When Mindy Kaling first burst onto the scene with her Fox sitcom, The Mindy Project, in 2012, the sheer number of stereotypes she was single-handedly breaking was immediately obvious. Being dark-skinned, she was an unusual figure to emerge from an Indian and Indian diaspora community that was besotted with fair skin. She was also distinctive as a woman protagonist of an American sitcom because she was neither skinny nor pegged as conventionally pretty. She had made it as a female comedian of color in an industry known for its overt racism and sexism. Her brash brand of comedy delivered in a whistle-like voice took some getting used to, but it was clear that Kaling was a force to be reckoned with.  Until then, mainstream American film and TV had only made room for head-bobbing Indians speaking in heavy and ungrammatical D-syllable-accented English; exaggerated, inauthentic, and racist representations that have haunted…

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