Ambiguous Name: Sim Sim Salabim

Note: This thread was proposed by ~Synchronicity, who gave others permission to make the thread, so paging her here.

This was brought up as a potential issue in the thread about outdated/offensive trope names because it's got a horrible name, derived from "simsalabim" (magical word gibberish popularized by a Danish guy) and badly named from one guy from Jonny Quest, who is probably intended to be Sikh.

...The trope is about stereotypical depictions of India as a mystical, vaguely savage land (snake charmers, mystics, coal-walking, pet tigers and elephants, mysterious polytheism). The mixing of some West Asian elements is optional.

The thesis statement is that the trope's got a terrible name. It's almost fifteen years old (launched in 2007) but has a paltry <130 wicks, which smacks of underuse even for a Discredited Trope (or so the description claims). As for the actual usage, Sim Sim Salabim WC shows:

• 21/50 or 42% of wicks refer to exaggeratedly mystical/stereotypical depictions of India, or depicting Indians as such (I guess we can consider this correct)
• 11/50 or 22% of wicks refer to perceptions or versions of Indian stereotypes and culture, but were either light on context or did not talk about mystically exaggerated ones (eg. YMMV.Slumdog Millionaire using it to talk about portraying India as impoverished)
• 18/50 or 36% of wicks refer to low/zero-context examples and other usage (eg. sinkholes for characters or cultures who are presumably Indian, vague allusions to 'stereotypes' without clarifying said stereotypes).

These statistics show that the current name is not really working out for it. I propose a rename to make it clear that the trope is about exaggeratedly mystical portrayals of India.

Rename

Rename. When I first saw this name come up, I had literally no idea what it was supposed to be, or even that it was supposed to be Indian.

Rename.

Would Hollywood India work? That's what I thought of when I saw this trope/thread in the queue.

Renaming to Hollywood India sounds good. I can't think of any better names.

Either that or Mystical Indian Lands. I don't know enough India media to come up with something like Qurac

Hollywood India is my preference for a rename.

Unless we go for something like Curry And Elephants, like we have with Spaghetti and Gondolas.

Maybe Curry And Elephants would work as well. Or Curry And The Taj Mahal since the Taj Mahal is the first thing to come to mind when Westerners think of Indian architecture, like how gondolas are the first thing to come to mind when people bring up Italian canals.

True.

Maybe Yogis And Curry to underscore the "mystical" part of the stereotype?

I was also considering Hinduism and Hindu gods...

Cows? I think Sacred Cows is a stereotype of India.

Actually, I'm wondering if this might be worth splitting into stereotypes of past India and modern India, like how we have both "Arabian Nights" Days and Qurac.

Curry And The Taj Mahal is my preference so far. Mystical Indian Land would be a good choice too, but I could see it getting used for American FNM Is.

I like Hollywood India although we'd have to decide whether past India and present India are in the same trope.

A title like that could imply both "A spiritual Hindu center" and "A ghetto country with health and mafia problems", and I'm not sure if we're keeping those 22% uses. Tbh Eagleland is soft-split, so not like we can't cover both.

Maybe "Yogis, Curry and Elephants"?

Curry Elephants And The Taj Mahal? I don't like it but that's my other suggestion.

Imperial Majesty XO suggested splitting this trope—out of curiosity, how does everyone else feel about that idea?

You can try and make “fictional modern poverty-ridden South Asian country” in TLP, but the examples I considered non-mystical misuse did not really touch on that idea. Maybe a couple did if you squint.

Edited by Synchronicity on Mar 23rd 2022 at 9:11:42 AM

I wasn't necessarily saying I agreed with the idea, just wanted to see what others thought of it.

Though would that proposal also possibly include Middle Eastern countries, or is there a trope for that, or does Qurac fit? I'm thinking of Iron Man and the Middle East in that film here.

Actually that might be a discussion for another time.

If Qurac is a fictional (non-existant) country, it wouldn't fit. Iron Man's Middle East scenes are explicitly set in Afganistan.

I think a soft split would work, like Eagleland.

Edited by VerySunshine on Mar 23rd 2022 at 9:50:52 AM

Even if you don't like it, I personally don't think there's such a thing as too many name suggestions for rename crowners.

I agree that a rename is in order. I'd prefer sending the "modern stereotypical and nonmagical" examples to TLP/yard rather than splitting it in TRS. I don't think expanding the trope to cover the misuse is correct, although if we don't expand, then we should decide if simsim is a redirect or a disambiguation.

For the "Mystical India" idea, what about The Blue Hindu?

Is The Blue Hindu a reference to something? I am discovering I apparently know very few stereotypes about India, I guess, but it doesn't make any sense to me.