‘grown-ish’ Can Do Better When it Comes to Pushing The Envelope of Representation

I love ABC’s black-ish. As a writer and creator myself, I’ve long admired the way that Kenya Barris infuses his show with contemporary topics and issues that directly impact the black community. He gave America a slavery-based history lesson in the Season 4 opener “Juneteenth,” spoke at length about anger and empathy in 2017’s excellent election episode “Lemons,” and has opened up conversations about gun violence, postpartum depression, and police brutality on network television. Barris and the writing team at blackish have perfected the balance of humor and heavy-handed issue-driven TV; it’s consistently one of the smartest, boldest, and funniest shows on TV.

You’d imagine, then, that I’d love the spin-off on Freeform (titled grown-ish) that focuses on the character Zoey (Yara Shahidi)’s first year at college. It has all of the components of a show that I’d be head over heels for: a young adult setting (bonus points for being set in college, a location that is conspicuously absent on TV despite being a treasure trove of content), boy drama, and a strong female of color leading the narrative. And while I do love all of those aspects of grown-ish, the show doesn’t deliver when it comes to pushing the envelope of representation.

One member of Zoey’s core group of friends is a first generation Indian-American student named Vivek (Jordan Buhat) — a detail for which I’d usually be throwing a party. While Vivek doesn’t fit into the stereotypical “nerd” confines we’re used to, a lot of his antics masquerade as depth without actually being that revolutionary. He’s presented as a swole bro that acts ghetto and aspires to a rap career, casually deals drugs, and disparages his father’s hard work as a cab driver the first chance he gets. Vivek’s few lines in the pilot episode feel like they’ve been pulled directly from an Indian Stereotype 101 book: aside from putting down his father’s profession, he also reveals that he’s on a strict STEM diet with no room for any arts or humanities classes (per his parents’ direction) and name-drops Lord Ganesh in a cringeworthy fake accent. It feels so…tired.

Sure, some of this can get a pass — I know plenty of Indian-Americans who think they’ll be the next Drake — but I can’t support Vivek calling his dad “a bum with no ambition” because of his profession. Art is political, and painting immigrants as lazy only feeds into the hateful narratives swirling around in 2018. In the episodes since the pilot, grown-ish seems to have either forgotten Vivek’s comment or thinks they resolved the storyline with the discussion between Vivek, Zoey, and the rest of their crew convincing him of his father’s merit (and by convincing Vivek, I mean that someone decided that his dad “fled a third-world country” — I won’t get into the offensiveness of this statement). I’m not saying that Vivek’s sentiments aren’t plausible, but what grown-ish did with the material was not enough — I need to see Vivek acknowledge his views and his privilege, and get to a place of generational understanding and acceptance with his father.

There are ways to portray an Indian-American without being over-the-top or missing the mark. Insecure introduced Aparna, Lawrence’s coworker and eventual love interest, who was a confident professional in a tech career that felt grounded in reality without being preachy. Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) on Silicon Valley plays with stereotypical characterization without being one-note. To a lesser extent, Jane the Virgin featured a hijabi-clad woman without defining her by her religion, The Resident debuted on FOX with Manish Dayal as a new South Asian-American doctor, and This Is Us showcased a Sikh man with an American accent who helped Randall come to an important realization last season. These characters and portrayals, however small they may be, are important and make me feel somewhat hopeful.

It doesn’t help that the actor playing Vivek on grownish isn’t of Indian origin. South Asians are fighting for visibility within mainstream media and every role that is written for a South Asian should be played by a South Asian (the same way that Latinos should play Latino roles, Asians should play Asians, etc). If what we’re after is authenticity, why not be authentic? Jordan Buhat is a fine actor and a pleasure to watch — the crime isn’t his acting, but rather the behind-the-scenes decisions. I would have rather seen the role rewritten to match Buhat’s background than have to see him mispronounce his own character’s name.

“There’s a difference between portraying a nuanced reality and simply being ignorant about the culture, and it saddens me that Hollywood at large still hasn’t taken note or paid attention to the pleading voices of minority audiences.”

This casting is reminiscent of The Big Sick, which drew some flak from South Asian audiences for its depiction of South Asian women. My biggest issue lay within casting: Vella Lovell, a half-white half-black actress, had a prominent role as one of Kumail Nanjiani’s Pakistani love interests. Lovell, similar to Buhat, is a fantastic performer and is one of my favorite parts of CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. But she is decidedly not Desi and specifically played a role that required her to use a strained Indian accent that just simply doesn’t work. I’m still unsure of why writers Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon insisted on having Lovell use an imperfect accent instead of just having her character be a South Asian-American woman. It’s so easy to poke a hole in her performance, and it’s one of the most apparent blemishes on an otherwise great film.

There’s a difference between portraying a nuanced reality and simply being ignorant about the culture, and it saddens me that Hollywood at large still hasn’t taken note or paid attention to the pleading voices of minority audiences. The fact that the grown-ish writers room didn’t employ a single writer or consultant of South Asian heritage to help shape the character of Vivek is obvious and is unacceptable at this point. This isn’t something that only affects Indians; it affects all minorities, all non-white people. Representation is only good if it’s done correctly. So let’s do better.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer living in New York City. Her work has appeared on The TV Addict, Brown Girl Magazine, Breadcrumbs Mag and Syndicated Magazine. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.

Watch grown-ish on Freeform