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New Disney Pixar short tackles identity conflicts American Hindus face
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A preview of the 7-minute "Sanjay's Super Team" was posted on YouTube last Thursday, and according to The Huffington Post, animator Sanjay Patel said his personal experiences balancing Indian culture and living in the U.S. served as inspiration. - photo by Payton Davis
Disney Pixar's latest short film, "Sanjay's Super Team," features a few firsts both on-screen and behind the story.

According to Metro, the seven-minute short to play before showings of Pixar's "The Good Dinosaur," which opens Nov. 25, is the film studio's first to have an Indian-American family and an Indian-American director, Sanjay Patel.

The company released a sneak preview of the short on YouTube, and Carol Kuruvilla noted for The Huffington Post the clip "provides plenty of fodder for discussions about culture, identity and faith."

In the clip, fictional Sanjay watches superheroes and chaos on TV while his father performs Hindu worship in a home altar behind him.

U.S. pop culture and customs from the family's faith clash as father and son tangle in regards to the TV's volume.

Patel told Kuruvilla he remembers the scene "vividly" from his childhood. The short film's director faced similar issues balancing the culture popular among his classmates in 1980s San Bernardino, California, and the Indian traditions his parents kept relevant at home.

According to Kuruvilla, Patel said he set out to direct a short of his younger self obsessed with TV though South Asians were often stereotyped in that platform that he could've learned from.

Dileep Thekkethil wrote for The American Bazaar of what the clip hints at for all of "Sanjay's Super Team."

"The trailer of the short film gives an impression that the movie will be about the dichotomy of faith inside a father-son duo home, where the kid admires and instils full faith in the cartoon heroes and, on the contrary, his father rings bells, seeking god's protection," Thekkethil reported.

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