She attends the Hindu festival Ganesh Puja, but regularly gets called into the principal’s office at school. She’s in the school orchestra, but sneaks out to go to parties. She’s at the top of her class, with hopes of attending Princeton University, but also boy crazy. The character Long Duk Dong, played by Gedde Watanabe in the 1984 Hughes film Sixteen Candles, for example, is an especially memorable example of the trope of the socially inept, sexually undesirable Asian man.īut Devi’s character offers a far more nuanced depiction of what it means to be a young girl of color than audiences are accustomed to seeing onscreen. And the few roles given to actors of color often reduce characters to a tired, stereotypical representation of their race. The movies and shows that predominantly make up the genre, from ’80s John Hughes classics like The Breakfast Club to hit shows like Gossip Girl and Gilmore Girls, are overwhelmingly white.
DEVI MAITREYI RAMAKRISHNAN SERIES
Though the series has every ingredient for a typical teen drama-sex (or, in Devi’s case, aspirations to have sex), “no-parents parties,” a hunky jock love interest-it is anything but. It’s also narrated by former tennis champion John McEnroe (seems random, yes-but more on that below). Inspired by Kaling’s own childhood, the show takes viewers through the challenges, both mundane and weighty, that come with being a young girl of color in high school today. Devi, a fiery, overachieving first-generation Indian American growing up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, is dealing with the recent loss of her father, a difficult-to-impress mother, friend troubles and an overwhelming crush on the school heartthrob, all while worrying about her prospects of getting into her dream university.
The comedy, which premieres with 10 episodes on Netflix today, follows the turbulent teenage life of Ramakrishnan’s character Devi Vishwakumar.
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