’s most famous chain, White Castle. The comedy bucks stereotypes simply by showing an Indian and Asian guy partaking in weed-fueled misadventures that you’d probably not want your parents in the room for.

It’s important to remember that, at the time, brown representation was limited to Apu from the Simpsons and Parminder Nagra on ER. To have a whole movie centered on two Asian diaspora dudes speaking unaccented English while messing around and being funny felt like we had finally arrived in American culture.

Did you know: Unlike Kumar, Kal Penn does not smoke or eat meat in real life.