Warning: This article contains spoilers for the first five seasons of New Girl. DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET.
Everyone's seen the hit sitcom 'New Girl'. If you haven't, you should. There's a reason it's known to many as the millennials Friends. But unlike the 90s favorite, New Girl is a lot less white.
One of the main characters is Cece Schmidt, formerly known as Cece Parikh. Played by actress Hannah Simone, who is only half Indian. However, her character is fully Indian, and by the end of season 5, is in an interracial marriage with another main character, a Jewish male named Schmidt, played by Max Greenfield (the character's first name is never given).
The fact that one of the main characters is canonically Indian and female is huge in and of itself for the American Southeast Asian community. Other than 'The Mindy Project', our only representation before this in mainstream American TV was Raj from The Big Bang Theory, who was male.
The difference between Raj (played by Kunal Nayyar) and Cece is that Raj is, in accordance with the stereotype of Asians being the 'model minority', a scientist and a 'geek'. Granted, so are the other male main characters in The Big Bang Theory, but Raj doesn't have any traits that are un-stereotypically 'Indian'.
Cece, on the other hand, is more of a Penny than a Raj. Not too bright or interested in education, but pretty and successful in her own right. Eventually falls in love with and marries the nerdy, awkward one of the main characters who has been trying to sleep with her since episode one- Leonard in Penny's case and Schmidt in Cece's case.
Another thing about Cece's character which I love is that her Indianness is acknowledged as part of, but not the most important thing about her identity. She is Indian, but she is also beautiful, an ex-model, confident, a good friend, a bartender, a college student, outspoken, logical, independent, and a wife.
Of course, like all Indians in Western Media, her mother disapproves and wants her to marry an Indian man. This is true for many Indian families, to be fair, but not all. She does get engaged to an Indian man at first, and according to the socially conservative Indian stereotype, they don't have sex before the marriage. But this trait is supposed to be Shivrang's specifically and not representative of all Indian people. For example, in contrast, Cece herself is shown to be more confident and forthcoming in her sexuality.
And Cece's and Schmidt's wedding was very authentic to traditional, Indian weddings- my favorite part being Schmidt and eventually, Nick, Winston and the rest of the gang joining and performing with an amazing Bollywood dance troupe known as "Mahotmoves Gandhi".
So yeah- watch "New Girl" right now. And as a special treat, here's a list of other Western TV shows with Indian or half-Indian actors or actresses.
- Skins (Dev Patel)
- Mindy Kaling (The Office and The Mindy Project)
- Naveen Andrews (Once Upon A Time in Wonderland and LOST)
- Heroes (Sendhil Ramamurthy)
