Never Have I Ever, written by Mindy Kaling, is one of the first shows to have a South Asian, more specifically, a South Indian, as the main character. Devi is a student in high school dealing with the death of her father, new love interests, and her complex relationship with her mother. The show outlined many struggles teenagers face, but did not truly succeed in carrying out the Double Life that many Desi teens face.
We personally have mixed feelings about this show. First of all, we really liked having an Indian lead, more specifically, a South Indian lead. However, we felt that a large portion of the show was very unrealistic and was not an accurate reference to Desis living the Double Life.
Although this may be very picky, we found it highly unrealistic that Devi was the only Indian or Desi girl at her school, especially since she lives in Southern California, where a large population of Desis reside. We thought that Devi didn’t really break too many Indian Stereotypes and stuck to being the super smart girl who wants to go to an Ivy League school. But, we felt that Devi’s relationship with her mother was accurate, in a way. A lot of Desis struggle with their parents understanding them, especially since parents are from a completely different generation and grew up in a different country. The relationship was somewhat accurate, but Devi disrespected her mother many times throughout the show by calling her a b!t**, wishing she were dead, and running away from home. We felt that this part was a little overexaggerated and we know that if most Desis said these words to our parents, the outcome would be very different. Overall, although Desis teens may have on and off problems with their parents, the parents make sure to teach their children to respect elders.
We felt that we didn’t see too much cultural representation within the show, with just a few glimpses of Indian clothing and traditions, and Tamil spoken here and there. We were highly disappointed that Devi didn’t really have a connection with her culture, but we hope that in Season 2 she begins to accept her South Indian identity more.
It wouldn’t be surprising to see Devi learn to embrace her culture in the second season because during the Ganesha Pooja, she thought that it was embarrassing that those girls were performing an Indian dance in public. Being embarrassed of our culture is a phase that all of us go through when going through the Double Life, and we believe that Devi is maybe just discovering her culture a little later than most of us usually do.
And finally, it made us both extremely angry that the narrator could not pronounce Indian words correctly. As it is a show about an Indian girl, we feel that he could’ve said her name correctly. We noticed that the narrator didn’t even pronounce “Ganesh” or “Pandit” properly, which in our opinion are not even difficult words to say.
Although there really wasn’t that much representation, the fact that this show was based on a South Indian family made us extremely happy. In the USA, most non-Desis don’t know much about South Indian culture because Bollywood is bigger. Even films that include scenery from Indian are all filmed in the North. We hope that others can get educated on the part of India that is usually forgotten about. Both of us have high hopes that the next season will shed more light on the unique South Indian culture that wasn’t very present in this season.
We interviewed our blog readers and asked them about their opinions of the show. We split our audience to see if there were any differences between North and South Indian’s POVs, but in the end, there seemed to really be none.
-North India
Again, as we mentioned earlier, some aspects were stretched a little too far, which made them unrealistic. A viewer responded with, “This show exaggerated MANY parts and some of Devi’s reactions were rash and indecisive”. We agree that the show was exaggerated, especially Devi’s relationship with her mother, but we feel that Devi’s indecisiveness was representing what it was like to be a teenager and learning to make decisions on her own.
Another thing we can’t forget is that this show is about Mindy Kaling’s experiences. A viewer stated that “Now, while I understand it was based on the life of Mindy Kaling, I don’t think that opportunity for Indian representation should have been ‘wasted’”. We can’t say that Kaling’s experiences aren’t valid, because they most definitely are. It’s her experience growing up as an Indian, and not everyone is going to have the same experience. But, the show could’ve done a better job in representing Indian culture, like maybe explaining the cultural significance of the Ganesha Pooja.
Not only were we looking forward to having an Indian lead that broke stereotypes, but so were many other viewers. Here are two viewer’s opinions on the stereotypes played by the show.
“However, I do believe that to an extent NHIE reinforced the stereotype with which others frequently view Asians: as overachievers, socially underdeveloped, and frankly, weird.”
“The show focused on her as a lame nerd adding to the stereotype of South Asians.
Devi was president of multiple clubs and wants to go to Princeton; reinforcing the stereotype.”
It would’ve been interesting to see Devi as a girl who was maybe struggling a bit in school, played a sport, and had some other non-stereotypical hobbies.
-South Indian
As mentioned earlier, a few people did not like how Devi was so academically perfect. This viewer stated that “Not all Indian parents force their kids to study all the time and be a bookworm”. We agree that yes, there is a lot of academic pressure on Desi teens, but a lot of parents want us to also socialize as well; they don’t want us to just study 24/7. Devi’s academic character again adds to the “basic Indian girl” stereotype and in the end, is harmful to Desi teens.
Our goal is all about ending the normalization of racism and stereotypes. A viewer stated that “Also there were some jokes about Indian culture that didn’t sit well with me”. Going back and watching the Ganesh Pooja episode, we found that an aunty called Devi a “cripple” because she was in a wheelchair, and Kamala, Devi’s cousin, made a joke about how community college is bad while she was talking to a women who divorced a Muslim. There are so many things wrong about the sentence just said, more specifically the divorce. Marrying outside of Hinduism is very taboo, but the way the lady explained her marriage with her Muslim husband didn’t have a good connotation to it.
“It was cool to see representation, but it was not the kind I was looking for.”
We again hope for a better season 2 and hopefully more acceptance and love towards Indian culture!
-Other (Non-Desi)
“Even though all of my friends are Indian, I could never really understand what goes on in their families/home lives.”
It was interesting to see our non-desi audience’s perspective on NHIE. Again, we hope to see more Indian culture in season 2!
Indian Matchmaking is a show about the matchmaker, Sima Taparia, who visits individuals that would like to get married. Through her matchmaking business, she learns about individuals’ desires in a partner and finds their true match, hoping that they get married. Sima uses her one of a kind Biodata system and even uses astrology, a concept that is important to many Indians during marriage.
We also have mixed feelings about this show. We liked how the show portrayed arranged marriage in a positive way and decreased the stigma towards it. However, we felt like it perpetuated a lot of stereotypes.
For example, Akshay’s mom Preeti said that the girl he would marry would have to follow her rules since it is her house. Her expectations for her future daughter-in-law are to stay at home, take care of her future children and not go to work. She still believes in the gender roles that Indian society has instilled in all of us which we weren’t comfortable with. It’s 2020 and women should not be constrained to doing household tasks. When most of the parents were describing what qualities they wanted in their child’s match they almost always mentioned skin color. Sima even entertained the idea that fairer skin is superior to darker skin and considered more beautiful/handsome. Once again we did not like that this show was allowing people to think that colorism is okay.
One aspect that we liked was that portrayed two of the cast members, Ankita and Aparna, as strong independent women. Ankita started her own clothing business and set aside marriage in order to focus on her career. I think it is important to see people like this because often in India marriage is seen as a task to cross off the to-do list. Especially with girls they are seen as a burden to the family and most families get them married as quickly as possible. Aparna is a successful lawyer and she made it very clear to Sima that she wanted a partner of equal caliber and similar work ethic. Sima said people won’t like a girl who is a lawyer because they are very outspoken. But Aparna didn’t listen to Sima and she began talking to someone who appreciated her determination.
Pradhyuman said he wouldn’t just pick any girl he needed to feel some sort of “attraction.” He rejected 150 matches before he finally said okay to meeting one girl in person. This person was also a model so it sounded like he was only looking for the appearance in a girl which was very toxic. There are already enough beauty standards for women set by society, we don’t need more.
We interviewed our blog readers once again and asked them what they thought about the show.
One of our viewers said “I don’t think the show accurately represented all of India because it focused more on North India.” We agree with this statement because we didn’t see many people with a South Indian background while watching the show. This also might be because Sima is Mumbai-based but it would have been nice to see some representation. Another viewer said, “I think that the show had many characters that overly pushed and talked about conservative views (fair skin and such) but they never worked to counteract that toxicity and never addressed it.” In fact, by never addressing the conservative views that they had, they actually normalized them even more. In our opinion, this show does not do an accurate job of representing the Indian community. Another viewer said, “I think this show got a lot of unnecessary hate for ‘promoting’ colorism, etc. and while I totally agree that it was prominent in the show I think that it actually exposes and shows some negative aspects of our culture that aren’t discussed enough rather than promoting them.” This was an interesting take on the show that we had never thought of. This show definitely provided a good opportunity to discuss the negative aspects of our culture and what we can do to change them. We can learn from their mistakes and create a better environment for the future generations.
As of right now we do not know if Indian Matchmaking is being renewed for a second season. But we hope that if it is renewed, issues like colorism, casteism, and gender roles are discussed more.
Come back next week for our next post on Brandy Melville.