Mindy Kaling

[mochakitty]

From Wikipedia:

Vera Mindy Chokalingam (born June 24, 1979), known professionally as Mindy Kaling, is an American actress, comedian, writer, and producer best known for portraying Kelly Kapoor on the NBC sitcom The Office and creating and starring as Mindy Lahiri in the Fox sitcom The Mindy Project. She is also a co-executive producer, director, and writer of several of the show's episodes. Mindy also wrote, was executive producer for and directed various episodes of The Office.

Kaling's notable films include This Is the End, Wreck-It Ralph, and The Five-Year Engagement. Kaling was nominated five consecutive times for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series as a producer of The Office. In 2010, she received a nomination for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series with Greg Daniels for the episode, "Niagara". The next year, she published a humorous memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns). In 2013, Entertainment Weekly identified Kaling as one of the "50 Coolest and Most Creative Entertainers" in Hollywood. In the same year, Kaling was recognized by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Mindy at the 2014 White House Correspondents’ Dinner Weekend Pre-Party (May 2nd, Washington, DC.):

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[stina]

I really like her. I understand people being turned off by her writing her own show where her character only dates white guys and all the other women are either caricatures or disappear (etc), but I think she's funny and look forward to new episodes of TMP. Plus, she's pretty and I like show-Mindy's colorful wardrobe (shallow).

[Hamatron]

I want to like and support her, but she rubs me the wrong way in interviews. She can be really judgmental of other women and life choices that really shouldn't matter. Just... Meh.

[ikmccall]

Like her on Instagram but WTF on The Talking Dead? Yes, I'm shallow when it comes to The Walking/Talking Dead.

[Ginger]

I finally gave up on her show because the stuff that annoyed me was outweighing the stuff that made me laugh. And her defensiveness in response to legitimate criticisms of the show made me sour on her personally a little bit.

I really liked her, I liked her book, and I really wanted her show to be great and successful. Now, I'm waiting for the show to be cancelled so she can take a breather and come back in a project that doesn't annoy me.

[WestEndGirl]

I love her, and I love her show. I think she's often held to criticisms that other men (and women) are not, and she's expected to be exempt from issues that occur in a majority of other shows. I liked last season a little better than this season but overall it's one of my favorite shows.

[Deleted]

May 11, 2014 14:11:31 GMT -4 Hamatron said:

I want to like and support her, but she rubs me the wrong way in interviews. She can be really judgmental of other women and life choices that really shouldn't matter. Just... Meh.

Ditto. I feel like I should like her but, try as I might, I just don't.

[Ginger]

May 11, 2014 16:02:32 GMT -4 WestEndGirl said:

and she's expected to be exempt from issues that occur in a majority of other shows. I liked last season a little better than this season but overall it's one of my favorite shows.

That was her defense; I don't think it's a good one. I wish she'd named which shows she was thinking of, because most likely, I don't watch those shows either. "My show's not any worse than [insert name of bottom-of-the-barrel garbage starring Charlie Sheen or David Spade]" is not a good argument, and I do expect a lot more from any show I intend to watch on a regular basis.

Mostly I watch The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family, neither of which may beat The Mindy Project on the diversity or stereotype complaint, but majorly beat it just by having lots of female characters who matter and who aren't treated like shit. (I really wasn't asking for much out of TMP.)

[deeconsistent]

May 11, 2014 19:39:00 GMT -4 Ginger said:

That was her defense; I don't think it's a good one. I wish she'd named which shows she was thinking of, because most likely, I don't watch those shows either.

Yeah, I would love to know what the comparisons are, as well. When I watched TMP, I thought it had a lot going for it. There was a point when I felt that maybe she just wanted her ethnic background to be a non-issue, but I gradually came to the conclusion that that wasn't it. I think she is just willfully and stubbornly regressive. I felt like the addition of Tamra was sort of like an "F- you" to people who had criticized the lack of diversity on the show. It's not just the cast, either. Like most of tv, what you see onscreen is a reflection of what's going on behind the scenes. She tweeted a pic of her writers' table once and it was like 13 guys, one girl, all white. Quite frankly, it is depressing that a woman of color with a voice chooses to be so closed-minded.

[Sunbaby]

May 11, 2014 13:56:23 GMT -4 stina said:

I really like her. I understand people being turned off by her writing her own show where her character only dates white guys and all the other women are either caricatures or disappear (etc), but I think she's funny and look forward to new episodes of TMP. Plus, she's pretty and I like show-Mindy's colorful wardrobe (shallow).

That's interesting. I've never watched Mindy's show - and perhaps I should before making any judgements about it - but from what I've read, the show serves as wish fulfilment for the creator. Not that the Mindy character is a Mary Sue, but the fact that she is a doctor surrounded by three men in her age group stands out to me.

I read her book and some of her anecdotes were funny (the story of her on the diving board is flat-out hilarious) but I also found her kind of insecure, exhausting and shallow. Still, she's a normal-sized woman of South Asian descent with her own show, and I think that deserves some props.