The Mindy Project Thesis

The entirety of the fourth season of ‘The Mindy Project’ was scrutinized by the audience because it seemed as if Mindy’s unquestionable self-confidence, often on the brink of self-delusion, and empowering revelations on body-positivity, independence and sexuality was marred by the fact that the entire season was of her succumbing to what Danny, her Caucasian fiancé, wants her to be – the perfect mold of an obedient, submissive housewife. But as it turns out, in the mid-season finale, we see how Mindy Kaling (the writer of the show) had intentionally made Mindy – and the audience – realize gradually that she and Danny were not on the same page at all. The buildup lasted the entire season and culminated with Danny and Mindy verbally sparring

Mindy retorts back with, “Whenever you decide to do something, it’s selfless. Whenever I decide to do something, it’s selfish. You get to be the judge, the jury…” She proceeds to give an example of when he went away for a few months to take care of his estranged father and she had to take care of their son, Leo, all by herself. Danny, unwilling to give in to Mindy, said, “Maybe I need to be the judge and the jury because I make better choices than you do.” The repetition of the word ‘judge/jury’ pertains to the idea that there is only a right decision and a wrong decision. Danny assumes that if Mindy starts to prioritize work, she will be abandoning Leo and that, to him, is the worst possible decision that Mindy could make. The most revealing part of this exchange is that Danny feels as if he is entitled to intervene with Mindy’s life even though Mindy is capable of deciding her own future. As a white male man, Danny is predisposition to feel as if he has a right over what a woman, especially a woman of color, can or cannot do. It has long been established that white supremacy is still subtly prevalent and internalized in today’s society, and Danny is an example of that. In Natalie Porter’s article, “The Butterfly Dilemma: Asian Women, Whiteness, And Heterosexual Relationships.”, she suggests how whiteness works by understanding the construction of whiteness and

Danny is set up to be a very traditional, conservative, righteous white male character, while Mindy is set up to be the liberal, laidback, exotic woman of color. Danny being born and raised in Staten Island, is a devout Catholic man who has traditional ideals. From the scene and based off the things Danny had proclaimed, we can conclude that Danny believes that a woman should stay at home after settling down with a man and he also believes that a working mom is lesser of a mother than a stay-at-home mom. In a way, his thinking is backwards because based on a recent study, children who was raised by a working mom is better off than children who had a stay-at-home mom. Women who are raised by working mothers earn a higher income and men who are raised by working moms are shown to be more compassionate. (McGinn, Castro, and Lingo 20) The irony is that Danny was raised single-handedly by his mother and he turned out to be a great doctor and individual, despite his misogynistic nature. His orthodox and old-fashioned views on how a woman should handle raising a family, is truly grotesque. In a white male-ethnic female dynamic, the women are almost always subjected to subservient roles and their contributions are marginalized; these women appear to accept and even promote roles that are projected unto them. (Porter 216) This internalized racism that the ethnic women in the relationship have attained –