A huge part of my childhood was watching Disney shows with my sister. Soon it changed to laughing during Parks and Recreation and following the gripping lives of Annalise Keating and her “whiny children” in How to Get Away With Murder. And let’s face it, I am also, now more than ever, obsessed with who Arie gives the rose to this season of the Bachelor.
Long story short, I love movies and television. I love seeing how screenwriters foreshadow certain plot lines and how directors use certain camera angles to evoke specific emotions. I also love that I can just sit on my bed all day and be entertained.
But unfortunately, television isn’t perfect like most things in life.
I never saw myself.
There was never an emo middle school Indian girl trying to convince her parents to let her go to Warped Tour. Instead, we had our classic two lines of an Indian girl with glasses answering a question in class.
My sister and I grew up with having little to no representation on mainstream media.
We had small glimmering moments with fierce Jasmine in Aladdin or valley girl Kelly Kapoor from the Office to only be overshadowed by the one-dimensional parts of “Nerdy girl #2” if even that.
We so often hear the cliche that America is a melting pot due to the multitude of ethnicities and cultural influences that can be found walking down the street.
Yet on screen, it seems as if only white people exist in America.
And when there is a person of color getting screen time it is reduced down to stereotypes ranging from the “black thug” to heavily accented “Sam” in IT. These mostly stereotypical and underdeveloped POC characters limit our society into thinking that certain types of people are capable of limited actions.
But Marvel’s release of Black Panther feels like the light at the end of the tunnel. Never before has there been a huge production for a very all Black film, let alone a superhero film. It seems like Hollywood is very slowly but surely learning that not only do people of color deserve more screen time with more developed storylines but that we can do it well.
Here is to hoping for a gay Indian Wonder Women that is not only a perfectionist when it too comes to Garba but to also protecting her home of Los Angeles.