I don’t know what kind of crossover this fandom has with the fandom for @neil-gaiman but I’m going to reference something he wrote a number of years ago, because it feels increasingly relevant, and especially this week. I’m rephrasing it ‘cause I wouldn’t use this language here in 2016, and I’m borrowing a bit from the venerable Granny Weatherwax:
Mindy Kaling is person, stop treating her like a thing.
Does she need me to defend her? No, probably not. But I think it’s a point worth defending because a culture that promotes a view of a woman as consumable is damaging not only to that woman, but to all women.
I have loved her show deeply, and I still do. I’m heartbroken that the show is once again in a state of flux, and that the final result may be the atrophy of a character about whom I’ve written literally hundreds of thousands of words. I think expressions of mourning and shock are completely appropriate right now. What I don’t think is acceptable is the turn from “This show isn’t turning out the way I want.” to “This woman isn’t acting the way I want her to.” And I think it’s especially damaging when it becomes about further perceived failure, specifically failure to look the way people want her to look.
You may have enjoyed her work, and may continue to enjoy her work, but at no point has a contract been agreed in which she is forced to be who you want her to be, or look how you want her to look. She is simply a human being doing the best she can, according to her ability and knowledge. Not a one of us is living her life or have any idea what it takes to do her job, and not a single one of us can say we truly know what we’d do in her position. Give her a break.
And more importantly (and I want especially all the young women in this fandom to know this) her looks, and her body, and her choices are hers and hers alone.
The world is going to tell you all as women, and especially you women of colour who fill my followers list, that unless you look the way that they deem fit and suitable that you are not beautiful, and that you are not good. And it’s Just. Not. True.
You pursue whatever makes you feel beautiful, and know that no job you choose, no relationship you pursue, no bond of blood gives someone the right to diminish your beauty because it does not meet their standard. You are not a product, you are not for consumption, you are not defined by other people.
I don’t want to see any more picking apart of actual human being Mindy Kaling, because she doesn’t live up to other people’s physical specification. The world already tells her every day “You’re not skinny, you’re not white, you’re a woman. Why on earth would you feel like you’re worth anything?” so there is absolutely no good that comes of heaping more unkindness on her. You don’t have to love her, you don’t have to consume her art, but for the love of kindness please stop treating her like a thing.
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