3D Characters On The Big Screen
2021 has been a monumental step forward for South Asian representation in western media. From books to content creators, and now TV, it’s been really amazing to see faces like ours on the big screen.
With the increase of South Asian creators, it’s been great to see our lives and our stories told with dimension. In the past, South Asian characters were purely thrown into the plotline for diversity, and we’ve had the stereotypical outline as always studying, over-ambitious individuals with strict parents. While that could be the case for some individuals, there’s more to our lives than what has been seen in media. Now with movies such as Plan B, Spin, and shows such as Never Have I Ever(NHIE), we’ve been given the opportunity to be portrayed as flawed and complex individuals with flawed and complex relationships.
Plan B, a 2021 Hulu original, starring Kuhoo Verma and Never Have I Ever starring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the teen sitcom that made ripples through the South Asian community, has broken down so many stereotypes of South Asian women. The stars in both of these shows and movies are strong, opinionated women, who are more than just their school-wide accomplishments, but are regular teenage girls exploring their sexuality, struggling to find their identity of self, and are navigating what it means to be a first-generation Indian American immigrant. What’s more important though, is that these girls are flawed - they are normal. Women, especially South Asian women, are always given the standard to try to be as close to perfect as possible, and that our only obstacle is our “strict parents”. We see this time and time again in western cinema with movies like Bend it like Beckham and Lemonade Mouth, and we also see this same narrative pushed to us in Bollywood. In Plan B and NHIE, we see a much-needed break from this trope and have girls who make mistakes, face the repercussions, and have a family that consists of more than just the stereotypical strict parents but those that come to terms with their children’s flaws.
Never Have I Ever has been such a buzz for the past year, scoring Emmy nominations and more, but I hadn’t seen a lot of coverage on Hulu’s Plan B. The movie definitely has a nostalgic, coming of age, indie feels and is about Sunny, a boisterous but sheltered Indian girl who decides to throw a party the night her mother goes out of town. At this party, she ends up having sex with her friend, realized she made a mistake and spends the rest of the movie on the hunt for a Plan B pill. It’s a great feel-good adventure movie between two best friends and touches on a lot of issues we face at that age with sexuality, fear, growing up, and being different. It also does a great job of factoring in the state of our nation on the topic of reproductive rights as the movie is set in South Dakota.
If you haven’t seen Plan B or Never Have I Ever, I definitely recommend it, as they are fast watches with South Asian women written from a different lens. And while there is much more that needs to be done with representation, such as having more diverse characters and storylines, and touching on issues we as the South Asian community face such as caste, class, and colorism, this definitely opens up the writers room for more diverse stories to be told.