Last Thursday, I was having a challenging day. Despite getting great news, having a whole night of sleep the night before, and feeling good in my body, I was down. Then, around 4 pm, I realized that I hadn’t taken my ADHD meds. So, I took a prescribed booster, put on The Mindy Project, straightened my room, and worked out.
As I watched the episode “Best Man,” (season 3, episode 21), I realized that Mindy Kaling had been a vocal advocate for young women across all of her work. Her entire career, from Kelly Kapoor and her work on The Office to Sex Lives of College Girls, has given a voice to those of us who are just never taken seriously.
As her character said, “I want you to love me in a way I can show on Instagram, because that’s what I’m like. It’s not weird to want your boyfriend to get down on one knee, and meet your parents, and get you a ring,” I felt spoken to and for. Her writing goes beyond telling young women it’s ok to like a boy and ask for the bare minimum, though.
The character I feel for the most is Devi, from Never Have I Ever (even though I feel more spiritually connected to Bela from Sex Lives). It’s so easy to dismiss characters like Devi as toxic or hysterical, or annoying. These young women, though, show us what it’s like to desperately want to fit in, be cool, and be seen as pretty. These characters, while flawed, are real. Quite honestly, they’re the most honest representation of what it’s like being an insecure girl who just wants to reinvent themselves.
Obviously, I’m projecting here, I mean, while Mindy’s books speak volumes, I can’t speak for her, and no one but her knows the full intentions behind creating her characters. But I will say that for a writer who is lauded for diverse representation of all types, we often forget to give her credit for representing the teen experience.
I’ve never met Mindy, so I can’t quite call her my mentor. But as an aspiring comedy writer, her ability to create real, complex characters are precisely what I am aiming for.
The thesis of this essay is this: all representation is important, but there’s something so sacred about representation that speaks to women - both young and old - who have been called crazy for feeling their feelings.