We can’t pick and choose who gets to be nuanced, and we can’t characterize shows as good and bad, simply based off of the skin color of the star. We can’t let writers off the hook when they get one thing right about one culture. But it’s not enough to put minorities on the screen. Kaling has done a good thing by featuring a dark-skinned Dravidian girl as her lead, suggesting that non-European women are beautiful, smart and worthy of love. It might be dictated less by the people in front of us and more by the media we consumed. If we hadn’t met, our mutual knowledge might not be as rich as it is. Together, we learned about each other’s cultures. Kavya only knew a handful of Jews before coming to this university. In this time of isolation, for a second, I felt less alone. Staring at Devi’s thick, wavy hair and mischievous smile, I saw my friend. Kavya felt gratified to see someone who looked like her on screen - not just as a token person of color, but as the star. Like many Tamil people, she has dark skin (dark for Hollywood, that is). My roommate and dear friend, Kavya, is from South India, and she is Tamil. I didn’t even have to crack a book to recount this literary history.Īs much as Never Have I Ever oversimplifies, it gets some things right - namely, it gives South Asian women a platform. It is older than Dickens’ Oliver Twist, in which the hunchbacked Jew Fagin exploits a group of starving orphan boys for their meager savings older still than Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, in which Shylock the Jew demands his “pound of flesh” from an indebted merchant. The idea that Jews are miserly, magpie-like and obsessed with money is a centuries-old Jewish stereotype that feels redundant to even type out. In one scene, Ben’s father hands him a wad of cash and says to his son, “Thousand dollars sound good? If you need more, just call.” Shots of his house reveal a mansion of epic proportions. Never Have I Ever continually defines Ben by his money. That surprises me, given that Kaling has worked with Jews her entire career and apparently celebrates Passover, according to her Twitter feed. The line speaks to a real ignorance around Jewish stereotypes. This allusion to Jewish money made me want to shrink into the floor. “Us Indians, we get a little bit of money, we go straight to Home Depot to buy a cement fountain.” “Jewish people know how to save,” her mother responds with a flick of her wrist. Devi asks her mother why the festival is held every year at her high school, while Ben had his bar mitzvah at the Dolby Theatre, where they host the Oscars (I laughed at this one - it’s just so ridiculous). In the fourth episode, Devi and her family are on their way to a celebration for the Hindu festival Ganesh Puja. It pains me to find such glaring fault in her work. I watched The Mindy Project in high school, and I read Kaling’s memoir Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? in one sitting on a flight. Make no mistake: I’m a longtime Mindy Kaling fan. But is it right to resolve a scene like this so easily? I’m not suggesting we can’t make them my own culture uses humor as the primary way to confront pain. I could tell something bigger was bothering you.”Īs a Jewish person watching this scene, I felt conflicted. I don’t want Nazis to kill you.”īen: “It’s okay. After a short scolding from the principal, Devi apologizes, and she and Ben make up:ĭevi: “Ben, I’m really sorry. ”īen’s shocked face mirrored mine in the reflection of my laptop screen. She repeats, louder: “I said I wish the Nazis would kill Ben. In the second episode, angry at Ben for tripping her up on a bit of Holocaust-related trivia in class, Devi whispers under her breath, “I wish the Nazis would kill you.” The teacher asks her what she said.
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