The fault does not lie in the stars. Indian Matchmaking and gender representations (original) (raw)

The fault does not lie in the stars. Indian Matchmaking and gender representations by Ishita Tiwary In the summer of 2020, in the early stages of the pandemic, like many others I got even more hooked to binge watching as a way of coping with the uncertainty and the stress of the world around us. I discovered a new-found appreciation for and morbid fascination with reality television. One such show, which seemed to be generating headlines, was Indian Matchmaking (2020/dir. Smriti Mudra) on Netflix. It was also the show that I had earlier been most resistant to watching. Because its narrative featured a "suitable girl" whose parents were on the lookout to get her "settled," the show's premise seemed to hit too close to home. Born and raised in South Asia and currently residing in North America, I found myself surprised that everybody around me not from that region seemed to be obsessing about the show and bombarding me with queries about the arranged marriage process in India. With my curiosity now piqued, going against my own instincts, I grudgingly start watching Indian Matchmaking. My first impression of the show was how particular phrases were often used-"the girl has to be flexible," "she should adjust, compromise," "willing to be flexible, compromise," "Isn't marriage compromise?" These statements presented the thesis of the show wrapped in a glossy aesthetic. It has a mise-en-scene that highlights the lives of the uber-rich. It is either set in India, or it shows the tall skyscrapers in the United States where privileged immigrants reside. Cinematographically, it uses soft focus and soft lighting to frame the mid-shot talking heads. The aesthetic gives a veneer of glamour to the practice of arranged marriage. As I noted, I was resistant to watching Indian Matchmaking. For many of my friends and me, the show was painful to watch as it reinforced the status quo of gender and caste hierarchies, was obsessed with the "fair skin" of a prospective match, and seemed to villainize the highly successful, independent women on the show. The show served as a manifestation of an institution that my friends and I actively work to resist, despite the intense familial pressures we face. Curiously, or rather frustratingly, many of my non-Indian friends in North America loved the show and were puzzled by my resistance to arranged marriage as they found it a reasonable mode of dating and finding a match. This reception startled me, and made me go back to look at the coverage of the show in India. Going through the news coverage and social media, it was clear that many women found the show triggering in the way it reduced representations of intelligent, ambitious, successful women to a set of stereotypical adjectives and how it glorified arranged marriage as a harmless, quirky alternative to dating. Reception of the show in India was one of horror, at least amongst the small progressive elite. When discussing the show online, they circulated the hashtag #cringebinge. [1] [open endnotes in new window] One of the male contestants, for example, Vyasar, admitted that the show was "painful to watch" in the way it discussed and represented the women on screen.[2] The show's refusal to address caste was also noticed by commentators. It was noted that by, "coding caste in harmless phrases such as "similar backgrounds, "shared communities," and "respectable families," the show does exactly what many upper-caste Indian families tend to do when discussing this fraught subject: "It makes caste invisible."[3]