‘Deli Boys’ Dismantles So Many Immigrant Stereotypes — And Keeps All The Right Ones

“It’supto us to enjoy this life for everyone who looks like us but doesn’t have it. That’s the secret to living in America, man.”

This is what Raj blithely tells his brother Mir in the first episode of “Deli Boys,” lighting a joint for good measure. Upon first glance, the show, which was created by Abdullah Saeed and launched on Hulu on March 6, seems like it’s about brown people who’ve “made it.”

Warning: This article contains spoilers!

Mir, played by Asif Ali, is eager to please his father, the self-made CEO of convenience empire DarCo, and has been vying for that CEO title all his life.

His older brother Raj, played by Saagar Shaikh, has a passion for energy healing, drugs of all kinds, and freeloading. Their father, Baba Dar, emigrated from Pakistan to Philadelphia in 1979 with “just three dollars” and single-handedly built the convenience empire DarCo. All thanks to his hard work, self-sufficiency, and innate business acumen. (Sound familiar?) 

Baba is murdered by a stray golf ball while on a golf course — and the audience’s perception of his model minority-esque life dies right with him. The FBI raids the DarCo offices, and Mir and Raj are thrust into Baba’s world. They quickly discover that his success is actually from leading a cocaine-dealing cartel — aptly called “Dark DarCo.” Lucky Aunty (played by Poorna Jagannathan), Baba’s right hand and chief operating officer of DarCo, is actually a gun-wielding vixen who has no problem murdering adversaries who get in her way. Mir finally gets to be co-head of Dark DarCo with his brother — but at what cost?

The story transforms: It’s no longer about brown people falling into the model minority, but now it’s a story about a bunch of immigrants who are criminals, drug dealers and murderers. (Again — sound familiar?)

But if you can believe it, the show isn’t about pinning brown people (in this show’s case, for the most part Muslim South Asians and Latinos) as murderers or drug dealers. Rather it’s about community, the thing that unites so many immigrant cultures. It’s a feat to see characters who question their places in this world, and then see the people they love help them find themselves again. 

As South Asians, we often aren’t afforded the opportunity to explore our humanity and nuance on screen. But “Deli Boys” isn’t trying hard to be theSouth Asian show, nor is trying to be serious. And in a time when society is plagued by racism, xenophobia, rising Islamophobia, and every other kind of phobia and -ism, it’s refreshing to see a show in which a brown cast simply exists — to be portrayed as badasses, morons and everything in between. 

“There have been so many shows that are very important, heavy and thesis-statement type. But what’s cool about shows like this is we’re kind of tricking you into it,” Ali tells me at the show’s New York City premiere. “You’ll watch it and be like, ‘Oh, this show is really, really fun,’ and you’re not even thinking about it.”

And that’s not to say the show doesn’t have depth. Saeed embraces some of our most beloved attributes in his characters all while infusing novel renditions of brown tropes into the storyline. A play on brown people owning delis and convenience stores by turning them into drug cartels? An arranged marriage with Raj that Mir forges as part of a business deal to distribute cocaine in Philly? Brown hairy knuckles as the clue that leads Mir, Raj, and Lucky Aunty to Baba’s killer? Saeed cherry-picks each stereotype and makes them deliciously subversive.

But to cast “Deli Boys” as a revolutionary show is, ironically, limiting. “ I want to think of this show as just a normal show. We just happen to be brown people, which is why there are brown nuances in it,” Shaikh tells me. That much is true. Above all, “Deli Boys” is an exploration of grief, triumph and everything in between. 

Take Raj, Mir and their evolving brotherhood. At the beginning of the season, there’s no middle ground to be found between Mir and Raj, depicted in extremes: as the model minority and its antithesis, “good” brown son and “wild” brown son. Mir wears a tie and blazer; Raj is a party boy who doesn’t leave the house without a joint in his pocket. 

Following Baba’s murder, Raj and Mir’s rich boy worlds are in shambles — and Mir is in disbelief that the one person who’s in this hole with him is Raj. “I’m all alone. You’re the only person I can turn to in this world, and you’re a moron,” he tells Raj following the DarCo FBI raid. (Raj vehemently denies this with a bong in hand.)

But Baba loved them both for who they are — and throughout the season, Mir and Raj come to realize that. And so, Mir and Raj’s brotherhood becomes personified as the third character that we as the audience also come to love. Raj steals Baba’s old Eagles jersey from a chief mobster’s home for Mir and hypes up Mir when he’s down. Mir’s quick thinking saves Dark DarCo from the FBI again — and saves Prairie (played by Alfie Fuller), Raj’s “twin flame,” from being killed by the other Dark DarCo mobsters.

The character who deserves the most flower garlands, though, is Lucky Aunty, the woman who’s managed to keep DarCo and Dark DarCo afloat following Baba’s death — and who’s kept Mir and Raj from getting killed, a feat of its own. Of all the characters, we have the privilege of seeing Lucky’s full story, from Baba saving her from prostitution when she was young, to being the fur coat-donning, gun-wielding drug queenpin she is today. 

Lucky also knows how to whoop ass, whether it’s throwing a stiletto with scary precision or shanking someone who underestimates her. And for Jagannathan, that very portrayal is novel and rare.

“I’ve done stunts before, but this is my first access and invitation into this level of physicality,” Jagannathan says. Her beautifully choreographed fight scenes that leave bad men bloody are a jolt of inspiration for brown women who have suffered the “gentle, submissive” trope for too long.

Despite being one of the mob bosses, it’s clear: She’s still a woman in a man’s world, something that hits home for many South Asian women in patriarchal structures. For the first half of the season, Lucky’s calling the shots from behind the scenes to maintain face for Raj and Mir while assuming a motherly role to the boys. She’s the only woman C-suite member of Dark DarCo and hears a barrage of snide, condescending comments from Ahmad — one of which is how she should “stick to making biryani” in the first episode.

Yet, Lucky refuses to be a victim of the patriarchy. Rarely in media are we able to see a brown woman, who has all the makings of being a villain but whose character and her motives are explored with intention. Sure she, like Mir and Raj, initially exists in extremes — she is both menacing and nurturing. But by the end of the season, she, too, finds balance powered by her love for Baba and for the boys.

When I watched “Deli Boys” for the first time, I was expecting to laugh a lot and maybe be a little grossed out by all the blood. To be clear: I’m definitely queasy thinking about that opening scene of Hamza running out of the deli with a paper bag over his head and blood dripping down his shoulder. But I wasn’t expecting to feel like this show is here for a reason.

In Raj’s words: “It’s kismet, man.”