Are South Asians finally sexy enough?
- Saleha Noor
- Nov 10, 2021
- 2 min read
Even though I grew up in Pakistan I was always more exposed to Western pop culture than anything else. I was not a minority in my own country but the exported stereotypes from western culture often ended up making me feel as if there was something wrong about how my skin was a little too brown or how the food at home smelled. Most of all there was the accent, you know what I am talking about. For years almost every south Asian character on screen was often there to provide comedic relief with their exaggerated accent.

However, something seems to have shifted. In recent years as popular culture becomes more exclusive there finally seems to be space on screen for South Asian characters that are not a cab driver, computer geek or terrorist. Most of all my skin finally seems to be worthy of love and lust. I noticed this first when watching sex education. Two out of the most popular group of teens in the fictional school of Moordale are South Asian and they are not there to enforce any offensive stereotypes. Both Anwar and Olivia are just like the other teenagers on the show and most of all they are considered attractive. Simone Ashely who plays Olivia in Sex Education is even set to star in the second season of Bridgeton which as steamy and droolworthy as Tv can get.
Soon after noticing this in Sex Education, I stared being more conscious of this change in South Asian representation. The 2020 Netflix show Never Have I Ever went a step farther by making the lead a young Indian American girl. Not only was Devi shown to be struggling with love and friendship just like any other high school kid her cousin Kamala was so attractive that it literally caused a bicycle accident. Then there was Raymond Ablack playing the lead character’s love interest in Ginny and Georgia. I can’t even begin to describe how surprised I felt when his character first appeared on screen. Here was a South Asian man finally being considered ‘worthy’ of female affection and attraction. Upon a little more research, I found that he is portraying a similar role in another Netflix show, Maid. An article on Decider even dubbed him as “Netflix’s Hot Single Mom Bait”.

It seems that South Asians have finally managed to break through the often-limited roles reserved for them in popular culture and as celebrities such as Hassan Minhaj, Kumail Nanjiani or Riz Ahmed continue to to be pop royalty in their own way the situation is likely to get even better. Even right now a reboot of Sex and the City is in production with Sarita Choudhury set to play one of the main characters. Being considered sexy on screen can often be a slippery slope but such a portrayal of South Asians should honestly have been here a long time ago.
Agreed , loved it ❤️
Love this article 🤩