Some ramblings on ‘Never Have I Ever’, diversity, representation & relatability.
Published in
5 min readMay 9, 2020
- As a nomad who has spent alternative years of her life abroad and in India, I am both that NRI cousin who visits India during summer, and that bushy-haired Indian girl at school with a difficult name to pronounce. So, this double identity, (or none at times), lets me swing to whichever definition I fit best at the time, and as a viewer, I can empathise and relate with stories from India and about Indians from Hollywood. Maybe this is why I quite enjoyed Never have I Ever, despite what the negative reviews from Indian critics suggest. Yes, there are moments where I cringed or rolled my eyes, but overall the show is delightful and entertaining, and isn’t that the point? Representation is important, but storytelling is more so, and no matter how diverse the cast, the crew, or the writing room is, if the end product isn’t engaging, all that diversity talk doesn’t mean jack.
- How exactly do you view representation within the framework of storytelling then? Should it enhance the story, or it is something that even when removed, shouldn’t affect the storytelling? Let’s look at some examples. Crazy Rich Asians was a huge milestone for Asian representation on the big screen, but for a story that hinged on its diverse characters, it was frankly, quite bland. Kevin Kwan’s novel was quite specific when describing the monetary and cultural differences between the various (Chinese) family members from Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand or Nick Young’s family’s lifestyle, which is a blend of English and Chinese traditions, owing to Singapore’s colonial past. The movie avoided all these intricacies, which could have helped raise the story a notch from the rom-com template, but sadly oversimplified it all to just a big, glamourous Chinese party. Contrast this to Ali Wong’s Always Be My Maybe, also a rom-com but a much better movie, both in terms of its storytelling and the representation factor. Wong sets her story in a city and context she is familiar with — a Korean and a Vietnamese family in San Francisco — lending authenticity to the well-known genre. (Note that Crazy Rich Asians was set in Singapore with just one Chinese American character, so the director was dealing with a not so familiar setting). It could have worked without these descriptions as well, but the cultural aspects help enhance Sasha’s culinary journey. Aneesh Chaganty’s Searching is an example of the opposite. An innovative and gripping thriller where the lead characters in the movie just happen to be Korean Americans. While the plot doesn’t gain much from this information, it does, however, expand the inclusivity of the genre to more diverse lead characters.
- Mindy Kaling’s latest Netflix series, Never Have I Ever, follows closely in the footsteps of Wong’s Always Be My Maybe. It’s a breezy watch, about yet another teenager wanting to get popular and bang the hottest guy in school. My first reaction — Why? Why exactly a teen rom-com? Kaling uses the teen drama and romantic comedy genre, which has always been populated by white leads, to present to us a well-established format but with a brown lead, which then warrants some changes. Same same but different. You can crib and find faults as much as you want with the show and its depiction of Indian Americans but Kaling definitely makes a few strides. For one, Devi Vishwakumar (a sparkling debut by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) is super good at her academics, but she isn’t hidden behind glasses or braces. She is feisty, wants a boyfriend, and wants to go to Princeton. She plays the harp and has a therapist to help her sort out her feelings about the sudden passing away of her dad. Devi’s father, Mohan, (Sendhil Ramamurthy) is a sweet, caring man — very unlike the strict South Asian fathers we always encounter — who loves gardening and watching tennis. Poorna Jagannathan is exceptional as Devi’s mom, Nalini and hands down the best part of the show. If Devi has lost her father, Nalini has lost her husband, and Kaling’s writing shines through this character, specifically in a poignant subplot involving Mohan’s Vespa. Nalini wears some amazing outfits, but her thaali still has a place on them even after her husband’s death. She grounds her daughter as punishment, has taco nights for dinner. So, somehow like Devi, she has also blended in with the American culture. All these details pay off because Kaling writes them as characters, not caricatures. People who just like anybody else are grieving the loss of their loved ones.
- Now for some brickbats. I was not a fan of the whole arranged marriage subplot. I did enjoy Richa Moorjani as Kamala, but I don’t get the need to always include some plot about arranged marriage in a story about Indians. The episode with the Ganesh Puja also hit a few rough spots, especially with that initial snippets of festivals playing over a narration of the significance of Ganesh Puja, which had images and videos of every festival apart from Ganesh Chaturthi or playing songs like Nagada Sang Dhol from Ram Leela, and Mehendi Lagake Rakhna from DDLJ at a pooja.
- Look, what we genuinely crave is relatability. It’s seeing ourselves in the characters on screen and being able to understand, relate, and maybe even draw some wisdom and strength from them. I saw in Devi what I saw in many of my Indian-but-raised-abroad friends, from the accent to the mannerisms, to the requisite applications to Ivy League schools. The Ganesh Puja being held at Devi’s school reminded me of the Indian community’s festivals or bazaars held in school auditoriums or grounds in Gabarone. That’s why maybe a Never Have I Ever didn’t really resonate with the Indian audiences and was viewed as an American story than an Indian one. And that isn’t and shouldn’t be a problem. As Indians, we have a plethora of movies and shows to choose from, but we often forget that we have a large diaspora who are raised or live abroad, and now that it is finally their time to tell their stories, we must encourage them. And we mustn’t place this burden of representation on Kaling’s head. She is at as much liberty to have an Indian lead/character in her show, as much liberty we have to like or dislike the show. I was also happy that Kaling chose to portray a Tamilian family, like she narrowed it down to one specific Indian culture, not the generalization that we have always seen.
This show is in no way perfect, but it is definitely a step forward in the right direction. Also remember, before we find faults in these shows, look at the stereotypical portrayals of Tamilians we are still presented with in Hindi movies and tv shows, and we should remind ourselves that we have work to be done on representation in our country as well.
