When Comedy Ladies Write Books

I hate Lena Dunham's book. Whew that feels good to get off my chest. I hated it. I remember running out to buy it and thinking why I didn't like it at all. I loved Mindy Kaling's book and Amy Poehler's and Tina Fey's. Why didn't I like Lena Dunham's? When my comedy friends, especially the women asked me, I couldn't articulate an answer. Only after I took the time to re-read Kaling's, Poehler's and Fey's book did I realize: Dunham's didn't follow the formula. The former mentioned followed a strict formula of an advisory tone, an objective assertion of truth and a promise that being a woman in comedy is a universal union. Dunham's was a book about herself because, as promised, it was a memoir.

This same truth carries into these women's shows, in the formers' shows they are all working professionals, unapologetic about their opinions and goals. While Dunham's show, GIRLS, is a more objective portrayal of how women can sometimes suck. Like her book, Dunham's show also receives more criticism because of what it asserts. It doesn't propose a truth that women are strong and powerful, it represents a truth that sometimes they're not and she is not the authority to say that they are. With her book Dunham was trying to say "this is me" while the other three were trying to say "this is me and you" and I hated Dunham's because I wasn't represented in the equation.

I bring this up because of the release of Mindy Kaling's new book, Why Not Me? A book I hope lives up to the standard of the other one but that reaches it in a new way. I want to work an industry that allows women to be varied in their portrayal even if I'm not part of it.

The Mindy Project

Mindy Kaling stars in her kind of new show The Mindy Project as the main female heroin Mindy Lahiri. The second season premiered on Tuesday night. I laughed out loud numerous times throughout the first season and this week’s premiere. Specifically, I remember a scene from the first episode of the series where Mindy is in the pool drunkenly talking to a Barbie doll and then another scene where she is riding a bike yelling she is Sandra Bullock.

Besides all of the comedic moments, the thing I love the most about the show is that there is not that much focus on Mindy’s weight. Our society has such crazy ideas about what women should look like and I feel as though every show at some point has a female character that has body self-esteem issues. However, there aren’t any sad disapprovals from Mindy’s character about wanting to be thinner, having an insane diet, or having an eating disorder. Yes society has a lot of body image issues so I guess facing the issue in some way on the show would be realistic but I like that they approach it as an “it just is what it is” attitude. I think that everyone should have this just love your body approach that The Mindy Project is portraying. 

The Mindy Project has a variety of weird and quirky characters starring Chris Messina, Ed Weeks, Ike Barinholtz, Zoe Jarman and more. They have a lot of chemistry and are very entertaining to watch as their stories unravel. Besides Mindy’s focus on finding the right guy we also see an intelligent, imperfect, motivated and strong woman who has a lot of other "important" things to focus on. 

Truthfully, I think the show is torn between a workplace comedy and a romantic comedy but it still does make me and many people I know laugh A LOT.