Mindy Kaling’s Nationwide commercial, which made its debut Super Bowl Sunday, stuck a chord with women across the country, for voicing a feeling most of them felt at least once in their lives – not being noticed.
“The Mindy Project” actress, 35, appeared in the “Invisible Mindy” ad during the second quarter of the game, where, she imagines she’s invisible and then does all kinds of ridiculous, indulgent things. She stretches naked in the park, steals food off someone’s plate, walks through a car wash, and eats from a tub of ice cream in the middle of a grocery store. It’s only when she tries to sniff Matt Damon, in a crowded café that she realizes she can, in fact, be seen. “Mindy was actually not invisible,” Julia Roberts says in a voiceover. “She had just always been treated that way.”
The thought that she could be “invisible” occurs to Kaling at the start of the commercial, when she is completely overlooked while hailing a cab. “After years of being treated like she was invisible it occurred to Mindy Kaling she might actually be invisible,” says the narrator in the clip.
Ad Pitch Targeted to Women
Through the commercial, the insurance company is aiming to let potential clients to know that they’re not invisible. But inadvertently, Kaling, playing the role of someone struggling for attention, also brings to light what women face every day.
“Honestly, and I may be in a different kind of minority here, I don’t think that the Nationwide commercial was targeted to minority women,” says fashion designer Siddhi Vaishvav. She believes the company trusted Kaling’s huge cult following to go along with them (which they did), and the #InvisibleMindy idea was simply another ad pitch catered towards women in general, not minorities per se. “If you ever see the people who like or comment on any of Kaling’s social media accounts, of course there are many minorities, but the melting pot that is her following speaks for itself,” she says.
The commercial resonated with Indian-American women, not just because of Kaling’s ethnicity, but because they could relate to what it portrayed – their struggles as women trying to establish their career and foothold in the society.
PR professional Neerja Patel feels that although the commercial was indeed trying to prove a point about women being treated like they are invisible, it resonated more as it was done in a very tasteful and funny way. “If you notice, the taxi that passes her by doesn’t stop for her, but does stop for an African American man,” However the struggle of being noticed or being treated as equals has to do more with your gender than your race. “Personally, I found the commercial to be entertaining and didn’t take it too seriously,” she says. “I think it’s up to each individual to carve their own identity in society, personally or professionally, and not give others a chance to ignore them.”
Being sidelined
There have been a few times where I’ve felt invisible with regards to my ethnicity or gender, Vaishnav says, adding that many times, you have to just let your work speak for itself before they see the name and face behind the brand. The most vivid times of my feeling invisible were back in school, elementary through high school, she recalls, pointing that those times provided me with a very tough shell to go through my adolescent years with.
Like Vaishnav, who grew up on Long Island in New York, women of color, from other parts of the world could also relate to the commercial. “Mindy Kaling’s invisible Indian woman is sadly close to the truth,” wrote Wersha Bharadwa in The Guardian. The advert is classic Kaling: cute, funny, with a deeper message about women being sidelined, she says, adding that the message may reflect how corporations and societies ignore the needs of women on the whole.
Assimilating into the mainstream
Although the commercial and the message it conveyed may reflect how corporations and societies ignore the needs of women on the whole, what’s more important is the casting of Kaling as an Indian-American woman. In several interviews, Kaling has mentioned that she doesn’t want to be championed as the best “Indian-American female comedian” and refuses to be seen as an outsider. But that said, one cannot refuse that she does understand her role in empowering other women of color.
In an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, Kaling talked at length about the struggles of being a woman in Hollywood. “As a producer and a writer, whether it was at ‘The Office’ or [at ‘The Mindy Project’], if I make a decision, it’ll still seem like it’s up for debate,” she said. “And I notice that a little bit at ‘The Office’, with, like, an actor: If I decided there’d be a certain way in the script, it would still seem open-ended, whereas…if I was a man I would not have seen that.”
In an extensive article on Kaling, Elle magazine noted that she doesn’t rely on being Indian, but she doesn’t deny it either. And by that Kaling is probably trying to tell women all over to embrace their culture and heritage, decorate yourself with the parts of it that are most important to you, but don’t exploit it either, Vaishnav says. “There is a very fine line between honoring your culture and parodying it.”
That said one cannot but think about the point Kaling made through her cover photograph on Elle magazine last January in the “Women in TV” issue. Kaling was subject to a lot of scrutiny because the photo was printed in black and white, starkly contrasting the color cover photos of her other white colleagues Amy Poehler, Allison William and Zooey Deschanel. Kaling, responded to the frenzy by tweeting “I love my @ELLEmagazinecover. It made me feel glamorous & cool. And if anyone wants to see more of my body, go on thirteen dates with me,” making it clear that she is not only comfortable with her race, but her body too, which does not fit the typical “model” specifications.
Sharing the Invisibility
Kaling’s struggle represents a widespread issue. A 2013 report by San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film found that women only held 28 percent of producing, writing, and other behind-the-scenes positions in television.
Journalist Rhitu Chatterjee at NPR relates, and points Kaling’s frustration in the beginning of the ad as especially resonant with minority women in general. Writing about the commercial, she says that as an Indian woman in America, she’s felt her share of invisibility.“[My] minority women friends there tell me they’ve also experienced it,” Chatterjee writes.
Vaishnav says the ad resonated with her as a young professional woman in general because plenty of women have felt invisible in some situation or another, be it personal or professional, solely due to their gender. “Unfortunately, as much as we may try to push forward into a new era of equality, the truth remains that the disparity between men and women is still greater than is acceptable.” That’s one way I believe Nationwide targeted its demographic of young professional women; by using another young immensely successful professional woman in its marketing and sending the message, wrapped in quirky humor, that we as women absolutely deserve to be paid attention to,” she says.
However, some like Patel chose not to delve too much on the commercial’s message. “Personally, I found the commercial to be entertaining and didn’t take it too seriously,” she says. Computer professional Sheetal Byreddy also contends with Patel. ‘A 45 second funny video during prime time doesn’t represent Indian women in America,” she says. However, the commercial did tickle her funny bone, but she “did not look beyond the beauty of it.”
Letting work speak
Along with acknowledging the challenges they continue to face as women, both professionally, socially and personally, many Indian-American however believe that it is up to them to change that perception. Professionally, many believe in letting their work speak.
Byreddy says one cannot overlook the fact that unfortunately class, creed , gender and race play pivotal role in our society. “Issues of power and inequality do exist,” she says, having experienced it in all his professional roles. “There have been times, when I have been made to feel like a minority,” the Edison-based Byreddy says, adding that initially it would disturb her. “But now I have learnt to focus on proving myself through work, and also sometimes using my ethnicity to my advantage.”
Byreddy’s mantra seems to resonate with most desi women, especially those living and working in the tristate area or the Bay Area, where so many people of different color and culture are in integrated in the workforce. Financial consultant Ketaki Bhende, is also of the opinion, that more often than not, it’s the performance, then the gender or race, which work in your favor. “You perform, you are visible,” she says.
A representative for minority women
So does that make Kaling a representative for all minority women? Yes and no, says Vaishnav. It’s easy to mark her as the representative for all minority women, particularly South Asian, since she has obviously broken numerous barriers in the entertainment field with respect to minorities and women, she feels. But quickly adds that this however is not fair for the general public, South Asian or otherwise, to place the burden of constantly having everything she does be race, ethnicity, and gender related.
In a blog on Talking Points Memo, Samita Mukhopadhyay says that through her show, Kaling has done the important work of mirroring this desire to be just a woman with a voice and a point-of-view, who also happens to be South Asian. The character Kaling has created is a South Asian doctor living in New York who is quirky, goofy, self-absorbed, materialistic, hilarious and surrounded by white people, she writes. Although her character is infuriating, it is also absolutely spot-on. Noting that ‘The Mindy Project’ winks at the stereotype that all South Asians are doctors, Mukhopadhyay says Mindy Lahiri is representative of a specific South Asian American experience whether we like it or not.
In an interview for NPR in October, Kaling was asked yet again about being a pioneer for South Asian women. “I think that it’s insidious to be spending more of your time reflecting and talking about panels and talking more and more in smart ways about your otherness,” she said, “rather than doing the hard work of your job.”