Maitreyi Ramakrishnan Smacked Down The Mindy Kaling Haters & Her 'Rapunzel' Dream Lives On
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan is speaking out against Mindy Kaling's haters, and she's asking people to think a little deeper about racial issues in Hollywood.
Kaling has been criticized for her portrayal of brown female leads across several franchises, from Velma to The Sex Lives Of College Girls and The Mindy Project, for being self-critical of their identities and ending up with white men.
Season 4 of Never Have I Ever is no exception.
Fans of the Netflix series featuring Ramakrishnan as troubled teen Devi Vishwakumar took to Twitter to air out their grievances with Kaling after the character ended up with Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison), a white love interest who happens to be nerdy and playfully mean.
"Finding out Mindy Kaling’s female lead ends up with another white boy who negs her," reads a tweet with a GIF of Camila Mendes saying, "I'm shocked! This is shocking news."
"Everyone surprised that Ben and Devi were endgame. As if Mindy Kaling will never not choose the white Jewish boy. She is literally writing her and BJ NOVAK in different universes" reads another tweet.
Some fans have taken it a step further and linked her characters ending up with white male leads to Kaling's own personal life with her complicated relationship with BJ Novak.
The pair have been romantically linked together since their days on The Office, and people have consistently been confused as to whether or not the pair are best friends or something more throughout the years.
While talking to Vulture in 2012, Novak said he and Kaling's relationship mirrored Kelly and Ryan's relationship on The Office.
“No one, including us, ever really knew, ‘Is this dating? Is this not dating?’ We were never really dating, we were never really not dating. We didn’t know. No one knew. All you’d know for sure is that you’d always find one of us next to the other, even if we weren’t getting along.”
Maitreyi is sticking up for Mindy Kaling
The pair have remained long-time friends, and Novak is the godfather of both of Kaling's children and according to an interview Kaling gave to Marie Claire in 2022, she doesn't mind that people speculate that he is her children's father.
Ramakrishnan sat down with Narcity for her and weighed in on the criticism that's been thrown Kaling's way since the end of Season 4.
"I mean, women of colour are always harshly critiqued for anything. There will always be a reason to critique. I mean, for Mindy she's writing from what she knows, right? These are her stories," Ramakrishnan told Narcity.
"People can have an issue with that, and that's fine. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but you can't take away from someone's lived experience or the story that they want to tell."
The 21-year-old actress continued recalling that the first thing she learned in drama class was to write from what you know and not what you don't know about.
Ramakrishnan said that if Kaling just wrote to appease other people, it wouldn't be as fulfilling or authentic, and although she respects that everyone is entitled to their opinion, she says that Kaling has her respect.
So instead of getting mad at Kaling for speaking her truth and creating South Asian stories from her lived experience, Ramakrishnan is wondering if Hollywood just isn't creating enough space for diverse stories.
"Why don't we get mad at the people who make it so hard for women who look like Mindy and I to be at Mindy's level? That's the problem. If we had more people who look like Mindy at her level, then I'm sure we would have so many stories because Mindy can have her types," she said.
"I mean, I love brown men. Let's just put it out there. I'm all about a South Asian man, Des let me down," said Ramakrishnan referencing Devi's South Asian love interest Des (Anirudh Pisharody) from Season 3 of Never Have I Ever.
"But regardless, I digress. If we had more people at Mindy's level, then I think people would be a little bit more easy on her. But alas, that's not the case."
Ramakrishnan says that she understands that not all South Asian girls will be able to relate to her either and that she hopes more people will be brought into the spotlight so more young women can pick and choose who they feel represented by.
Fans are supporting Maitreyi's Rapunzel dream
Ramakrishnan hasn't been shy about putting her dream role of Rapunzel out into the universe for a live-action Tangled, and the dream lives on.
Millions of little girls got to see themselves represented on screen in Halle Bailey's rendition of Ariel in Disney'sThe Little Mermaid, so why can't Ramakrishnan, a Tamil Canadian girl from Mississauga, be the next Rapunzel?
"It is my dream role. It's funny because I've been saying this since 2021[...]and I guess now it's getting picked up. Which is scary because putting your dreams out there is very scary, and it takes a lot of courage."
Ramakrishnan's fans have been coming out to support her dreams of Rapunzel in spades on her recent press tour of Never Have I Ever, and the young actress is on her way to becoming the people's princess.
In Brazil, a fan brought a sign that read, "You can be my Rapunzel," which brought Ramakrishnan to tears backstage.
"I saw on Twitter that someone made a sign that said, 'You can be my Rapunzel,' and I saw another fan in front of them holding up the flashlight to illuminate the sign for them. All the fans have been saying, 'You can be my Rapunze,' like the 'Peoples Rapunzel' and all that and that regardless of anything, that is so sweet."
If Ramakrishnan does ever land her dream role, she doesn't know who she'd want to be cast as Flynn Rider, but she would want it to be a fan with a good personality match.
No plans for a remake have been announced, but Disney may want to get cracking on a live actionTangled to make the people's princess's dreams come true.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Ben out in New York during his summer internship.Lara Solanki | Netflix