“It took me some time to acknowledge that — being a young Indian-American woman and watching a show about a young Indian-American woman — my expectations for NeverHaveIEver were outrageously high,” writes sangeetaskurtz
Photo: LARA SOLANKI/NETFLIX I hated high school so much that I’m hesitant to watch shows and movies about the high-school experience. If I do, I want the stakes to be very low — nothing more intense or stressful than your standard mean girls and makeovers.
It’s easy watching, in the vein of To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before or The Politician, and has a cast whose diversity is deliberate: The characters engage — and often struggle — with their non-white identities and cultures. Sometimes, this is subtle, like when Devi wears a strappy dress in a TikTok before her mom drags her away, and she reenters the frame with a white T-shirt underneath it.
Photo: Netflix What’s more, Kaling’s brand of comedy — off-color and cringey — shines through, and that’s not always a good thing. We get moments like Devi imagining Paxton saying she “has the beauty of Priyanka Chopra” or discussing her fantasy boyfriend as a “stone-cold hottie who could rock me all night long” or how chores make her feel like an “indentured servant.
And it is hard not to be tough on Kaling, to put the onus on her — as the most successful Indian-American woman making film and television in 2020 — to create things that hit every cultural touchpoint and amend every misinformed stereotype. Part of my frustration with Never Have I Ever stems from a desire to see in Devi’s experience that of every Indian teen in America: wealthy and low-income, dark and light-skinned, Hindu and Sikh, and everything in between.
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