Latest news with #LateBloomer
CBC
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How Late Bloomer represents the breadth of the South Asian experience in Canada
Social Sharing Late Bloomer just wrapped up its second season, and the verdict is in: people love it. The Crave dramedy follows an aspiring content creator named Jusmeet Dutta, who's based on the show's creator and star, Jasmeet Raina (a.k.a Jus Reign). The series loosely mirrors Raina's own experience as a YouTuber and Punjabi Sikh millennial in Canada. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with journalists Jeevan Sangha and Joyita Sengupta about the acclaim for Late Bloomer and their favourite moments from this season. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Season two of Late Bloomer is being called the best one yet. Joyita, how did you feel about it? Joyita: I really liked it. I loved the first season, as well. I think the second season is even more ambitious than the first. And like it really leans into the drama side of the dramedy equation, although there are some really funny moments. But I think probably one of my favourite things about Late Bloomer, and specifically Season 2, is that in the canon of North American shows about South Asians, there's often, in my opinion, a huge lack of class representation. I always feel like I keep seeing the same stories about an upper middle class brown person whose parents are a doctor or something, and they want to go to an Ivy League school and blah, blah, blah. And they're made by great trailblazing creators, for sure — and they sometimes centre whiteness in a way that I don't appreciate — but it does speak to some people's experiences. But when it comes to Late Bloomer, you get to see a community that truly doesn't need to centre anyone else but themselves. And in terms of the class part of that equation, you see the first season ended with him [Jasmeet] falling out with his parents, mainly his dad. And now it starts with him living in a basement apartment with a bunch of international students. And there is a bit of tension there because those students are looking at him like, "You could just go home if you wanted to. You keep rocking the boat because you don't know struggle like we do." But then on the other hand, he's hanging out with this girlfriend who comes from a far more privileged and wealthier family, and there is a lot of discomfort around that and how they move through the world as South Asians. And I just think seeing that breadth of our experience from a class perspective? So refreshing. Elamin: Last week, [Joyita] was on this very show, talking about anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments being aimed at Brampton, Ont. — specifically South Asian communities — being stoked by places like 6ixBuzz. Jeevan, what does a show like Late Bloomer offer to that conversation, do you think? Jeevan: I think this episode [Episode 6, which follows an international student who is also a food delivery person] of Late Bloomer, to me, is required reading for everyone in my life. I think that there are so many conversations about international students, about newcomers that are so vitriolic and so aggressive. One scene in that episode — it was very quick, but really important — is, after having the worst day ever, the protagonist of this episode opens his phone, and sees a video that he thinks is fun about folks that are just like him, and opens the comments, and it's just some of the most troubling and disgusting comments that you could ever see. And like any racialized person in Canada, but particularly South Asians in the last few years, know that feeling of seeing something on Instagram about someone in your community and just having to brace for impact. And I think the level of complexity that this episode brings to the international student experience, and presents to Canadians through the extensive research that was done, is so needed in this cultural moment in time. It is urgent to me, so if you haven't watched it please, please, please consider it.
CBC
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Jasmeet Raina questions the meaning of success in Season 2 of Late Bloomer
While making the second season of his dramedy Late Bloomer, Jasmeet Raina found himself in an unfamiliar position: the director's chair. Having created, starred in, and co-written the series, Raina also directed some episodes this season, something that had been an ambition of his for several years. "It's always been a passion," he says. "I wanted to go to film school to direct, but it never panned out. Late Bloomer follows YouTuber Jasmeet Dutta, It's a story that's loosely based on Raina's own career as an early 2010s YouTube sensation. He says that while he was technically directing during his YouTube days, directing episodic television is a much different process "[On YouTube] it was five or 10 people, now it's like literally 150 people who need to know exactly what they're doing," he says, adding that the biggest challenge has been learning how to translate the vision that exists in his brain to the rest of the team. "I know what I want in my head, and then I have to relay that information to everybody else that's involved when it comes to like sound , where the camera being set up, where's the grip going? Lighting. All this stuff," he says. Season 2 sees the protagonist leave his parents' house, trading it in for a hovel-like basement apartment he shares with a seemingly ever-growing number of Indian international students. Raina says the storyline gave him a chance to explore what he sees as the tension between Canadian Punjabis like him and more recent arrivals. "I wanted to show that dynamic and the privilege my character has," he says. "At the beginning of the episode, I'm listing all these problems, and one of the students is like 'Why don't you go back home?' Because, like, they don't really have that option." It's a subject he explores further in a capsule episode later on in the season, which moves away from his character and focuses on one of the other residents of the basement apartment, a character he describes as "trying to do everything right, but everything keeps going wrong for him." Raina says he wanted to draw attention to a virulent strain of anti-South Asian racism he's seen pop up in the last few years, one that's particularly focused on international students and other recent arrivals who he says are often used as scapegoats for everything from the housing crisis to street crime. He adds that he spent the summer talking to international students and temporary foreign workers working in food delivery in order to better flesh out the character. "While I was writing this episode, I would pull over random Uber Eats drivers, or if there was any that recognized me, I'd just try to strike up a conversation with them… and be like, 'Yo, tell me about your experience. How was it… coming from Punjab or coming from India and now you're here? What's your family situation like? What's your dating situation like? How are you making things work?' And so I was able to hear a bunch of different stories." While Raina was a hit on YouTube, his onscreen alter-ego, Dutta, finds himself caught in an odd trap of online fame: he's too successful at this to feasibly work a real job, but not yet successful enough that online videos are a full-time living. It's a situation that leads him to question his choices. "He's kind of in this weird middle place where he doesn't really know where he's going, but he's just like 'I think I have to do this. I just think I have to keep pushing,'" says Raina. Raina says that one of his "personal philosophies" that's crept into the show is to question what it means to be successful. "Society in general places emphasis on success and just money and being successful at [any] cost, like, whatever you gotta do to get there," he says. "That's the most amount of value we place on a person." But having experienced some pretty impressive success as a YouTuber, and then having stepped back from it for five years prior to starting work on Late Bloomer, Raina says that success and acclaim aren't necessarily all they're cracked up to be. "I experienced this huge amounts of success, but there were like certain parts of me that I felt were still stuck in, like, my late teens and early 20s," he says."That's why I took that time away." He adds that ultimately, "making it" and material success are meaningless if it comes at the expense of being a good, empathetic person who knows themselves, and that the most important thing is "striving to help each other out, because we're all kind of in this together."
CBC
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
As a kid post-9/11, Jasmeet Raina became funny so he wouldn't be seen as a 'threat'
Jasmeet Raina is back with Season 2 of Late Bloomer — his half-hour comedy series inspired by his own life as a turban-wearing Punjabi Canadian millennial. But this time around, in addition to creating, writing and starring in the show, Raina found himself in the director's chair for two episodes. The first episode he directed, "Not My Uncle," follows his younger self at school on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Jasmeet is with his cousin, Neal, as they watch live coverage of the attacks with their classmates. All of a sudden, the kids start to stare at Jasmeet and Neal. Within a couple days, a rumour starts at Jasmeet's school that Osama bin Laden is his uncle. Jasmeet gets into a fight on the basketball court and the other kid says, "What are you going to do, fly a plane into my house now?" WATCH | Jasmeet Raina's full interview with Tom Power: "That episode is in its core about these two cousins," Raina tells Q 's Tom Power in an interview. "We see where they left off at the end of Season 1, and there's been this tension between them…. They're still best friends, cousins, but there's been this underlying tension that they've never really addressed." While Jasmeet and Neal both grew up together in the Sikh community and wear head coverings, Neal is white. Tension develops between them as Jasmeet begins to notice that the expectations placed on his cousin seem to be different than those placed on him. "I was 11 when 9/11 happened," Raina says. "I just started a new school, it was middle school, and I was excited…. Then 9/11 happens and everything just switches up, even the racism. Before it was just casual, funny … and then all of a sudden you're associated with terrorism." After the Sept. 11 attacks there was a sharp increase in Islamaphobic hate crimes, but Sikh people — who were being misidentified — became targets as well. WATCH | Official trailer for Season 2 of Late Bloomer: "For a lot of kids around my age, myself included, we lost a bit of innocence there," Raina says. "It forced us to grow up and adapt a survivor mentality very fast at a very young age. My route, I think, was like, OK, I got to be likable. I got to be not seen as a threat. So I kind of became funny in a sense. It took a while for me to get there. I was angry. I was bitter. And then I was like, 'I can't be angry and bitter. I'm just going to start being funny in class, and people can understand that there isn't a threat level here.'" Drawing on his real-life experiences, Raina says he had to carefully pick and choose the moments that would best serve the story in Late Bloomer. "You can only fit so much in an episode," he says. "I know a lot of Sikh kids that went through the exact same situations and exact same remarks and exact same tension. They faced the same type of thing … so, yeah, it was a pretty universal experience, I think, for not just Sikh kids, but kids of colour, kids of immigrants, brown kids in general."
The Province
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Province
Comedian Sarah Millican brings new show to Vancouver
Q-and-A with award-winning English comic ahead of Late Bloomer comedy tour stop in Vancouver Comedian Sarah Millican returns to Vancouver with her new stand up tour Bobby Dazzler. Tickets for the Oct. 28 Vancouver Playhouse show go on sale April 29 at 10 a.m. Photo credit: Courtesy of JFL Photo by Courtesy of JFL / PNG Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Exclusive articles by top sports columnists Patrick Johnston, Ben Kuzma, J.J. Abrams and others. Plus, Canucks Report, Sports and Headline News newsletters and events. Unlimited online access to The Province and 15 news sites with one account. The Province ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on. Daily puzzles and comics, including the New York Times Crossword. Support local journalism. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors When: April 26, 8 p.m. Where: Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre, UBC Tickets/info: English comic Sarah Millican launched into the highly competitive global comedy scene in 2008 after winning the best newcomer comedy award at the prestigious Edinburgh Festival Fringe. A mere five years later, Millican was listed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the U.K. by Radio 4's Women's Hour program and appearing regularly on radio, television and theatre stages. Frequently veering far beyond social norms, her razor-sharp observations of gender relations had less to do with traditional relationship routines and far more to do with the kind of behaviours that grind the sexes into mush. Her peeling laugh and friendly smile hid a surprisingly dark, and hilarious, biting wit behind them. Having last toured North America with her sixth standup show titled Bobby Dazzler, Millican is back with her latest creation, Late Bloomer. The run of 100-plus performances on the world tour brings her to the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre at UBC on April 26. Millican answered some questions about the new show and her brand of mirth-making. Essential reading for hockey fans who eat, sleep, Canucks, repeat. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Postmedia: What is Late Bloomer about? Sarah Millican: Late Bloomer is about me. About 12-year-old me and 49-year-old me, and what has changed in the intervening 37 years. It's also possibly about you, if you also had a handbag at the age of 9. Q: Late Bloomer sees you performing in a venue five times larger than you played on your previous trip to Vancouver, and your website has a photo of you performing to 12,000 people in Perth, Australia last month. Is there a difference telling jokes in arenas? A: I'm quite new to arenas and wasn't sure if I'd like them, but I love them! They feel surprisingly intimate. There are screens that show my big face, which means everyone can see facial expressions but also that I have to pluck my moustache at, like, 7:55 p.m. to make sure I get them all. Q: From Taskmaster to QI, Would I Lie to You? to the Chase and so many radio programs, it seems that the media landscape for U.K. comics is so well developed. Do you think this is a win or lose situation for developing standup skills? This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A: I like doing television very much, but I don't think it helps you develop standup skills. The only way to do that is get on stage, all of the stages, over and over and over again. Standup is my love. All of the other things are fun, but mostly to get people to come and see you do standup. Q: How much do you think being a Geordie (from the Tyneside region) influences your comedy? It often seems that the further North you go in the U.K., the funnier — and often, darker — folks become? A: I think there is definitely a Northern sense of humour. But luckily it translates around the world! I'm pretty sure I learned how to tell a story when I lived at home with my family. And there are definitely some words that sound funnier in my accent like 'monkey' and 'photocopier'. Still haven't managed to get them both in the same joke though. Some day. Q: Who are some of your favourite comics and why? This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. A: Some of the funniest people I've seen are Canadian comics: Debra DiGiovanni, Mike Wilmot, John Hastings, Steph Tolev and Mark Forward. They all make me hoot with laughter and be jealous of their jokes. Q: Where do you like to eat when you are in Vancouver? A: I will try to get poutine. As I don't like cheese curds, I need to go somewhere they won't throw me out for asking for poutine without the cheese curds, which is essentially chips and gravy, which is pretty Geordie in itself. Also, you have my favourite type of food here, which is 'huge portions'. sderdeyn@ Read More Vancouver Canucks Homes Vancouver Whitecaps News Vancouver Canucks
CBC
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Comedian Jasmeet Raina returns with Season 2 of Late Bloomer
Late Bloomer is a TV show about being a young Punjabi-Sikh Canadian growing up in the social media era. It's loosely based around the experiences of creator and star Jasmeet Raina, who used to be known as Jus Reign on his YouTube channel. Raina joined the CBC's Gloria Macarenko to talk about the second season of the show.
