A lot of Indians and Indian-origin persons are not on board with Mindy Kalings new Netflix show Never Have I Ever. Even Lisa Ray got debating on Twitter about all the ways the show is stereotyping Indian culture.
Never Have I Ever is about a teenage girl born to immigrant Indian parents in California. Her life as a uncool Indian girl at school, recovering from the loss of her father and navigating life under a strict mother form the core of the show.
However, Lisa thought the characters fake accents were too distracting. Is it just me or is #NeverHaveIEver rife with tired ethnic stereotypes and bad Indian accents? I thought we had outgrown all these old immigrant tropes and here we are dropping them into the mainstream. None of my Indian diaspora friends in Canada/US speak/think as portrayed, she wrote in a tweet.
A Twitter user pointed out the stereotypes in her own show, Four More Shots Please. Talking of stereotypes..in @4moreshotspls which you were a part of .. a girl who is a fierce journalist - Bengali, a girl who has weight issues, aimless and Spoilt - rich Gujarati family from SOBO, a girl who lifts weights and a trainer - lesbian .. is it me or just irony !! Lisa replied, You right to voice your opinion, as I am, and my opinion is independent of characters I play as an actor. Im primarily a writer and as I balance between India and the rest of the world, I am fine tuned to old ethnic stereotypes like the Indian mother which needs to evolve.
The problem w/#NeverHaveIEver is the overbearing mother and depiction of weird Indian pujas etc is endorsed by a woman of Indian origin. Feels like some sort of soul retrieval exercise to exorcise Mindy Kalings adolescence. Someone here said it felt like it was set in the 80s, she added.
But it is not just Lisa who is unhappy with the show. A Twitter user wrote, Exactly, why showing such false and clichd apathy for Indian culture amongst NRIs. They actually love, respect and preserve our culture more than people in India, sometimes. I also had an issue with showing blind acceptance to bullish and manipulative American teen behaviour. Another tweet read, True. The accents are irritating and some of the ghost / traditions hullabaloo are just very weird. The content of the young kid and her life coming from certain roots is interesting.
The show is already a hit and many found Devis story relatable. A few viewers also saw their own strict mothers in Poorna Jagannathans Nalini who saw no point to mental therapy or would only allow her daughter to make TikTok videos in a skimpy red dress if she wore a T-shirt underneath.
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The Hindustan Times review of the show read:Part teen romance, part coming-of-age comedy, Never Have I Ever is a delicately written little show, an immigrant tale that feels just about authentic enough to survive in a world where Master of None and Little America exist. Aesthetically, its more of a sitcom than either of those two shows; something like Fresh Off the Boat, but it does a much better job at balancing the comedy and the drama.
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