> “The Mindy Project” perpetuates a white power structure by masking how >racial fantasies operate on an interpersonal level.
>Race is ornamental, like a Kate Spade purse.

That's at the heart of my issue with the show.

I think it's fascinating that Mindy desires certain White traits and characteristics (as defined and prized by Mindy). She has all but said as much on the show. Not a problem; admire and desire away. My problem? *She* makes Whiteness an issue in the sense of viewing it as a map to judge what/where she *lacks*. Totally intrigued by the ways Mindy frames White folks in super stereotypical ways. It would be kind of offensive except for the fact that the framing is all about how she feels about herself.

And yes, I suppose it's a desirable outlook and orientation for some people of color: to never have to think about or drag around the issue of race, to put race or gender or size in its proper place as not a big deal, to live in a world where identity doesn't matter much, and where one can choose to simply be who one is in the world--

But sounding those wholesome truths in tone deaf ways strikes me as a viewpoint trotted out by the White power structure the Mindy shows masks, denies, and re-frames as "Brown girls just wanna have fun."

Of course Mindy knows she isn't White. So hardy har har let's tell jokes about that and have the characters on the show joke about it. And while she's cracking those jokes, when the implied question of who or what "not-White" may be crops up, Mindy on the show can just be Mindy because she doesn't really identify with all the non-White stuff about herself. And isn't that funny?

It's not funny to me, because I feel like I'm watching a show where not being White has caused the character Mindy a lot of pain. Not being White makes her different and the big point, in part, is that she's not. Not funny to me, either because I see a character who wants to be included, wants to belong. Wants acceptance. But she's chubby and Brown. And it breaks my heart when Mindy gets upset about not being whatever she thinks White is. But she's lucky; she's living in the fantasy world of rom-coms where she will be loved and accepted by Whites. She will feel good enough.

So, I guess. I guess let Mindy be Mindy, from Boston. She seems happy, right? She's just a girl trying to find love. Let her write cute, shallow, rom coms that don't have to be about anything other than what she wants it to be.

>Racism is not just some paranoid fever dream. Kaling, however,
>would rather have us believe that the best thing to do as a
>woman of color is to lean into the bounty of American romance
>with trips to the Empire State Building, VIP-room canoodling
>and horse-drawn carriages. But that forecloses the breadth of
>possibilities, both funny and painful, of what it means to be
>American — and maybe more saliently, what it means to fall
>in love.

I love this insight.

The show offers nothing interesting about the rom-com drama which does lean toward particular conventions, and much of the portrayals of those conventions have been critiqued. The show is status quo, even in it's treatment of stock diversity.

If the Mindy show manages to do anything, it may be showing a "new" way to be White. She's daring to re-define Whiteness: good ol' Dr. Lahiri. Not so daring at all. It's just normal, regular, status-quo, right?