The South Asian characters championing romance
After decades of the Indian, nerdy girl background character, is there a space for South Asians in the limelight after all? Ambika Mod lovers everywhere seem to think so.
With the release of hit Netflix limited-series One Day, many viewers are discussing the prominence of lead character Emma, played by Ambika Mod. Mod starred in Killing Eve, and made waves for her gut-wrenching role in This is Going To Hurt as Shruti, but has caused a stir for her role in One Day for the refreshing lack of spectacle in regards to her ethnicity in the show. A vast majority of media today sees characters introducing their ethnicity as a large portion of their identity; and while this is an incredibly important factor in diversity and representation on-screen, it can also lead to excessive division of actors, and can sometimes distract from a story-line.
“Especially in romantic media, brown women just weren’t seen as desirable as white women,” says India-born, Northern-Irish student, Aleena Joseph; “I definitely think that that is changing now, especially with shows like One Day coming out and being so popular. It's also important that these shows are doing well, not because of the diverse casting, but because of the quality of the entertainment. It's good representation, not just representation for representation’s sake.”
Mod’s character has led audiences to look at other popular shows with a critical eye. Under scrutiny for a while now is director and actress, Mindy Kaling. Her role as Kelly Kapoor on the American remake of The Office, broke boundaries of representation for the time in presenting a female Indian character that wasn’t the ‘smart’ one, was obsessive of her looks and led many comedic moments on the show. In contrast to One Day’s Emma, Kapoor’s Indian heritage was referenced often in the show though not often by Kapoor herself.
Kaling wrote and co-directed many episodes of the show and then went on to create rom-com series The Mindy Project, and most recently Netflix’s Never Have I Ever. Main character Devi Vishwakumar is an angry teenager dealing with high school life, and processing the experience of losing her dad in a traumatic manner. Most prominent in the show is Devi’s experience crushing on popular jock Paxton Hall-Yoshida. The show continually references Devi’s heritage, whether it be in the form of her cousin Kamala, or her atypical distaste for vegetarianism.
The show received mixed reviews with half of its viewers saying Devi’s selfish and annoying behaviours were real and helped them see themselves in Devi’s character, past just her ethnicity.
Feminist author Zoya Patel writes on her blog: “As far as good Indian girls go, Devi is not one, and she never will be. Her bouts of rage and frustration in the show are achingly familiar. I was angry permanently from the age of around 12 to 25, and I realise now that a lot of my anger was because I didn't feel in control of my life (something that Devi also struggles with)...The fact that Devi is unlikeable, while also firmly being the lead character in NHIE, and not just there to add colour to a more likeable character's narrative, feels like an absolute revolution to me.”
Devi references her dual-identity multiple times and allows viewers to resonate with her experience of not being Indian ‘enough’ for her family members, and being ‘too’ Indian for her friends and schoolmates. In a stark comparison, some viewers felt Devi continued a chain of female characters imagined by Mindy Kaling in which they were self-hating and reluctant to partake in the culture that surrounded them. Devi both defies, and reinforces a variety of Indian stereotypes, as she herself refers to her cousin Kamala as ‘just so Indian’, and is seen often shying away from her culture.
Many have criticised Kaling for this, and argue that her position of power and prominence as an Indian-American creative should allow her to create as she wishes, though instead she has chosen to promote the white-washed Indian stereotype in an effort to please the masses and pay her bills.
“I do think this is problematic because I feel like as a brown creator who has enough influence to decide what roles they play and push to the public, they are catering to a white audience in pursuit of capital gains. They just sort of feel like sell-outs lol. I really dislike Priyanka Chopra, in particular I can't lie. It's always uncomfortable watching brown actors choose to peddle stereotypes because it will do well with white audiences, which makes me think of the youtuber iiSuperWomanii as well. Total sell out.” continues Joseph.
Popular shows like Never Have I Ever have begun to introduce South Asian women into tv and film surrounding not only romance, but sex also. A massively taboo topic in South Asian culture, NHIE not only discusses sex, but shows teen Devi to be particularly open and eager to the subject.
“I think there are a lot of restrictions surrounding the South Asian community in terms of being seen/portrayed in a specific way. In Pakistani culture for example, women aren’t supposed to be seen in roles where they are portrayed as sexualised or objectified, within western media as this is a common practice, South Asian women don’t necessarily match with the traditional roles set out and as a result aren’t seen in many romantic films/tv.” says Pakistani LCF student, Aqsa Abbas.
This theme continued with the release of the second season of period-series Bridgerton which focused on the Sharma sisters and showed particularly steamy sex scenes with leads Simone Ashley who plays Kate, and Jonathan Bailey as Anthony. The second season of Bridgerton saw even greater success than the first, and redefined South Asian women in modern romance roles.
The release of the musical version of Mean Girls in particular saw the rise of the Kelly Kapoor ditzy girl, when Avantika stepped into the shoes of Karen Smith. Though the film flopped with critics for acting reasons, many racist trolls couldn’t see past the casting of a non-white Karen Smith, and made it known online. This continued when rumours stirred this week of the actress being cast as Rapunzel for the live-action Tangled movie; the actresses’ socials were quickly flooded with racist commentary, ‘disgusting’ says one user, another states Rapunzel is a ‘German folk story’ and one more says Rapunzel ‘should be played by a white, blonde girl.
Despite the heinous commentary of racists online, it seems South Asians actresses have finally broken into the mainstream of romance media.
How will we see this continued, and where will Mindy Kaling strike next?