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ohn Netflix show hit I never got it.Poorna Jagannathan plays a competitive mother, pushing Princeton on her son and serving a lot of side-eye to the other aunts.
Real life is another matter. Jagannathan began her acting career by reciting lines and rehearsing scenes to play the same roles as the actors she was going for. They team up, then compete for a few roles for South Asian women in Hollywood.
I came to know Jagannathan’s approach seven years ago when I lived in Los Angeles. I told her at the time how curious it sounded.
“There are very few role models,” she said. “If one of us wins, we all win.”
Like any industry, Hollywood has a diversity problem. In recent years, as workplaces struggle to change systemic inequities and foster greater collaboration, I’ve thought of Jagannathan’s strategy as a concrete example of business — and one that existed before we had a language to describe it in those terms.
What do I mean? For a long time the difference and the place in the institutions is more: new people, new ideas. But they were beside the so-called mainstream and had to enter under the old rules. Often we felt there was room for a few of us, maybe just one, to say, “check the box.”
What has become clear, especially since the killing of George Floyd, is that real progress is indeed changing. why We will work. The shift acknowledges that people of color can act in ways that allow them to be not only included in the mainstream, but completely redefined. Cooperating with competition for the common good of a society seems to be one of those things.
such as I never got it. After becoming number one on Netflix earlier this month, I caught up with Jagannathan to further unpack the approach — and I think I finally got it.
“Even if there is one South Asian character, it’s such a win,” she says. “It opens up the ecosystem for South Asian characters to have siblings and parents and boyfriends and girlfriends. It opens the door for more South Asian characters, and that has a ripple effect for all of us.”
What’s remarkable about Jagannathan’s story is the way she and her fellow actors faced a dearth of South Asian roles with abundance and generosity.
This idea of inclusiveness and collaboration may still be counterintuitive, but it is successful. Indeed, Hollywood feels full of examples that should be studied and emulated by other industries. In the year In 2005, Franklin Leonard launched The Black List, an annual ranking of Hollywood’s most popular unproduced screenplays. Dozens of scripts have gone on to become feature films and even win Oscars.
Stating that there is a lack of diversity in Hollywood, Leonard started the list because of the lack of quality scripts and his desire to open up the industry to new talent. “The Best Revenge” was asked recently on the “Art of Power” podcast about how to handle rejection, “It’s to keep moving and prove them wrong. The only thing that takes away from rejection is to keep moving and swing at them when they understand it.”
Some other ways this behavior can be expressed: sharing a plasma floor, comparing salary offers, congregating around important issues. SeeHer is a movement within the National Association of Advertisers to increase representation and accurate images of women and girls in marketing, advertising, media and entertainment. “While some of our members are strong competitors, they recognize their collective power to change culture and have come together to support our mission to advance gender equity,” said President Janine Shao Collins. “This will only happen if we all work together.”
One way we work is taking more collaborative approaches: team-based training development with one-on-one coaching. Era Ray is the founder of Salute Women’s Leadership Network, which is dedicated to empowering the unity of South Asian women. She says the number one reason women join Salat is because they want community.
“When we talk to executive leaders, we often hear that they wish they had this kind of support system as they are raising stars in their companies,” she says. “Instead of seeing their peers as competitors, their mindset is changing. We see more and more women looking for a support system to celebrate accomplishments, connect with each other in meaningful ways, and help each other.
Anyone who works to reproduce places, stories, or organizations is familiar with the pressure of representation. Now there is one more left in the third season I never got it. In the beginning, he offered such criticism. The immigrant parents were strict. The first season focused on Hindu South Asians, not Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs or other religions. The accents didn’t sound right.
What happens when the ecosystem opens up, and more characters and stories and variations are added? The pressure will decrease.
“When I never got it. It came out, the weight of representation fell on one show. He felt overwhelmed. There was an assumption that this one show could carry our entire story and that was impossible,” says Jagannathan. “Things have changed in three years.” Progress is slow, but it is happening: Ms. Marvel It features South Asian actors, just like the latest season Bridgerton. The second season of the Netflix reality show about arranged marriages; Indian relatedIt includes a turbaned Sikh doctor looking for a wife.
In the second season I never got it., Devi is threatened, then befriends the new Muslim girl at school, Aneesa Qureshi. In the third season, Nalini befriends Rhyah, played by South Asian actress Sarayu Blue.
“With most of us, we feel more present and seen,” says Jagannathan. “When I said we eat with our hands, we take off our shoes, we don’t put spices on the table… It’s different if I say, it’s confirmed by three to four people on the set.” Our experiences will be shared. Shared experiences lead to shared action.
There is no denying that he has turned into a better representation this season. The teenage protagonist Nalini’s daughter Devi finally finds an Indian boyfriend. Nalini, on the other hand, allows her daughter to play and shows more understanding and affection towards her.
Two key workplace lessons emerge from supporting your competition: One is to learn more. “When you’re working with someone else, there’s a strict script analysis,” Jaganathan says. “The difference is you’re always learning,” she said, adding that the stakes are especially high for South Asian actors because if no one accepts the role, it can be recast. “If it doesn’t come to one of us, it goes to a white man,” she says. “This is the easiest thing.”
And that explains the other lesson: cheering for something bigger than yourself. “We are very few,” says Jagannathan. “We know it’s someone’s victory…you should know it’s yours too.”
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