Why does Indian Matchmaking and Family Karma make being Indian feel so burdensome?

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"Both series have felt unsatisfying to me," says Scaachi Koul, a Canadian of Indian descent, of the recent Netflix and Bravo reality shows focusing on Indian culture. "It’s not necessarily because they’re unenjoyable or because they’re wholly inaccurate representations of Indian life in America. Rather, I think I’m just tired of reality television shows about South Asian people rooted entirely in how their culture makes their lives infinitely harder. There just isn’t a lot of content made about brown people living in predominantly white countries. Mindy Kaling comes out with something new every few years, which many Indian Americans find exciting, and the work of brown women is sorely needed in a white media landscape. A lot of us are very proud of Lilly Singh getting on late-night television — though I could really, really do without her mimicking patois, something she has done more times than I can count, I don’t care where she grew up — but otherwise, it’s comparatively slim pickings. South Asian people living in America occupy a strange cultural space; music, movies, and television aren’t really made for us, nor are they made by us, nor do they really consider us all that frequently. We also don’t influence culture the way Black musicians, actors, and artists deservedly do (though, often without sufficient credit, and often with the result of being appropriated and then ignored). Some Indian people (like myself) benefit from being Brahmin Hindus with fair skin and straight hair and last names that tell you exactly what caste we were born into. We become a wedge minority. Even though nothing is really for us, we get some of it anyway. Our proximity to whiteness, especially in contrast to Black and darker-skinned brown people, means that television shows made for and by white people can sometimes inadvertently speak to us. It’s not enough, but it’s a sliver of the pie. I suppose I should be grateful?"

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• Indian Matchmaking seems specifically designed for the white gaze: "If Indian Matchmaking’s intent was to start a conversation, it has been very successful," says Priyanka Bose. "The show has polarized audiences since its release, with a broad range of reactions from ambivalent viewers both within the subcontinent and across the diaspora. Some have stated they can’t even hate watch due to their own traumatic experiences with matchmaking, while others have pointed out that Indian Matchmaking just shows things as they are, holding up a mirror to the messy, prejudiced system that millions of people go through every day. Casual non-Indian viewers watching Indian Matchmaking, however, may not even be aware of this conversation, given the context in which the show exists. Though the series may not have been designed for the white gaze, in execution, it falls right into it, fitting squarely into the narrow narrative box where Indians, and more broadly, South Asians, are often placed when it comes to Hollywood representation: arranged marriage."
• The only problem with Indian Matchmaking is that it doesn't live up to your fantasies: "A big part of the upset within my own community seems to stem from the fact that non-Indians are consuming this show as entertainment, just as many binged Tiger King in the same year," says Proma Khosla. "That show told the story of a troubled and insular community which felt like escapism for many viewers, but rang too true to some. If someone is getting their Indian cultural education only from media, it's bound to be skewed, but it shouldn't be any one show's job to take on that labor or sanitize reality. Any time the Indian community's inner turmoil faces exposure, we clamor to cover it up. Yes, we have problems, bigotry, and baggage — but god forbid the world see it before we've set our own house in order."
• Indian Matchmaking is just telling it like it is: "The casualness with which the preference for light skin arrives in the series — delivered perhaps most strikingly in Richa’s articulation of it — has caused consternation," says Mallika Rao. "Some viewers seemed to separate the show’s evident entertainment value (it was ranked in the most popular section of Netflix over its debut weekend) from its troubling aspects, to make sense of their draw to it. On Twitter, people have accused Netflix of idealizing a Hindu-supremacist ideology, while others protest that the show should at least offer critique of the -isms at play. A Pakistani-American friend wrote me saying that she’d be fine with the show if white people weren’t watching it, given that it might serve to reinforce reductive notions of a place and people. (But then, colorism and racism have long been seen as forces at loggerheads — air your dirty laundry, and white people only have more reason to stereotype.) Personally, I found all the debate confusing. The show presents reality more or less as it is, with, of course, all the toying with reality built in to a reality-TV show. But small manufactured dramas aside, it presented a more unvarnished view than usual. On The Bachelor, where judgments based on skin color happen as a rule, a euphemism — that someone is not a 'good fit' — veils the truth. At least on this show, people state things in reflection of the warts-and-all truth. Hindus are largely casteist. Much of India, today, leans Hindu supremacist. Marriage is a business and a game, whether in India or America, and grotesque from many angles. Taparia seems to hit on some profound, universal truth when at the show’s beginning she blithely references not the 'wedding industry,' but the 'marriage industry,' a term I’d never heard but which resonated."
• Indian Matchmaking smartly reclaims and updates the arranged marriage myth for the 21st century: The Netflix reality show demystifies "the process and revealing how much romance and heartache is baked into the process even when older adults are meddling every step of the way," says Sonia Saraiya. "But for me, at least, the show’s value is as a vibrant validation of how brutal the gauntlet of Indian matchmaking can be—a practice that begins with your parents’ friends and relatives gossiping about you as a teenager and only intensifies as you get older. Though these families use a matchmaker, the matching process is one the entire community and culture is invested in. In this context, romance is not a private matter; your love life is everyone’s business."
• Why didn't Netflix India order Indian Matchmaking?: Netflix created Netflix India in Mumbai to appeal to appeal to Indian viewers, but Indian Matchmaking -- ordered out of Netflix in Hollywood -- has become the streaming service's most buzzed-about Indian hit.
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• Watch the Indian Matchmaking cast's virtual reunion
• Indian Matchmaking creator Smriti Mundhra welcomes the backlash: "I totally understand why people feel like 'You're exposing, some of them are problematic things that are in our culture,'" she tells CNN. "But that's where we are. I would never want to make a show that sanitizes that because I think we need to have those conversations and we need to push to do better as a community and as a culture."