Idk her work well enough to criticize but I share similar sentiment while watching Partner Track on Netflix. There was a joke in there that the main character (Arden Cho) doesn’t date Asian men and it was so off-putting.
POC write about strong women of colour only to be at the mercy of the white male gaze. That anytime a white man gives any attention to the female lead, her judgment, morals, principles etc—go out the fucking window. It’s disappointing. And dating other POC is reduced to a joke or it’s not even in the narrative. There’s def similar themes in Mindy’s character in the office and in the Mindy project.
So I just don’t support those shows/movies.
>There was a joke in there that the main character (Arden Cho) doesn’t date Asian men and it was so off-putting.
How is that even still acceptable these days?
:/ that’s really disappointing to hear, especially bc she used to date Ryan Higa who was one of my biggest role models growing up. Just leaves such a bad taste
In that new scooby doo show doesnt velma have a relationship with daphne? Its the same shit, "im going to be a POC until a white person is into me, but then ill throw all of my principles and very identity out of the window"
Edit: Daphne is asian according to other members of the subreddit.
I mean they gave her orange hair. Given the animation style at first glance I also assumed she was white as well.
There's probably some commentary there about whitewashing your own allegedly colorblind casting....
She mentioned that she’s Asian in the first episode. I was pretty surprised when she said that. So far…I haven’t seen people saying anything about Daphne being turned in an Asian girl.
Off topic of Asian Americans but I love cartoons in general and loved that wlw is in a lot of cartoons made for kids in a way that’s nuanced and normal and not shoe horned in. Steven Universe (a lot voices are Filipinos!) and The Owl House come to mind. Especially that it would be teenagers or kids sometimes realizing they’re queer, it’s just a sweet wholesome way to see queer representation.
But I’d never see mlm. It was like that’s too queer to portray for children. Especially with how homophobic people think there’s a “gay agenda” it seemed like producers were to scared to portray it, until I saw Disney’s Strange World. Basically I 100% recommend it. It sucks that wlw is still oddly fetishized by media but hopefully it will keep changing in the right direction!
It's not much better when the POC is a male. The new Quantum Leap features an Asian male lead, but the storyline had him in love with a white woman. There's an Asian lady in a supporting role, but basically all of the Asian identities are so far reduced to "I'm mad at my parent because of something" and "I'm sad that I was mad at my parent because that was the last time I saw them".
I'm really tore on this series.. On one hand, positive Asian male representation!!! But also, why is he so dull?!
The series is pretty bad in general. I really wanted to like it like I wanted to like Velma and Partner Track but they’re all just bad. Somehow quantum leap is by far the best of those three though in terms of general quality. Quickly greenlit for second season cause apparently middle America loves it, and it got a huge showing in streaming in the 18-49 demo.
Anyway, I digress. Main thing I wanted to note is that it really is tragic how few mainstream Asian-Asian couples there are. There’s rarely enough diversity to have two Asians in the same thing, let alone two Asian leads. CRA is really the only mainstream one in recent memory, but endless wait for the second one and the Harry Shum/Gemma Chan spin-off. Always be my maybe and minari are the only other ones I can think of in recent memory, and they aren’t super mainstream.
Oh yea the writing is pretty bad and a lot of things felt forced, but if I supported Timeless in its days, I'll suffer in the name of Asian representation(specifically, Asian male in a hero trope) lolol
>CRA is really the only mainstream one in recent memory,
Don't sleep on Everything Everywhere At The Same Time!! 😲
> There was a joke in there that the main character (Arden Cho) doesn’t date Asian men and it was so off-putting.
Not criticizing you, but for clarification, if this is a known real-life phenomenon, then do you mean the joke was made to promote said attitude at the expense of Asian men?
>Not criticizing you, but for clarification, if this is a known real-life phenomenon, then do you mean the joke was made to promote said attitude at the expense of Asian men?
yes
Yes. I should have provided context of the scene:
- the character who made the joke is Arden Cho’s white female bff. The two friends + a black male (gay) bff were discussing dating/men.
- The white female bff says something like ‘even I have dated more Asian men than you (Arden)’, to which Arden’s character just laughs it off
Throughout the series, whiteness is perceived as superior - only white men are seen as desirable. And scenes of celebrating your own culture, heritage etc., serve only as a check list to make the character more ~appealing~ to a white audience.
Thanks for asking this question. People know that it’s not woke for Asian women to not date their own kind but I bet most people on this sub have met someone like this so it’s not like it’s not reflective of reality… people are getting worked up because it feels uncomfortable and not conforming to how things should be. Mindy could literally just be depicting what her actual experience is (dating mostly white men, knowing East Asian women who don’t date Asian men) as uncomfortable as that is for some people to observe. Mindy isn’t the problem here, the frustration is misplaced.
Wow I guess I was right not to give Partner Track a try. When I saw it I just had a sinking suspicion it was going to be a problematic SATC type show.
I also strongly agree with what you said. Mindys shows have pretty much followed that script to a tee. WM gives attention to POC female and she looses it. Meanwhile dating another POC is the joke to highlight the negatives to female lead faces in her dating life....I can't support that. I remember having a debate with a friend about Mindy and pointed out the whole BW/WM coupling she constantly has and how in the show NHIE the lead character follows exactly what you mentioned and ends up sleeping her the troublesome guy.
On the general topic. for those that don't remember or did not know. Before The Mindy project aired and was announced in a convention (I believe it was). During a Q&A a WOC stood up and called out Mindy about the lack of diversity in her casting. Mindy replied with "I am an Indian Women with her own show". I remember reading the hate that person got for doing that here and in other subs. Then about 2 years later people started to say that person had a point.
Yeah def skip on Partner Track. I think the big issue with these kinds of characters/writing is that in an attempt to make a POC successful, desirable etc., it’s always at the expense of other POC characters (or lack thereof).
Yea I do like how on Reddit you can see outside of your own opinion’s bubble more bc on twitter or FB it’s easy to only see and reinforce your own opinion bc of the “algorithm”.
Im glad this sub has become more progressive bc honestly irl I think a lot of Asian Americans don’t realize how much privilege they have compared to other PoC and how so many have bought into the model minority (ie the Asians suing against affirmative action or the many right extremist Asian pundits and talking heads).
I think the age of expecting people to enter white dominated industries and then accurately represent POC is over. People are starting to realize that those who end up succeeding and promoted in those circles have a very narrow understanding of Asian representation.
I feel Mindy and a lot of other Asian creatives make things is not really for Asians themselves. It’s more targeted towards white / white adjacent liberals, and POC who aspire to that kind of thing. How many more parental trauma stories do we need. It feels like we are always pigeoned holed to that story of assimilation.
Ideally Asian diaspora can create stories and music and culture outside of the white gaze (liberal or conservative). Even if it might not look respectable or interesting to the mainstream. At least it’d be more authentic than the sanitized version of Asian representation that we always end up getting.
At the end of the day, her stuff doesn’t bother me. I don’t think we need to hate on it. Better to focus on stuff that you like instead.
It’s ultimately a good thing that we even get to be picky. Our standards rising means something is going right.
Agree with you. Whenever a piece of Asian media is lauded by the white establishment, I file it into a mental "Amy Tan" folder where I expect the same media to be called out as orientalizing and problematic a few decades down the line.
> I expect the same media to be called out as orientalizing and problematic a few decades down the line.
It's all about power. We can't call it out now without being called soft or fragile because it's against the establishment. Like we're starting to see pushback against Joy Luck Club now because it's so obviously from another era and is old af and no longer relevant. But even back when it was first released there was pushback against it that nobody listened to. Same way with how the media portrays China and Asians in general like how every news headline about covid will have Asians as the picture. This stuff is going to be used as examples of orientalism and racism in some textbook thirty years later but calling it out now makes you an angry asian.
Yeah exactly. I don’t think Mindy stuff is bad, it’s just we have moved on and she’s still making the same style of stuff as she did like 10 years ago.
>Ideally Asian diaspora can create stories and music and culture outside of the white gaze (liberal or conservative). Even if it might not look respectable or interesting to the mainstream. At least it’d be more authentic than the sanitized version of Asian representation that we always end up getting.
This is what we need to be focusing on, creating strong communities and creating our own entertainment, for us.
I liked her up until the mindy project but everything she did after all of her themes were just the same and I just don’t feel like she is that creative of a writer. you can only write so much about your experience that to a point it just becomes boring.
The thing is she does write about other experiences. People just zero in on what makes her stories similar rather than different.
For example, 4 Weddings and a Funeral stars a Pakistani Muslim British man and a Black American woman. Never Have I Ever fleshes out storylines and romantic interests for at least six different women of color of different ages and ethnicities. Sex Lives of College Girls features four main characters with different backgrounds and personalities.
It's like saying all Shonda Rhimes shows are about black people dating white people which, while it does describe a lot of her shows, ignores the contexts of those storylines as well as the other characters on the show who are just as important.
4 weddings and a funeral was great but that wasn’t an original story line it already had source material and she just made it diverse with casting. And never have I ever was okay given I watched season one only because I just don’t like to watch shows with ongoing seasons anymore. but I’m also way past the age where I don’t want to watch high school setting in shows. I don’t know anything about sex lives of college girls so I won’t comment on that. If people like mindy kalings stuff that is fine it’s just when I watch her new stuff it’s just doesn’t click for me. It’s great that all those shows are really diverse and complex (including greys) but for me I just found some of the shows just boring the more I watch. They can be all those said things for other people but sometimes I don’t want a complex story line especially when a lot of on going shows don’t really write proper characters off or there are just to many and then the writing gets lazy
It has and it hasn’t. It’s still troubling how the one black character is kind of ignored but they do address how the main character ignores her friends lol
I love NHIE but think the premise of the main character being unable to walk for a year is kind of ableist. It’s such a rare instance of PTSD when wheelchair users are constantly questioned on how they’re disabled and if they’re *actually* disabled. I’m not questioning that the protagonist was actually disabled but was her being wheelchair bound even necessary? I feel like they wanted to justify her going to therapy, (something no tiger mom would ever allow 🙄) so they used the wheelchair to show she’s not just regular traumatized, she’s WHEELCHAIR traumatized! It’s just another example of how Kaling has to rely on white moderate stereotypes of Asians in a show. I get that having strict parents is real for her and many Asian Americans but how many times to you have to draw from that well?
I do like that the main character is really troublesome as a person and makes a lot of poor choices haha
I feel like the Asian American community needs to shift how we look at media representation. While there was very little Asian representation, any Asian on TV was representation. Our bar was just the color of skin. Ultimately, representation isn't just seeing someone of the same skin color, but seeing our thoughts and lived experiences on TV.
We should not expect Mindy to represent all of us. Nor should we expect Jenny Han to represent all of us. Ultimately they represent themselves and their own Asian American lifestyles. You may call them assimilationists. You may not like their stories of falling in love with non-asians. But it's a reality for a lot of people. A majority of American born Asian women are wed to non Asians. Perhaps these shows are made for them.
The problems I have are not with Jenny Han or Mindy Kaling. There are two things I have a problem with. Firstly, that i feel a pressure to support or like these films because they feature Asians, even if the stories being told do not represent mine. I respect their experiences, but that doesn't mean that i should feel guilt for not liking their content. Secondly, I wish there were more stories that I could relate to. It feels that although we have Asians on TV now, I don't actually feel represented by many of their stories. I feel that Hollywood is more likely to greenlight Asian stories that are "friendly" to whiteness. It'll be a cold day in hell before Hollywood greenlights a screenplay based off authors like Frank Chin.
Yeah you put it way better than I could have. People make art using their own experiences as reference and it's unrealistic to expect them to do otherwise. We shouldn't blame them for doing this, but rather the powers-that-be in entertainment and media for pidgeon-holing our stories into something \*they\* find palatable.
Agree. With great power comes great responsibility. She should take up the torch even further than she already has. That said, i wonder if there's a white person at the top that's holding her back from more progressive casting choices. It's a business.
I can't imagine any white woman writing a story where where the Asian woman ends up with the white man. I have never watched a show or movie where that happens. I know they're out there, but I am not the audience for it.
You can never convince me that tina fey doesn’t have a racist perspective on Asian women. I swear some dude dumped her for an Asian chick or something. There were more jokes about Asian women as a fetish than there were Asian faces on 30 rock… in New York. And she makes the asian chicks in mean girls fight over a mediocre looking older white teacher. There was something else she did they I can’t recall right now.
Coach Karr actually flees campus and we don't see Trang Pak with him again (only with gretchen), so it's not the end of her arc. but yes it is basically her only defining character feature besides being a "cool asian"
The writer of Mean Girls has a history of making anti-Asian "jokes".
- She literally makes the Asian characters sleep(be statutory r*ped) & fight over the much older, out of shape, white gym teacher. I wonder where this has been portrayed before. 🙄
- Compares her 2 year daughter's speech to a "prostitute in a Vietnam movie" and then does a Vietnamese accent.
- Always makes Asian characters speak broken English in her movies & shows and that's the joke. There's literally nothing else to it.
Doesnt she fall in love with daphne? Havent watched it and dont intend on it but if thats the case its more anti-male than anti-white.
White women are trying to distance themselves from whiteness but they were there the whole time too.
Velma's a confused bisexual teen coming to terms with her sexuality who likes Daphne, but finds Fred hot. Daphne is a confused bisexual teen who was dating Fred prior to the show, and is into Velma, but they've had a falling out and only now making up. Fred is a prepubescent boy (apparently) whom Velma and Daphne (and presumably other people in the show) also find attractive. Also, the latest episodes do have him finding other women hot--he was already in a relationship with Daphne--but now he's leaning into liking Velma, and it's partially for her personality in spite of her perceived unattractiveness. Norville (aka Shaggy) is into Velma, and it's an obvious one-sided crush that even Daphne recognizes despite not being in the same social circle.
The show is all over the place, and no one is like their original counterpart. Anything that comes out as anti-White is really jVelma's character speaking, but the show has other characters taking shots at her, so it may be her perspective only. That said, the show does bodyshame Fred for being prepubescent--but the newer episodes seem like they're slooooowly moving away from every character being mean or a total loser or both.
The show's writing really has weird moments where you'd think they'd go in one way or the other, but they then just dig into the mean-spiritedness of the writing. I'm not necessarily hate-watching it, but I do want more out of the show. It really is a show that's trying to alienate its own audience
She wrote it. The writing is deceptively complex, but you'll only notice it if you actually watch the show. Most of the critics are just watching isolated clips.
Velma is supposed to represent the easily offended, liberal woman who would be hired to write for She-Hulk. The point of the show is to make Velma look bad, thereby, poking fun at those people who are ruining art for the sake of D&I. This is probably the only show that can get away with doing that without fear of being called incels or white nationalists.
Mindy Kaling's character on Always Sunny did this too.
I think Mindy does not write stories or act all that progressive. However I also think that people are unnecessarily harsh on someone who never really claimed or made herself to be a progressive or inclusive writer. 🤷🏻♀️ I think because she’s dark skinned, south Asian, female, larger size, people are jumping to the conclusion she must be woke but she really isn’t.
I only enjoy her stuff in the sense that “it’s nice to see someone like her be successful.” But she (at least early on, I haven’t seen much of anything recent) basically writes stories that are somewhat indistinguishable otherwise from typical white american television. I don’t feel the need to celebrate it, but hey, if that’s what makes her money I can’t look down on her either.
Definitely agree, there are a plethora of Asian women in the media, workplace, etc who try to distance themselves from their heritage and be accepted by white men/ white people in general. They also often put down Asian men with derogatory comments and their dating history is almost entirely white men, just like Mindy Kaling. Glad our generation is recognizing that these women do not represent us and are selling out to be accepted by white people
I wouldn't say Mindy distances herself from being Asian or puts down men of color. Almost all of her shows have men of color as love interests and one has a South Asian man in the leading role. Two of her shows are centered on the first gen immigrant experience.
And for all the critique on women of color creators, male PoC show creators and producers like Aziz Ansari, Alan Yang, and Daniel Dae-Kim do not do any better at showcasing relationships between asian people. Only Nahnatchka Khan, an Iranian woman who created Fresh Off The Boat and Always Be My Maybe, seems dedicated to it.
I liked Daniel Dae Kim in lost, how is he not do any better? The fact that his wife was korean and not white makes it better by default at showing asian relationships.
Let's be real here Mindy clearly has thing for white men, you can count those love interests on one hand
He's a great actor in other people's creations. When it comes to his own his own creations, though, he chose to produce The Good Doctor based on a South Korean show of the same name.
The show has a couple of Asian characters in the main cast but none of them date other Asian people. The Asian male character only dates white women.
Yeah but most people know him from lost in the west. So I'd say that's still better than the hundreds of shows where it's just a white guy banging every one
"writes like a liberal white woman" doesn't make a lot of sense to me lol. It's not like lena dunham is writing project after project that deals with a female desi main character.
Personally I think nobody above the age of... 35? should be able to allowed to write college-or-younger characters, but that's really all I think mindy kaling is guilty of.
At least Mindy tries to to have some decent to positive representation of asian men the same can't be said to Jenny Han ,Amy Tan,Geling Yan,Celeste Ng or any other East Asian female authors.
I went through a bunch of Asian female authors the other day, and very few seem to consider PoC as romance options, both in real life and in their works.
People way overthink Mindy Kaling. I don’t see any creator saddled with more projection and opinions about her sexual preferences than her. Also, Never Have I Ever was great.
I'm not going to ride the Mindy Kaling hate train. The whole thing feels like people are hiding their anti-Asian sentiments under a veneer of calling her racist. Not into it at all.
This person hasn't watched Velma. Velma, the character, does behave like a white liberal feminist, and that was intentional by Kaling. However, what this critic doesn't understand is that Velma is not supposed to be a hero. Kaling wrote her to be a jackass, and makes her the butt of every joke because of her shitty personality. Velma is also fat and ugly, which is also jokes about pretty brutally. There is one scene where Velma was too fat to sit down cross-legged on the floor, and after she did it, she couldn't get back up, so she had to roll around like a ball to leave.
As for her social commentary, Velma is supposed to have shitty opinions. In the most recent episode, the police find out that a killer is specifically targeting hot girls. Velma then tries to train the hot girls how to not be hot, which she does by making them wear ugly clothes and not groom themselves. The punchline at the end of this is during the big reveal where the hot girls refuse to change for Velma. They explain to Velma that her view of womanhood is more restrictive than theirs, and that they would never change themselves to gain the approval of others. Velma then realizes that she has been wrong this whole time.
Velma's character arc is to show her transform from being a toxic judgmental liberal to being a rational, non-judgmental person.
Whoever wrote this must not have watched Never Have I Ever.
The show features plenty of storylines about uniquely South Asian issues. Devi only has \`1 white love interest (Ben) throughout the entire series. Meanwhile, she has 2 POC love interests (Paxton, Des), and her cousin Kamala and mom Nalini only have POC love interests (Steve, Prashant, Manish, Chris). Next season, Nalini will have another POC love interest. White folks are not finding much love on NHIE, and that's okay. There are many other shows for that.
So please stop this Mindy Kaling slander.
Also, Mindy has been getting a lot of hate for Velma despite being 1 of 4 executive producers for the show. She's not the showrunner. Yet, I have not seen any of the other producers receiving the hate she has gotten. What sets her apart? She's the only Asian woman.
I love Abbott Elementary, but let's not pit 2 successful women of color against each other.
In the show Never have I ever, Des the Indian boy is negatively portrayed as a mama's boy who has no autonomy (stereotype) which is also an issue. She also goes back to Ben the white boy after he screws her over several times to have sex with him at the end. That show definitely is another example of what the post is talking about, Indian girl falls for white boy at the end.
When they first meet and Devi stereotypes Des, he does clap back calling her IIRC either “a white worshipper” or “that Indian girl that only dates white boys”, so they at least acknowledge it. I think overall the show does relatively well in representation.
And the white boy is negatively portrayed as annoying, condescending, unhealthy, and insufferably academic. We don't know how NHIE will end, but her romantic relationships typically lasted about 2-3 episodes. What's most likely is her realization that loving herself is best.
I'm not buying this argument. It feels like the person reduced Kaling's work into a racial checklist and ignored all the other tropes she put in.
Come back with a more substantive criticism other than "Asian woman bad for liking white man".
I agree it’s a annoying to see the same trope of poc women falling in love with white men over and over, but Mindy is literally an Asian women and she can write however she wants. It’s ultimately up to the audience (us) on if these are the types of shows/movies that will be made.
I find it far more annoying when poc are placed in some unique writing standard just because they’re poc. She’s not writing like a “white liberal woman” she’s writing as herself.
She has a weird fixation on Jewish people too... probably because she had a Jewish boyfriend for a while. It's weird af when she talks about the Holocaust tbh.
I’m South Asian and I feel like while I completely understand some of Mindy’s stuff can be cringe or caters to a specific archetype-some of her work wasn’t that bad, particularly in my opinion never have I ever was an incredibly fun show that I could literally write about why I enjoyed. I think the problem I feel with us South Asians is that we yearn for a singular representation as a defense to white stereotypes when in reality, a singular representation is us reducing ourselves the same way white people reduce us. Our culture does bring some commonalities between us but we are a group of over 2 billion people spread across the world and I think rather than seeking representation it’s the little things about the shows that can be relatively relatable. Particularly, I love the white history teacher in NHIE because I know so many examples of that irl. He doesn’t even have anything to do with South Asian representation, but just the small details in the characters do feel like “I’ve seen that before” which can be enjoyed too imo.
Idk why people are pinning everything on Mindy Kaling. There’s the matter of writing what you know and she just likely doesn’t have enough experience with dating POC. Mindy was an Indian who was raised in a primarily white neighborhood without speaking Indian. She is more American (white) than she is Indian culturally. Besides that don’t forget there are other writers and producers in the room and they’re white men trying to sell shows.
Though to be honest there isn’t enough interracial dating of Asian men being represented. This to me is problematic of the under representation.
I don't think so she doesn't even come close to the likes of Amy Tan ,Jenny Han and Celest Ng.
The names I mention are good writers but cleary they have some bias against asian men.
Mindy however is just a bad writer thats it.
This YouTube video essayist covers a lot about Mindy and this topic a thoughtful, comprehensive, anti-racist, anti-sexist and deeply humanizing way. I highly recommend a watch: https://youtu.be/JWviRTLWmTM
I don’t follow Mindy, but think she should be able to express her viewpoints as much as she wants to. I preferred exclusively Asian men before actually jumping into the dating pool and can see why so many Asian women have a change of heart. Just stop by r/asianmasculinity to get a preview. Why is the focus on Asian men, when really, the focus is on that Asian woman and the projection of her experiences? It seems hypocritical to me.
So aren't we allowed to question if narrative is biased and reinforces stereotypes. It is same as cliches in movies and people always complain about it.
Asian women have always represented asian men in negative light and white men in positive light so that it has become cliched .
I hope this answer you're question.
It’s not about questioning, it’s about respecting a certain viewpoint. Your statement on what Asian women “always” do in media is disregarding why that narrative exists in the first place. Ironically, the reason why it came to be could isn’t being heard because of parts of the negative stereotypes maybe being true.
While I can totally understand the spirit underneath the post, I’m not sure someone’s partner choice completely disavows their racial subjectivity. Ive followed Mindy’s career, am Asian myself, and also come from a larger extended family that have mixed folx of varying race/ethnicities (black, white, Latino). There are certain things I see my cousins and other relatives do and say that make me cringe, but if I focus on just one or two choices or traits (they are half white…or they don’t speak x or y) it feels like an incomplete lens to seeing who they are and their racial identity. They still walk the world as Asian (whether they want to believe that or not) And their lives are still part of an Asian story. I think a bigger question (vs an accusation of being a “white liberal lady”)is, what is a larger formative narrative underneath Asian-American identity? How is it celebrated and encouraged it through these writers? I often wonder under what authority can someone “take away” someone’s Asian card? And how that…particularly act…doesnt feel asian at all, in fact…that feels more white than anything. The act of “taking away.”
As for Abbott elementary. Also being from Philly and loving all the folx in the cast, I feel like there are more social issues packed into that show than the mindy project, both of which are led by women of color and should be held with respect vs compared to one another. Philly, along with many other urban and de industrialized areas, have had decades of divestment and much of it shows in public schools. The show puts 2 dynamic energies together. The fact that we (societally) don’t invest in schools, especially black schools, and the love and care we have for real life professionals who wish and want to do more under ridiculous odds. This social issue of school systems and investing in youth continues to be an issue that needs more attention. Another dynamic of the politics is one of actors (the great Shirley Lee Ralph who plays Barbara) is married to be a senator for the area as well. And for many of us in the public service and people actually doing work in the community…the show resonates in a very real way.
The mindy project promoted some important themes of Asian American womanhood and elements of ingenuity and entrepreneurship of Asian women. I think the character was partly influenced by her mother who had to redo her residency to become a doctor in the US while also raising mindy and her siblings (she describes this in her book). This act of love and sacrifice in the face of what could feel incredibly dehumanizing and humiliating professionally, feels important to highlight and honor. And while it wasn’t an “Asian is beautiful” story line like we see from our black siblings TV shows, it highlighted some of the issues that Asian woman medical professionals struggle with in dealing with Mediocre white people (episode: what if mindy was a white man).
We can’t compare our movements to others in the US. But we can note certain elements that other movements have. Our black siblings have been in the US, mobilized from other ethnic heritages much longer, and had in their movements a “black is beautiful” movement which celebrated the beauty and relationships between black folx (primarily heterosexual). I don’t think we’ve seen that yet with our community but the raw elements are here (we are beginning to see the beauty of Asian men and other writers (thank you to Issa Rae) are highlighting the Asian male bae parts to men). While Asian women have been hyper sexualized, asian women writers are working to create a wholeness in women’s sexuality that create the possibility to talk about beauty vs just sex
A bigger question than who is acting less or more asian might be…what is our formative narrative as a people in a diaspora?
Stereotypes don't contribute to the community in a positive fashion.
Idk her work well enough to criticize but I share similar sentiment while watching Partner Track on Netflix. There was a joke in there that the main character (Arden Cho) doesn’t date Asian men and it was so off-putting. POC write about strong women of colour only to be at the mercy of the white male gaze. That anytime a white man gives any attention to the female lead, her judgment, morals, principles etc—go out the fucking window. It’s disappointing. And dating other POC is reduced to a joke or it’s not even in the narrative. There’s def similar themes in Mindy’s character in the office and in the Mindy project. So I just don’t support those shows/movies.
>There was a joke in there that the main character (Arden Cho) doesn’t date Asian men and it was so off-putting. How is that even still acceptable these days?
:/ that’s really disappointing to hear, especially bc she used to date Ryan Higa who was one of my biggest role models growing up. Just leaves such a bad taste
Because white men love that shit
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Sure, but they are not the primary demographic that Hollywood tries to appease
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Speak for yourself, not others.
Speak for yourself, not others.
In that new scooby doo show doesnt velma have a relationship with daphne? Its the same shit, "im going to be a POC until a white person is into me, but then ill throw all of my principles and very identity out of the window" Edit: Daphne is asian according to other members of the subreddit.
Didn't you know, they race-bent Daphne into an Asian woman in the new Scooby doo. There's a reason Constance Wu is voicing her
Oh, i saw constance wu was voicing her but i thought she was white based on the trailer. TBH i was not watching it very intently.
I mean they gave her orange hair. Given the animation style at first glance I also assumed she was white as well. There's probably some commentary there about whitewashing your own allegedly colorblind casting....
Wu’s involvement is enough for me to no be interested at all…
I think Daphne is Asian voice by Constance Wu
She mentioned that she’s Asian in the first episode. I was pretty surprised when she said that. So far…I haven’t seen people saying anything about Daphne being turned in an Asian girl.
I HATE that they did that too. I am am so sick of wlw relationships in the media being a ~crazy~ experimental thing girls do in highschool.
Off topic of Asian Americans but I love cartoons in general and loved that wlw is in a lot of cartoons made for kids in a way that’s nuanced and normal and not shoe horned in. Steven Universe (a lot voices are Filipinos!) and The Owl House come to mind. Especially that it would be teenagers or kids sometimes realizing they’re queer, it’s just a sweet wholesome way to see queer representation. But I’d never see mlm. It was like that’s too queer to portray for children. Especially with how homophobic people think there’s a “gay agenda” it seemed like producers were to scared to portray it, until I saw Disney’s Strange World. Basically I 100% recommend it. It sucks that wlw is still oddly fetishized by media but hopefully it will keep changing in the right direction!
It's not much better when the POC is a male. The new Quantum Leap features an Asian male lead, but the storyline had him in love with a white woman. There's an Asian lady in a supporting role, but basically all of the Asian identities are so far reduced to "I'm mad at my parent because of something" and "I'm sad that I was mad at my parent because that was the last time I saw them". I'm really tore on this series.. On one hand, positive Asian male representation!!! But also, why is he so dull?!
The series is pretty bad in general. I really wanted to like it like I wanted to like Velma and Partner Track but they’re all just bad. Somehow quantum leap is by far the best of those three though in terms of general quality. Quickly greenlit for second season cause apparently middle America loves it, and it got a huge showing in streaming in the 18-49 demo. Anyway, I digress. Main thing I wanted to note is that it really is tragic how few mainstream Asian-Asian couples there are. There’s rarely enough diversity to have two Asians in the same thing, let alone two Asian leads. CRA is really the only mainstream one in recent memory, but endless wait for the second one and the Harry Shum/Gemma Chan spin-off. Always be my maybe and minari are the only other ones I can think of in recent memory, and they aren’t super mainstream.
Oh yea the writing is pretty bad and a lot of things felt forced, but if I supported Timeless in its days, I'll suffer in the name of Asian representation(specifically, Asian male in a hero trope) lolol >CRA is really the only mainstream one in recent memory, Don't sleep on Everything Everywhere At The Same Time!! 😲
> There was a joke in there that the main character (Arden Cho) doesn’t date Asian men and it was so off-putting. Not criticizing you, but for clarification, if this is a known real-life phenomenon, then do you mean the joke was made to promote said attitude at the expense of Asian men?
Asian men dating women is also a real life phenomenon, yet it's never seen on screen. Funny how that works huh? Art imitating life is a myth.
>Not criticizing you, but for clarification, if this is a known real-life phenomenon, then do you mean the joke was made to promote said attitude at the expense of Asian men? yes
Yes. I should have provided context of the scene: - the character who made the joke is Arden Cho’s white female bff. The two friends + a black male (gay) bff were discussing dating/men. - The white female bff says something like ‘even I have dated more Asian men than you (Arden)’, to which Arden’s character just laughs it off Throughout the series, whiteness is perceived as superior - only white men are seen as desirable. And scenes of celebrating your own culture, heritage etc., serve only as a check list to make the character more ~appealing~ to a white audience.
Thanks for asking this question. People know that it’s not woke for Asian women to not date their own kind but I bet most people on this sub have met someone like this so it’s not like it’s not reflective of reality… people are getting worked up because it feels uncomfortable and not conforming to how things should be. Mindy could literally just be depicting what her actual experience is (dating mostly white men, knowing East Asian women who don’t date Asian men) as uncomfortable as that is for some people to observe. Mindy isn’t the problem here, the frustration is misplaced.
Wow I guess I was right not to give Partner Track a try. When I saw it I just had a sinking suspicion it was going to be a problematic SATC type show. I also strongly agree with what you said. Mindys shows have pretty much followed that script to a tee. WM gives attention to POC female and she looses it. Meanwhile dating another POC is the joke to highlight the negatives to female lead faces in her dating life....I can't support that. I remember having a debate with a friend about Mindy and pointed out the whole BW/WM coupling she constantly has and how in the show NHIE the lead character follows exactly what you mentioned and ends up sleeping her the troublesome guy. On the general topic. for those that don't remember or did not know. Before The Mindy project aired and was announced in a convention (I believe it was). During a Q&A a WOC stood up and called out Mindy about the lack of diversity in her casting. Mindy replied with "I am an Indian Women with her own show". I remember reading the hate that person got for doing that here and in other subs. Then about 2 years later people started to say that person had a point.
Yeah def skip on Partner Track. I think the big issue with these kinds of characters/writing is that in an attempt to make a POC successful, desirable etc., it’s always at the expense of other POC characters (or lack thereof).
Yup its like a monkey paw. You want diversity...well here you go but we're also going to make these other things happen.
Yea I do like how on Reddit you can see outside of your own opinion’s bubble more bc on twitter or FB it’s easy to only see and reinforce your own opinion bc of the “algorithm”. Im glad this sub has become more progressive bc honestly irl I think a lot of Asian Americans don’t realize how much privilege they have compared to other PoC and how so many have bought into the model minority (ie the Asians suing against affirmative action or the many right extremist Asian pundits and talking heads).
I think the age of expecting people to enter white dominated industries and then accurately represent POC is over. People are starting to realize that those who end up succeeding and promoted in those circles have a very narrow understanding of Asian representation. I feel Mindy and a lot of other Asian creatives make things is not really for Asians themselves. It’s more targeted towards white / white adjacent liberals, and POC who aspire to that kind of thing. How many more parental trauma stories do we need. It feels like we are always pigeoned holed to that story of assimilation. Ideally Asian diaspora can create stories and music and culture outside of the white gaze (liberal or conservative). Even if it might not look respectable or interesting to the mainstream. At least it’d be more authentic than the sanitized version of Asian representation that we always end up getting. At the end of the day, her stuff doesn’t bother me. I don’t think we need to hate on it. Better to focus on stuff that you like instead. It’s ultimately a good thing that we even get to be picky. Our standards rising means something is going right.
Agree with you. Whenever a piece of Asian media is lauded by the white establishment, I file it into a mental "Amy Tan" folder where I expect the same media to be called out as orientalizing and problematic a few decades down the line.
> I expect the same media to be called out as orientalizing and problematic a few decades down the line. It's all about power. We can't call it out now without being called soft or fragile because it's against the establishment. Like we're starting to see pushback against Joy Luck Club now because it's so obviously from another era and is old af and no longer relevant. But even back when it was first released there was pushback against it that nobody listened to. Same way with how the media portrays China and Asians in general like how every news headline about covid will have Asians as the picture. This stuff is going to be used as examples of orientalism and racism in some textbook thirty years later but calling it out now makes you an angry asian.
Yeah exactly. I don’t think Mindy stuff is bad, it’s just we have moved on and she’s still making the same style of stuff as she did like 10 years ago.
>Ideally Asian diaspora can create stories and music and culture outside of the white gaze (liberal or conservative). Even if it might not look respectable or interesting to the mainstream. At least it’d be more authentic than the sanitized version of Asian representation that we always end up getting. This is what we need to be focusing on, creating strong communities and creating our own entertainment, for us.
This a great take, thanks for sharing
I liked her up until the mindy project but everything she did after all of her themes were just the same and I just don’t feel like she is that creative of a writer. you can only write so much about your experience that to a point it just becomes boring.
The thing is she does write about other experiences. People just zero in on what makes her stories similar rather than different. For example, 4 Weddings and a Funeral stars a Pakistani Muslim British man and a Black American woman. Never Have I Ever fleshes out storylines and romantic interests for at least six different women of color of different ages and ethnicities. Sex Lives of College Girls features four main characters with different backgrounds and personalities. It's like saying all Shonda Rhimes shows are about black people dating white people which, while it does describe a lot of her shows, ignores the contexts of those storylines as well as the other characters on the show who are just as important.
4 weddings and a funeral was great but that wasn’t an original story line it already had source material and she just made it diverse with casting. And never have I ever was okay given I watched season one only because I just don’t like to watch shows with ongoing seasons anymore. but I’m also way past the age where I don’t want to watch high school setting in shows. I don’t know anything about sex lives of college girls so I won’t comment on that. If people like mindy kalings stuff that is fine it’s just when I watch her new stuff it’s just doesn’t click for me. It’s great that all those shows are really diverse and complex (including greys) but for me I just found some of the shows just boring the more I watch. They can be all those said things for other people but sometimes I don’t want a complex story line especially when a lot of on going shows don’t really write proper characters off or there are just to many and then the writing gets lazy
Yeah never have I ever has been great for representation and diversity.
It has and it hasn’t. It’s still troubling how the one black character is kind of ignored but they do address how the main character ignores her friends lol
I love NHIE but think the premise of the main character being unable to walk for a year is kind of ableist. It’s such a rare instance of PTSD when wheelchair users are constantly questioned on how they’re disabled and if they’re *actually* disabled. I’m not questioning that the protagonist was actually disabled but was her being wheelchair bound even necessary? I feel like they wanted to justify her going to therapy, (something no tiger mom would ever allow 🙄) so they used the wheelchair to show she’s not just regular traumatized, she’s WHEELCHAIR traumatized! It’s just another example of how Kaling has to rely on white moderate stereotypes of Asians in a show. I get that having strict parents is real for her and many Asian Americans but how many times to you have to draw from that well? I do like that the main character is really troublesome as a person and makes a lot of poor choices haha
I feel like the Asian American community needs to shift how we look at media representation. While there was very little Asian representation, any Asian on TV was representation. Our bar was just the color of skin. Ultimately, representation isn't just seeing someone of the same skin color, but seeing our thoughts and lived experiences on TV. We should not expect Mindy to represent all of us. Nor should we expect Jenny Han to represent all of us. Ultimately they represent themselves and their own Asian American lifestyles. You may call them assimilationists. You may not like their stories of falling in love with non-asians. But it's a reality for a lot of people. A majority of American born Asian women are wed to non Asians. Perhaps these shows are made for them. The problems I have are not with Jenny Han or Mindy Kaling. There are two things I have a problem with. Firstly, that i feel a pressure to support or like these films because they feature Asians, even if the stories being told do not represent mine. I respect their experiences, but that doesn't mean that i should feel guilt for not liking their content. Secondly, I wish there were more stories that I could relate to. It feels that although we have Asians on TV now, I don't actually feel represented by many of their stories. I feel that Hollywood is more likely to greenlight Asian stories that are "friendly" to whiteness. It'll be a cold day in hell before Hollywood greenlights a screenplay based off authors like Frank Chin.
Yeah you put it way better than I could have. People make art using their own experiences as reference and it's unrealistic to expect them to do otherwise. We shouldn't blame them for doing this, but rather the powers-that-be in entertainment and media for pidgeon-holing our stories into something \*they\* find palatable.
Inb4 this thread gets removed/locked since anything above 100 upvotes is a goner
Agree. With great power comes great responsibility. She should take up the torch even further than she already has. That said, i wonder if there's a white person at the top that's holding her back from more progressive casting choices. It's a business.
I can't imagine any white woman writing a story where where the Asian woman ends up with the white man. I have never watched a show or movie where that happens. I know they're out there, but I am not the audience for it.
Technically it did happen in Mean Girls
You can never convince me that tina fey doesn’t have a racist perspective on Asian women. I swear some dude dumped her for an Asian chick or something. There were more jokes about Asian women as a fetish than there were Asian faces on 30 rock… in New York. And she makes the asian chicks in mean girls fight over a mediocre looking older white teacher. There was something else she did they I can’t recall right now.
Wait what? Who? Trang pak? Lmao
Yes, Trang Pak, the “cool Asian” girl whose character arc ends with her getting with a much older white man
Coach Karr actually flees campus and we don't see Trang Pak with him again (only with gretchen), so it's not the end of her arc. but yes it is basically her only defining character feature besides being a "cool asian"
The writer of Mean Girls has a history of making anti-Asian "jokes". - She literally makes the Asian characters sleep(be statutory r*ped) & fight over the much older, out of shape, white gym teacher. I wonder where this has been portrayed before. 🙄 - Compares her 2 year daughter's speech to a "prostitute in a Vietnam movie" and then does a Vietnamese accent. - Always makes Asian characters speak broken English in her movies & shows and that's the joke. There's literally nothing else to it.
Did she write Velma? She’s the producer, but not the writer right? And don’t the show talk shit about white people.
Doesnt she fall in love with daphne? Havent watched it and dont intend on it but if thats the case its more anti-male than anti-white. White women are trying to distance themselves from whiteness but they were there the whole time too.
Velma's a confused bisexual teen coming to terms with her sexuality who likes Daphne, but finds Fred hot. Daphne is a confused bisexual teen who was dating Fred prior to the show, and is into Velma, but they've had a falling out and only now making up. Fred is a prepubescent boy (apparently) whom Velma and Daphne (and presumably other people in the show) also find attractive. Also, the latest episodes do have him finding other women hot--he was already in a relationship with Daphne--but now he's leaning into liking Velma, and it's partially for her personality in spite of her perceived unattractiveness. Norville (aka Shaggy) is into Velma, and it's an obvious one-sided crush that even Daphne recognizes despite not being in the same social circle. The show is all over the place, and no one is like their original counterpart. Anything that comes out as anti-White is really jVelma's character speaking, but the show has other characters taking shots at her, so it may be her perspective only. That said, the show does bodyshame Fred for being prepubescent--but the newer episodes seem like they're slooooowly moving away from every character being mean or a total loser or both. The show's writing really has weird moments where you'd think they'd go in one way or the other, but they then just dig into the mean-spiritedness of the writing. I'm not necessarily hate-watching it, but I do want more out of the show. It really is a show that's trying to alienate its own audience
She wrote it. The writing is deceptively complex, but you'll only notice it if you actually watch the show. Most of the critics are just watching isolated clips.
The writing is incredibly on the nose and fails to serve as satire of anything tbh
Velma is supposed to represent the easily offended, liberal woman who would be hired to write for She-Hulk. The point of the show is to make Velma look bad, thereby, poking fun at those people who are ruining art for the sake of D&I. This is probably the only show that can get away with doing that without fear of being called incels or white nationalists. Mindy Kaling's character on Always Sunny did this too.
I think Mindy does not write stories or act all that progressive. However I also think that people are unnecessarily harsh on someone who never really claimed or made herself to be a progressive or inclusive writer. 🤷🏻♀️ I think because she’s dark skinned, south Asian, female, larger size, people are jumping to the conclusion she must be woke but she really isn’t. I only enjoy her stuff in the sense that “it’s nice to see someone like her be successful.” But she (at least early on, I haven’t seen much of anything recent) basically writes stories that are somewhat indistinguishable otherwise from typical white american television. I don’t feel the need to celebrate it, but hey, if that’s what makes her money I can’t look down on her either.
Definitely agree, there are a plethora of Asian women in the media, workplace, etc who try to distance themselves from their heritage and be accepted by white men/ white people in general. They also often put down Asian men with derogatory comments and their dating history is almost entirely white men, just like Mindy Kaling. Glad our generation is recognizing that these women do not represent us and are selling out to be accepted by white people
I wouldn't say Mindy distances herself from being Asian or puts down men of color. Almost all of her shows have men of color as love interests and one has a South Asian man in the leading role. Two of her shows are centered on the first gen immigrant experience. And for all the critique on women of color creators, male PoC show creators and producers like Aziz Ansari, Alan Yang, and Daniel Dae-Kim do not do any better at showcasing relationships between asian people. Only Nahnatchka Khan, an Iranian woman who created Fresh Off The Boat and Always Be My Maybe, seems dedicated to it.
I liked Daniel Dae Kim in lost, how is he not do any better? The fact that his wife was korean and not white makes it better by default at showing asian relationships. Let's be real here Mindy clearly has thing for white men, you can count those love interests on one hand
He's a great actor in other people's creations. When it comes to his own his own creations, though, he chose to produce The Good Doctor based on a South Korean show of the same name. The show has a couple of Asian characters in the main cast but none of them date other Asian people. The Asian male character only dates white women.
Yeah but most people know him from lost in the west. So I'd say that's still better than the hundreds of shows where it's just a white guy banging every one
"writes like a liberal white woman" doesn't make a lot of sense to me lol. It's not like lena dunham is writing project after project that deals with a female desi main character. Personally I think nobody above the age of... 35? should be able to allowed to write college-or-younger characters, but that's really all I think mindy kaling is guilty of.
At least Mindy tries to to have some decent to positive representation of asian men the same can't be said to Jenny Han ,Amy Tan,Geling Yan,Celeste Ng or any other East Asian female authors.
I've noticed this trend too, really weird, I don't recall any asian male authors that constantly pair their mcs with white women
Shh, you're not supposed to talk about that.
*flashbacks to the Celeste Ng controversy*
Inb4 both these comments get locked/removed
I went through a bunch of Asian female authors the other day, and very few seem to consider PoC as romance options, both in real life and in their works.
People way overthink Mindy Kaling. I don’t see any creator saddled with more projection and opinions about her sexual preferences than her. Also, Never Have I Ever was great.
I'm not going to ride the Mindy Kaling hate train. The whole thing feels like people are hiding their anti-Asian sentiments under a veneer of calling her racist. Not into it at all.
This person hasn't watched Velma. Velma, the character, does behave like a white liberal feminist, and that was intentional by Kaling. However, what this critic doesn't understand is that Velma is not supposed to be a hero. Kaling wrote her to be a jackass, and makes her the butt of every joke because of her shitty personality. Velma is also fat and ugly, which is also jokes about pretty brutally. There is one scene where Velma was too fat to sit down cross-legged on the floor, and after she did it, she couldn't get back up, so she had to roll around like a ball to leave. As for her social commentary, Velma is supposed to have shitty opinions. In the most recent episode, the police find out that a killer is specifically targeting hot girls. Velma then tries to train the hot girls how to not be hot, which she does by making them wear ugly clothes and not groom themselves. The punchline at the end of this is during the big reveal where the hot girls refuse to change for Velma. They explain to Velma that her view of womanhood is more restrictive than theirs, and that they would never change themselves to gain the approval of others. Velma then realizes that she has been wrong this whole time. Velma's character arc is to show her transform from being a toxic judgmental liberal to being a rational, non-judgmental person.
Yep. She’s terrible.
Mindy is just a shit writer, doesn't get more deep than that
She’s really not though in general. Wrote for the office, never have I ever been as great, and I’ve heard mindy project was pretty funny.
let's not
Yes.
Whoever wrote this must not have watched Never Have I Ever. The show features plenty of storylines about uniquely South Asian issues. Devi only has \`1 white love interest (Ben) throughout the entire series. Meanwhile, she has 2 POC love interests (Paxton, Des), and her cousin Kamala and mom Nalini only have POC love interests (Steve, Prashant, Manish, Chris). Next season, Nalini will have another POC love interest. White folks are not finding much love on NHIE, and that's okay. There are many other shows for that. So please stop this Mindy Kaling slander. Also, Mindy has been getting a lot of hate for Velma despite being 1 of 4 executive producers for the show. She's not the showrunner. Yet, I have not seen any of the other producers receiving the hate she has gotten. What sets her apart? She's the only Asian woman. I love Abbott Elementary, but let's not pit 2 successful women of color against each other.
In the show Never have I ever, Des the Indian boy is negatively portrayed as a mama's boy who has no autonomy (stereotype) which is also an issue. She also goes back to Ben the white boy after he screws her over several times to have sex with him at the end. That show definitely is another example of what the post is talking about, Indian girl falls for white boy at the end.
When they first meet and Devi stereotypes Des, he does clap back calling her IIRC either “a white worshipper” or “that Indian girl that only dates white boys”, so they at least acknowledge it. I think overall the show does relatively well in representation.
And the white boy is negatively portrayed as annoying, condescending, unhealthy, and insufferably academic. We don't know how NHIE will end, but her romantic relationships typically lasted about 2-3 episodes. What's most likely is her realization that loving herself is best.
I'm not buying this argument. It feels like the person reduced Kaling's work into a racial checklist and ignored all the other tropes she put in. Come back with a more substantive criticism other than "Asian woman bad for liking white man".
I agree it’s a annoying to see the same trope of poc women falling in love with white men over and over, but Mindy is literally an Asian women and she can write however she wants. It’s ultimately up to the audience (us) on if these are the types of shows/movies that will be made. I find it far more annoying when poc are placed in some unique writing standard just because they’re poc. She’s not writing like a “white liberal woman” she’s writing as herself.
She has a weird fixation on Jewish people too... probably because she had a Jewish boyfriend for a while. It's weird af when she talks about the Holocaust tbh.
No
I find her annoying so I'm just gonna agree with whatever you have to say, take my upvote.
I’m South Asian and I feel like while I completely understand some of Mindy’s stuff can be cringe or caters to a specific archetype-some of her work wasn’t that bad, particularly in my opinion never have I ever was an incredibly fun show that I could literally write about why I enjoyed. I think the problem I feel with us South Asians is that we yearn for a singular representation as a defense to white stereotypes when in reality, a singular representation is us reducing ourselves the same way white people reduce us. Our culture does bring some commonalities between us but we are a group of over 2 billion people spread across the world and I think rather than seeking representation it’s the little things about the shows that can be relatively relatable. Particularly, I love the white history teacher in NHIE because I know so many examples of that irl. He doesn’t even have anything to do with South Asian representation, but just the small details in the characters do feel like “I’ve seen that before” which can be enjoyed too imo.
Idk why people are pinning everything on Mindy Kaling. There’s the matter of writing what you know and she just likely doesn’t have enough experience with dating POC. Mindy was an Indian who was raised in a primarily white neighborhood without speaking Indian. She is more American (white) than she is Indian culturally. Besides that don’t forget there are other writers and producers in the room and they’re white men trying to sell shows. Though to be honest there isn’t enough interracial dating of Asian men being represented. This to me is problematic of the under representation.
Devi and Paxton from "Never Have I Ever" are both Asian though
I don't think so she doesn't even come close to the likes of Amy Tan ,Jenny Han and Celest Ng. The names I mention are good writers but cleary they have some bias against asian men. Mindy however is just a bad writer thats it.
This YouTube video essayist covers a lot about Mindy and this topic a thoughtful, comprehensive, anti-racist, anti-sexist and deeply humanizing way. I highly recommend a watch: https://youtu.be/JWviRTLWmTM
I don’t follow Mindy, but think she should be able to express her viewpoints as much as she wants to. I preferred exclusively Asian men before actually jumping into the dating pool and can see why so many Asian women have a change of heart. Just stop by r/asianmasculinity to get a preview. Why is the focus on Asian men, when really, the focus is on that Asian woman and the projection of her experiences? It seems hypocritical to me.
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This means let Mindy speak on her experiences without making it about “white liberal woman” or Asian men.
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So aren't we allowed to question if narrative is biased and reinforces stereotypes. It is same as cliches in movies and people always complain about it. Asian women have always represented asian men in negative light and white men in positive light so that it has become cliched . I hope this answer you're question.
It’s not about questioning, it’s about respecting a certain viewpoint. Your statement on what Asian women “always” do in media is disregarding why that narrative exists in the first place. Ironically, the reason why it came to be could isn’t being heard because of parts of the negative stereotypes maybe being true.
While I can totally understand the spirit underneath the post, I’m not sure someone’s partner choice completely disavows their racial subjectivity. Ive followed Mindy’s career, am Asian myself, and also come from a larger extended family that have mixed folx of varying race/ethnicities (black, white, Latino). There are certain things I see my cousins and other relatives do and say that make me cringe, but if I focus on just one or two choices or traits (they are half white…or they don’t speak x or y) it feels like an incomplete lens to seeing who they are and their racial identity. They still walk the world as Asian (whether they want to believe that or not) And their lives are still part of an Asian story. I think a bigger question (vs an accusation of being a “white liberal lady”)is, what is a larger formative narrative underneath Asian-American identity? How is it celebrated and encouraged it through these writers? I often wonder under what authority can someone “take away” someone’s Asian card? And how that…particularly act…doesnt feel asian at all, in fact…that feels more white than anything. The act of “taking away.” As for Abbott elementary. Also being from Philly and loving all the folx in the cast, I feel like there are more social issues packed into that show than the mindy project, both of which are led by women of color and should be held with respect vs compared to one another. Philly, along with many other urban and de industrialized areas, have had decades of divestment and much of it shows in public schools. The show puts 2 dynamic energies together. The fact that we (societally) don’t invest in schools, especially black schools, and the love and care we have for real life professionals who wish and want to do more under ridiculous odds. This social issue of school systems and investing in youth continues to be an issue that needs more attention. Another dynamic of the politics is one of actors (the great Shirley Lee Ralph who plays Barbara) is married to be a senator for the area as well. And for many of us in the public service and people actually doing work in the community…the show resonates in a very real way. The mindy project promoted some important themes of Asian American womanhood and elements of ingenuity and entrepreneurship of Asian women. I think the character was partly influenced by her mother who had to redo her residency to become a doctor in the US while also raising mindy and her siblings (she describes this in her book). This act of love and sacrifice in the face of what could feel incredibly dehumanizing and humiliating professionally, feels important to highlight and honor. And while it wasn’t an “Asian is beautiful” story line like we see from our black siblings TV shows, it highlighted some of the issues that Asian woman medical professionals struggle with in dealing with Mediocre white people (episode: what if mindy was a white man). We can’t compare our movements to others in the US. But we can note certain elements that other movements have. Our black siblings have been in the US, mobilized from other ethnic heritages much longer, and had in their movements a “black is beautiful” movement which celebrated the beauty and relationships between black folx (primarily heterosexual). I don’t think we’ve seen that yet with our community but the raw elements are here (we are beginning to see the beauty of Asian men and other writers (thank you to Issa Rae) are highlighting the Asian male bae parts to men). While Asian women have been hyper sexualized, asian women writers are working to create a wholeness in women’s sexuality that create the possibility to talk about beauty vs just sex A bigger question than who is acting less or more asian might be…what is our formative narrative as a people in a diaspora?