Three writers and fans of Mindy Kaling’s Fox show sit down to talk about Kaling’s take on race, gender, body image — and what it means for viewers who don’t often see themselves reflected in television.
FOX / Chris Ritter / BuzzFeed
Fox's The Mindy Project returns this week after its winter hiatus. Mindy Kaling's series has been criticized for the exclusive whiteness of its romantic plotlines and her commentary on race as a woman of color. Many of these criticisms Kaling has refused to engage beyond expressing contempt or defensiveness. As fans of the show, three writers spent some time talking about the scrutiny applied to her casting choices, her jokes, and the various projects of The Mindy Project.
Ayesha Siddiqi: I think we're all aware of the impulse to add a disclaimer to conversations like this, of risking looking like we're dissing one of the few women of color leading a sitcom and the only South Asian.
Heben Nigatu: Yeah, I've definitely been reluctant to share critiques of the show publicly.
Durga Chew-Bose: I also have to keep in mind the pressures she must feel from her network. The only way to make any changes is to stay on the air. Which is in some ways an analogy for how I've been in my life. I'll have to work through this thought but, being brown, or first generation, but only to a degree. Keeping up with cultural references that aren't necessarily mine, for instance. I sometimes worry that I only write about white directors, or films with only white people.
AS: I can remember every time I ever saw another Desi at a show — like, five times, total — and we were always both too surprised to feel anything but "caught." Which is so strange, because that response only reinstates the notion we didn't/don't belong there. Like, what were we supposed to be doing? Waiting for our mom outside a Patel Brothers grocery or something?
DCB: It's like the scene in the show where Mindy meets her ex's new girlfriend. And the new girlfriend exclaims something like, "I'm Indian too!" And Mindy goes, "Yeah, there are, like, a billion of us." That was the show's single best moment.
AS: Yeah, I love that she doesn't traffic in or ever promote Indian stereotypes. Moment of silence for the horror show that was Outsourced.
HN: Yo, moment of silence indeed. How could I forget about that show?
AS: I don't think she needs to reference Indian culture because that's to claim she isn't entitled to American culture.
DCB: I don't think she needs to reference Indian culture either.
AS: It's one of the rare moments that hints at Mindy K.'s savvy more than Mindy L.'s somehow. But it also evinces her reluctance to express any solidarity with, let alone acknowledge, other Indians, South Asians, people of color in general, which has always struck me as a conspicuous choice. And that's definitely a reaction Mindy Kaling would resent; she always bristles at people responding to her as a woman of color instead of a just a [white] woman. She acts as if race is something that doesn't exist in whiteness and can therefore be diluted through it.
HN: I am kind of struck by how there are no other people of color on the show — besides the nurse character, which has so many problems. She dates a lot of people.
DCB: I think the show that they were addressing that in was titled "Mindy Lahiri Is a Racist."
AS: That episode might as well have been titled "No, You're the Real Racist." It was essentially about how anyone who finds the nurse character problematic is just judging her. And then she awkwardly tries to ask a black guy out and it doesn't happen, so she continues with her nebbish white-guy fetish.
DCB: Also, the black guy was already dating "Tyra."
AS: Also, "Black guys love me."
HN: It gave off "everyone's a little bit racist" vibes (à la Avenue Q) to me, which is a flattening sentence that is never really helpful in any conversation. But anyway, there was a point in that episode when they called her out and said she only dates white guys. And her response was something like, "Not true — there was an Asian guy; his small hands made my boobs feel big."
AS: Wow.
HN: Yeah, that episode was a lot. Oh god, is this the part where I talk about my dating life? Obviously brown people date white people; the show takes this project up so strangely. Does it bother you that Mindy only dates white guys?
DCB: It doesn't bother me. But in relation to the whole show, the characters, the jokes, the directions it's taken, the Meg Ryan-y vibes, I question it.
AS: It bothers me. She is allowed to be attracted to whomever she wants. It's fine if she has a type; it's clear she does. But when the racial economics of desirability are so obvious, it's awkward. And here I'm drawing a lot from her book, but she clearly grew up the chubby brown kid not coded as attractive or even a romantic option for the people she's around. And the people she's around, and the romantic comedies she loves, most often warm to some rando who isn't even that good-looking but just purely and conventionally "white dude." It feels like engaging a fantasy that shouldn't have appeared fantastic in the first place.
Based on her book, I see her casting choices as a way to seek validation from an environment that effectively rendered/renders her sexless. The project in The Mindy Project seems to be "Take that, high school — I can too attract white guys." So why isn't it a Channing Tatum type instead of literally Seth Rogen? What bothers me is these guys don't have to be/never are anything special. They're just white and available, have stable jobs but rarely any distinguishing traits to speak of. And she is enthralled. Meanwhile the women these guys date are bombshells: Ed Helms with the "other Indian" girl, Mark Duplass with Maria Menounos. It maintains an apparatus that falsely inflates the value of whiteness and further undermines the self-esteem of brown kids. It's her own show and her character doesn't do better than random doulas and DJs? Even Liz Lemon dated James Marsden and Jon Hamm. In a fairer world the guys Dr. L dates would not be considered leading-man material, at least not opposite the women of the show. I don't need the show to make her race explicit but rather whiteness — to do the bare minimum of what is honest and acknowledge that whiteness is not a neutral position from which the rest of us deviate/should aspire to.
HN: Yeah, I think this is why I find it so frustrating she doesn't date any POCs. If black guys love you so much, why are you so intent on settling for subpar white dudes? Although, I really like Danny for the record. I swoon.
DCB: I love Danny. He may as well be called Danny Darcy. Though I cringe when women go nuts about Jane Austen. I've always been more prone to Brontë: dark, disobeying women who are so-called "out of control."
AS: But even Danny, presented as the guy she's supposed to end up with, is the definition of clichés about white American masculinity. He's like the dad of all her friends growing up, right down to the Bruce Springsteen records and emotional repression.
DCB: He's the man, with a script that reads, "CUT TO: Danny sharing a sweet smile with Mindy."
HN: Ooof, the dad though?
DCB: His dance to "Try Again" was pretty dad.
HN: True dad dance. I like the way the show plays with the way he wears his masculinity on his sleeve.
AS: The running jokes about his manliness are supposed to endear him to us. Because Dr. L is supposed to be a "spaz" and needs someone to give her a fatherly hug and an unfatherly once-over before her dates and to remind her, "You're beautiful." And then Uncle Sam winks and it's like, "Looks like we made it."
DCB: I cringed when he told her to stop sucking her stomach in. Unprompted advice from men about our bodies is just NO.
AS: Even for a show paying homage to romantic comedies, it was all so contrived.
HN: Yeah, that moment was so awkward to me. I feel some type of way about the kind and number of fat jokes on the show.