with Cultural Misrepresentation

never have i ever… felt uncomfortable with cultural misrepresentation

BY ANONYMOUS

‘Too whitewashed for the brown kids and too brown for the white kids.’

My whole life, that one sentence has controlled me. It’s the first thought that comes to mind whenever I try to cement new relationships in new environments. If the social anxiety is really peaking, my inner monologue enlightens me with these: be funny so you fit in. Be kinder so they like you. Smile but don’t try too hard. Make selfdeprecating jokes about your culture if you have to. You can feel guilty later, make friends first.

It sounds bad, trust me, I know. But that’s what it feels like to be uncomfortable in your own skin. To hate the thickness of your hair or the way your under-eyes are darker than the rest. To hate the way you’d have to smell your clothes before leaving the house or pretending to like spices and the cricket just because “you’re brown”. At least that’s how I used to feel. After coming to terms with the attacks on Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (BIPOC) over the past year, as well as embracing lots of Rupi Kaur poetry, I’ve started to appreciate my identity a little more.

The thing is though, you can’t really display your personality without people’s judgement being clouded by the stereotypes they consume through the media. The amalgamation of Asian culture doesn’t highlight the diversity or differences in Southeast Asian countries. You can’t make an Indian girl the star of a show and expect every other brown girl to act the same. While I am eternally grateful for the increase in cultural representation in the media, especially in TV shows, I can’t help but disapprove of the exaggerated accents and predictability. Or maybe it’s only predictable because I’ve had the same experiences. Either way, shows like Indian Matchmaking and Never Have I Ever prevent a wider audience from actually taking the time to understand the hardships of everyday people.

We laugh at the ridiculousness of Indian Matchmaking, whilst being simultaneously horrified. We find comedic relief in Devi Vishwakumar’s (Never Have I Ever) life, forgetting that the pressure she feels from her family is very real. As much as I appreciate the efforts of icons such as Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher (creators of Never Have I Ever), who no doubt should be praised for working towards breaking down Asian stereotypes in Hollywood, I still can’t help but hate the fact that I can relate to Devi so much.

I understand how this little rant can be seen as more of a ‘me problem’ than anything else. I mean, how can my insecurity about a culture I should be proud of mean anything to anyone else? Should I just let it go and be grateful that my non-BIPOC friends find my life entertaining in an absurd way? The fact that they continue to be dumbfounded by the fact that I can live in another state for university but was never allowed to go on sleepovers. Or are still shocked that my parents don’t speak to me in English at home and cackle when my accent accidently slips out. Maybe I don’t hate that I relate to Devi as much as I am jealous of the fact that she is the perfect Indian character who is easily forgiven when she makes a mistake.

For those of you confused about who Devi is, she’s the star of Netflix’s Never Have I Ever. The show follows the life of her high school experience as an Indian American Tamil girl who has to deal with her grief (following her father’s passing), Indian identity and school life, whilst balancing her relationships with her overbearing mother, extended family and school friends. She is symbolic of every brown parent’s worst nightmare.

To be clear, I speak from experience when saying that every brown parent’s worst nightmare is finding out that their daughter secretly kisses boys, drinks alcohol and goes out past 10pm. Devi is safe from murder in the first degree by being an A Grade student and playing classical music. However, not every brown kid can be a child prodigy and not every brown kid can have successful doctor parents. So even though I appreciate my white friends for enjoying a show that reveals so much about an Indian girl’s home life that I’ve tried so hard to keep hidden, I can’t be content knowing while Devi and I are similar in some respects, her life depicted on screen is very different from my everyday reality.

One thing we can agree on however, is the grave sense of guilt you feel when your parents reveal their disappointment in you. That feeling of being torn between screaming THIS IS WHO I AM and crying behind your bedroom door overhearing hushed conversations about how your parents believe they failed in raising you. It’s the trying to accept your background whilst assimilating into the world you were brought up in which pulls you apart. How can I make my family proud and be a normal teenager?

Obviously, this sense of family expectation and pressure is not mutually exclusive with being Asian, but it’s something you can never shake away, no matter how hard you try. Coming to terms with that is what makes accepting yourself in your purest form one of the most discomforting things to do.