I'm wrapping up my daily sweep of Instagram, eyes scanning the dull screen for any last juicy tidbits before I call it a night.
As I stumble upon a post about Mindy Kaling's baby daughter, I stop in my tracks. I'm shocked by the announcement, not only because I was completely unaware of her pregnancy, but at the fact she had named her child Katherine.
Sharing the post with my friend, we both discussed the news for a while until, sure enough, the conversation looped back around to how whitewashed Kaling appears herself.
I really like Mindy Kaling. I think she is funny and talented and hard working. Honestly, it's great to see a successful woman of colour in the media.
It was idle gossip - or a dialogue of representation at best (pursuing entertainment journalism means one feels at least slightly entitled to discuss these topics without seeming superficial), and yet looking back, it serves as an example of the hypocrisy we display as ethnic minorities.
Mindy has faced criticism throughout her career, as well as in her personal life. Everyone has an opinion on just how "brown"/"whitewashed" she is. Be it her suspected relationship with BJ Novak, or calling her son Spencer, it seems she’s always under the microscope.
I've watched a lot of Mindy's work. From The Office to The Mindy Project, Champions, Never Have I Ever, and even her film cameos. Her shows almost always star white romantic interests. Her characters have names like Kelly and Molly, Shelly and Amy.
I completely understand and share in the frustration. To finally see someone Asian in mainstream media, but still not feel represented by their characters or content. It's disappointing.
It's bad enough we have to shorten or even completely change our ethnic names so that other people can "pronounce" or "remember" them better. Our food, music, clothes and traditions are all ridiculed, only to later be appropriated as "trends". To have someone on the inside, creating content that we not only relate to, but could help normalise our culture in western countries would be incredible. And Mindy fails to deliver that with her work.
But here’s my issue:
We talk about how minorities are forced to represent their whole communities and what a burden it can be... and then we do it to ourselves.
How often have we complained about how a white criminal is seen as one individual, “acting alone”, but a whole minority community is often branded by the negative actions of one person of colour.
We preach and we preach about how we are independent people with different stories. How we don’t all “look” and “act” the same.
And then we criticise people for not acting the way we think they should. Being “too white” and not representing the Asian community.
We subject them to the same biased scrutiny that we ourselves have been subjected to by others.
Why should Mindy make her characters overtly Indian? Why should she choose Indian male leads or Indian storylines?
Don’t get me wrong, it would be nice if she did. It would help so many young Asian writers, actors and creatives in the industry, for one. But it's not her duty to do so, simply bc she is brown. Her job is to create content and she does that. She does it well.
To say her choices have no impact on our lives is untrue. At least creatively. She can name her children whatever she wants, and I stand by the view that it is nobody's business. But creatively, I think it would make a huge impact on our lives, as young South Asians. To see accurate representations of ourselves in mainstream media. However, that responsibility is not Mindy Kaling's alone to bear.
It’s a catch-22 for minority creatives. We want to be representative of our community but also remind people that we’re more than just our ethnicity or skin tone. We want to highlight our varying lifestyles without suggesting too much “otherness”. We don’t want to be pigeonholed or labelled.
The reason I chose to talk about Mindy in all seriousness is because she is the one I used to be most disappointed by. And someone who faces a lot of criticism.
But I will hold my hands up and say my opinions have changed while working on this piece, and I've realised what a hypocrite I have been. I will not reduce her to her ethnicity. I will not demonise her for not conforming to cultural norms.
To be frank, this wouldn’t be a problem if we had more successful minority creatives. The problem right now is we’re looking for a one size fits all model of representation. And that’s just not realistic. We need more South Asians to create more content for all the different types of South Asians out there. Mindy has the “quirky woman who likes western culture and white men” thing down. Now perhaps we need a “quirky woman who likes western culture and BROWN men” or a “feminist man who breaks stereotypes but whose mum still washes his clothes” (They do exist!)
My point is, there are so many different types of South Asians and it’s not one person’s job to represent every single one of us. Just as we remind others that we’re not all the same, we must remember it ourselves, too.
All Mindy Kaling can do is create content that she is proud of and best represents her ideas.
Thanks for reading. If you liked this little think piece, why not share it and then give one of my other posts a read? And of course, I always appreciate subscriptions to my blog - no spam, just small updates on new content.
Divya x
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