Stanford students can look at the American media in new ways after hearing Kal Penn’s speech about sociology and its impact on minority casting.

Penn is an American born actor and new member of the Barack Obama administration. For the last few years he has traveled around the United States teaching seminars to college students on the subject of minority portrayal in the media, particularly through cinema.

As an actor of Indian decent, Kal Penn largely focused his discussion on the reasons why minorities are often cast in racially profiled parts. In order to prove his point, Penn cited such characters as Dr. Fu Manchu and Detective Charlie Chan, both popular names in the 1930s in America. Penn noted that although they were two of the first Asian-American characters to make it big in America, the two were cast in stereotypical roles.

Since Penn is one of the most well-known Indian-American actors in America, many audience members asked why he accepted his role in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, a movie that featured racist jokes against several minorities. Penn replied that he felt the movie was the first time minorities had been cast as normal characters with flaws and thoughts of everyday people. Although some of the characters’ actions are inadvisable, they represent the ideas of a character not stereotypically cast.

Penn was also asked if he wanted to explain his decision to play a terrorist on the television series 24. Penn insisted that he viewed the role only as an acting challenge and did not want to draw any real comparisons between himself and the character he was portraying. According to Penn, minority casting in roles that feature flawed characters is a good step towards creating more racially diverse media.

“People need to look past how they feel different racial groups should normally act as and view everyone through the same looking glass,” Penn said.

Kal Penn came into the national eye as an actor after his portrayal of Kumar in the comedy film Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. However, Penn announced in April that he has temporarily postponed his acting career to join the Obama administration as the incoming Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison.

With his new commitment to the Obama administration, Penn admits that he is not sure when he will return to the acting business.

“Right now I really don’t have a master plan, to my parents’ great annoyance,” Penn said. “I could return to acting in one year, three years or more. I’m just going with the flow right now.”