90210, Cultural Adaption, and Orientalism

As a religious watcher of the series "90210" the new version, I was always curious about the way the character "Navid's" family is portrayed. They are clearly middle eastern, although Navid seems to look and act more "western" than the rest of his family. His father is in the porn industry, secretly, and is seen as a dangerous liar. Navid's uncles are also seen this way, and cheat Navid to get his money and run a car theft business behind his back. They make his family criminals, and its interesting that they chose to portray the middle eastern family this way instead of a white family. With all the negativity and generalizations about middle eastern men the show just emphasises the orientalism going on in media today.

If this show were to be aired in another country a lot of things would need to be changed. First, not everyone in other countries can recognize the zip code 90210 as a prestigious area in southern California. Changing it to the name of a city like Los Angeles would be a better representation. Also jokes, cultural references and signs would also need to be changed in order to understand the context of the show and the young peoples lives, where they live, and where they are coming from. Naomi's character in particular is extremely sarcastic and inherited money off her parents, but over all means well. Some countries people may not be able to pick up on her sarcastic tone or some of her actions.