I Love Mindy, I Swear

In order to become successful on the big screen, it is often said that a woman must be either extremely overweight, or extremely underweight. This statement holds some truth, as it has been documented that the average woman portrayed in the media is 15% below the average weight of her age and height, making her weight diagnosable criteria for an eating disorder. The ideal waist size portrayed in the media is on a constant decline, making television a very dangerous outlet for people everywhere, but specifically teenage girls: the demographic most susceptible to media, and non-coincidentally, eating disorders.

In 2012, out of a network that usually features slim, white protagonists, popped Mindy Lahiri: a food-indulgent, man-eating, Indian-American doctor. Played by the fabulous Mindy Kaling, she wooed America. Not only was she funny, but she was different. She wasn’t afraid to talk about how much she loved food and hated dieting. She was relatable. She was adorable. She was realistic. She was a bit overweight, but she was still glamorous. It was too good to be true.

Don’t get me wrong: I love Mindy Kaling. I’m not some crazy vengeful psycho who hates comedy and Chris Messina. Trust me … that is not me. Mindy is relatable. She is adorable. She is not realistic, but TV shouldn’t be. My only problem with Mindy is that she’s not actually that overweight; she makes it seem like she’s the largest woman in America, when she’s actually probably in the smaller half. “So what?” you might ask. “She’s dramatic. Hello… it’s part of her character!” I totally agree—the show wouldn’t be the same without Mindy rambling on and over-exaggerating nonsense. But when it comes to such an important topic, things should be different. Making it seem like she is ridiculously obese when she is actually quite average in America ironically reinforces the media’s harmful consequences on how teenage girls are likely to see themselves.

It’s wonderful that TV brought someone new to the mix. However, Mindy Kaling’s difference from other female television stars is not that she is Indian and overweight—it’s that she is Indian and of pretty average weight, compared to a slew of others who are extremely under-average weight.

Many people think Mindy is inspiring to our generation because she represents the possibility of success in television as an overweight woman. But my excessive watching of Mindy has led me to realize that the more she talks about her weight and how much she eats, the more ridiculous she makes any weight above her own seem. As we can all see, Mindy is quite average in size and displayed as obviously beautiful; her nonsensical self-deprecation is comedic, but it is only likely to reinforce the media’s grip on our collective body image.

By Samantha Fink