Outsourced, the Movie
Intercultural Communication at its Best

Outsourced is an excellent film to introduce its audience to Indian culture by showing certain customs and behaviors in the country. As Bisoux (2009) says the film’s realistic, documentary like portrayal provides the audience a window into a global environment such as: cross-culture conflict, shock and adjustment. From the moment Todd Anderson arrives in India, the audience lives through the new experiences that he confronts. The film’s visual detail and soundtrack featuring Indian style music combine to transport the audience into the Indian culture. Once in India, Todd faces a chaotic transportation system, having to jump onto a crowded moving train, and later chasing after his suitcase which is thrown into a small auto-rickshaw, or as Todd calls it, “one of those taxi go-cart thingies.” He immediately observes different customs, beginning with a man urinating by the side of the road and continuing to the street boy who pesters him and later snatches his cell phone. At the small, above-ground bunker-like building that has been built to house the new call center where Todd will work, a cow appears in one of the offices in one scene where Todd stands surprised, while his Indian counterpart, Purohit ‘Puro’ N. Virajnarianan, remains unfazed by the cow’s presence. In the film, Todd experiences extreme mental and physical symptoms due to culture shock. Culture shock is defined as a “sense of confusion, discomfort, disorientation, and uncertainty felt by those exposed to a different cultural environment” (Business Dictionary.com, 2013, 08). Different food, language, and marriage practices are especially prominent in the film. In the area of food, Todd eats gola from a street vendor, and his subsequent stomach problems become fodder for future comic scenes. When he is offered a snack at the guesthouse