bSmart book club discussion

We hope everyone had a chance to read Mindy Kaling’s first book! Did you like it? What did you learn from it?

Mindy Kaling is one of my most important role models. Her recently announced pregnancy might be the only celebrity pregnancy that ever truly mattered to me. Her show The Mindy Project inspired the argument –that women’s pleasure is political because it resists the misogyny of our society– I made in my master’s thesis as well as my everyday thinking thinking on gendered behavior, feminism, and accomplishments and how to reach them. Her first memoir, Is Everyone, is about the Mindy that we don’t know and haven’t seen on tv: her girlhood in Massachusetts, her years at Dartmouth University, and the beginnings of her career in NYC until success and fame came. We learn that Mindy was hired at the successful tv comedy The Office as a result of the play Matt and Ben she and her friend from college produced, wrote, and starred in– she created a path for herself. Is Everyone, then, is a book about the making of an unlikely career and about how Mindy overcame insecurities in her personal life. Much of this book is frivolous, some of it indulgence in fantasies that are entertainment and comedy more than social justice work, and even Mindy’s reflections on her weight don’t have the same heaviness as, say, Roxane Gay’s recent memoir Hunger. And yet, Mindy’s charming portrayal as herself as an ambitious, insecure, imperfect woman who is willing to share her private details to become more liked and to inspire other women has never stopped being on my mind as an inspiration of confidence, and as a guide book to trust the process as I try to make a career in a much less glamorous but almost equally combative (it feels like that anyways) industry: academia.

I never had given celebrity memoirs consideration before. But after watching The Mindy Project and learning more about Mindy’s achievements I had to read her book. I was not let down! Here are some of my favorite passages and quotes.

1)Types of Women in Romantic Comedies Who are Not Real- This chapter really resonates with me. It sums up, in a hilarious way, all of the unrealistic female characters that Hollywood has come up with for women to compare themselves to and for men to expect from their girlfriends. I love that Mindy dedicates and entire chapter to this because it is something I have always noticed!  ‘I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.’
I think that this is one of the reasons, aside from sexualizing women, that there is this major push for more women directors. Women characters through the eyes of men are a fantasy of men, not real women.

2) ‘the sexiest thing in the world is the feeling that you’re wanted.’ I love this line. It is so simple, honest and true. I feel that sometimes women, especially young girls, often feel that sex is a requirement in order to be ‘cool,’ or to ‘lock it down’ and keep him interested.

3) C’mon, married people- ‘ Married people, it’s up to you. Its entirely on your shoulders to keep this sinking institution afloat. It’s a stately old ship, and a lot of people, like me, want to get on board. Please be psyched, and convey that psychedness to us’. Mindy starts this section off saying how she is always hearing married people complain about their sex and dating life and I’ll add to that by saying they complain about everything non married people complain about too. She uses her parents as an example of how she thinks all marriages should look, and that is as best friends who want to do everything together. I think this is such a beautiful example of what marriage can be. Mindy’s point is that marriage is supposed to be this next level relationship that goes from dating to happily ever after, but if married people are always complaining about it, how are the non married people supposed to feel excited about it? I think this is an interesting perspective.

Totally Amanda! i've noticed that I see female characters differently since reading Kaling's book: whenever a very thin woman eats cake or a big meal I'm like "ahhh poor actress to have to pretend to be casual about delicious food she's usually not eating to survive in her industry"