South Asian Representation in Movies and TV Shows

By Sonali Chowdhury

For as long as I can remember there has never been much South Asian representation in the media I grew up in and the little representation I did have were characters like Ravi from “Jesse”, Baljeet from “Phineas and Ferb” or Raj from “The Big Bang Theory'' but what do all these characters have in common? They all perfectly fit the Indian stereotype: socially awkward, weird cultural practices, accents, and unfortunately so much more. I can't even say South Asian stereotypes because all of us South Asians are shoved under the term Indian regardless of all the differences between us. Even as a Bengali girl these stereotypical Indian guys are the closest thing I managed to get as representation growing up. These characters being the face of South Asians at the time created an echo for the racists who believed in all these stereotypes. In all these shows the characters are there for comedic relief and the comedy is just them being Indian.

All this might be seen as not that deep but these make casual racism against South Asians seem okay.

A South Asian who has done a lot for south Asian rep in media and entertainment is Mindy Kaling an actress and screenwriter since 2002, she has written many shows with south Asian rep and even wrote and starred in the show “The Mindy Kaling Project'' and having south Asian rep – especially then – was a huge deal. Mindy Kaling’s contributions are and have done amazing things, but there is a repetitiveness in her characters and what seems like her pushing her own cultural insecurities on the South Asian characters she writes because almost always her South Asian characters are never proud of their culture but rather ashamed. And of course this representation is important because in this western world with western standards it is not uncommon to be insecure of your culture but the problem is when she keeps doing it, it creates a new stereotype. South Asians are not all the same and her work doesn’t account for the variety in personalities and cultures within South Asians. Especially considering that her work is a pretty big chunk of South Asian media. One of her more recent examples of this is the new show “Velma”, Velma the main character who used to be white but has been race swapped and is now indian. And I do not mind race swapping at all but it just seems it was just a way for Mindy Kaling to make more self-deprecating jokes about her own race. A rare instance that kind of changes this pattern is “Never How I Ever”, where the main character Devi starts off not liking her culture much but by the fourth season is embracing it. It is a nice change and it would be nice to see more characters like that and more diverse representation.