Then the last line to scroll across the screen said, "Isn't America great?"

Advertising that promotes one thing by belittling another is inherently weak, but when the belittled object happens to be a different country and the commercial is making fun of its culture, it's offensive.

Yet another commercial example of this problem aired on a radio station that I was listening to over the summer. The ad, for efortress.com, began with audio of someone--South Asian, to judge by the intentionally distorted accent--leading a session of yoga. Then the efortress.com pitch line: Basically, they said, some things have to be slow. Your Internet service provider doesn't.

Again, the link between yoga and ISPs is tenuous at best. People of South Asian origin hardly ever make it into the main show--the movie or the sitcom. And when they're in commercials, they're inevitably the targets of some sort of mean-spirited joke.

Even admirable attempts to address the stereotypes fall short--if only because a lot of people don't recognize satire. Apu on The Simpsons is a ludicrously drawn character, a heavily accented and mustachioed man who runs a Kwik-E Mart and offers guru-like advice to his befuddled friend Homer (when he is not making his own gauche mistakes). I don't think most Americans even recognize that The Simpsons uses Apu to mock American conceptions of South-Asian Americans.

Fortunately, at least one recent film portrayed South Asians in the normal, everyday context in which they exist. The Sixth Sense, the surprise-hit ghost story starring Bruce Willis, featured not one, not two, but three South Asian actors. And none of them were portraying stereotyped characters. One was a doctor, and the other two played an engaged couple picking out a ring with the usual bickering.

But even in this example, South Asians were extras--side characters.

What to do? The enormity of the problem is almost overwhelming. I've only touched on the examples of one group. How many Asian American males have major roles on TV shows not involving martial arts?