Assessment of Netflix Series: Never Have I Ever!

Like so many others, I managed to binge watch the inaugural series of Never Have I Ever!

Some immediate thoughts on having seen the first season. Firstly, it’s a fun and entertaining show. As a Tamilian, I would say good look at the Tamil community stateside. Accurate name depictions, mannerisms in saying “Kanna”, an affectionate form of expression in Tamil. However, while the naming conventions are accurate, they have overplayed the stereotypes.

A country bumpkin cousin, who embraces a sense of experimental romance in a surreptitious manner at the first opportunity she gets. It overplays the conservative mom focused on just academics more than conservative, it shows that largely all Indian, particularly Southern Indian parents are puritanical and will accept nothing short of the sacrosanctity of an arranged marriage and if someone were to deviate and go astray, that would be sacrilege. This just plays to a western gallery.

The protagonist, Devi, is portrayed well, one with her own flaws and imperfections. It shows the dichotomy, that ABCD kids go through. A sense of rooted “Indianness” at home that epitomizes culture, while trying overtly hard to shed that at school and fit in to a western world with Americanisms. Because the more you portray your sense of “cultural identity”, the more you get inadvertently…