by Tasnimah Ahmed
This analysis is based on Devi Vishwakumar from the Netflix show Never Have I Ever.
[Beware, spoilers ahead]
In this blog, we’re going to break down Devi’s horrendous acts.
It starts with Devi planning for her and her group of friends to get boyfriends this year so that they rise in the popularity hierarchy and be seen as “cool” in the other students’ eyes. This, again, shows a twisted culture followed by teenage schools, and who you’re with should never define you. However, when Devi finds out that, one of her friends already has a boyfriend, she gets extremely mad and I will never understand why. In normal cases, you’d be happy for your friend, but Devi decided to get angry at her happiness.
Secondly, we see her lying constantly to people around her about sleeping with Paxton, just so she could show her friends she’s better than them, and later on in a Model United Nations, to win everyone’s respect and be treated like a queen. She decided to use Paxton’s identity and their friendship, to be seen as a “cooler” person.
Thirdly, she lashes out at Ben for talking about her sleeping with Paxton in front of other people, causing the rumor to spread and reach Paxton. Instead of feeling guilty for lying, she decided to blame the entire incident on Ben for ever talking about it publicly.
Fourthly, her two friends has went through life-changing events: one came out that she’s gay, and another found her mother. While all they could think of was telling Devi, all she worried about was her lie. And when they finally came to tell her, she lashed out at them saying, “Whatever you are going through, my shit is bigger!” She seemed very selfish and self-centered through this.
Fifth, like everything she didn’t do was bad enough; after her lashing out at her friends, they decided to give her another chance. But, after they realized she lied to them, they were mad once again; yet gave a third chance. During this, one of her friends was going through a serious breakdown, but Devi decided to ditch them when she got a text from Paxton.
In the end of all of this, she says she’s like this because she still hasn’t gotten over her father’s death and her friend calls her out: “We understand you’ve lost your father, but that doesn’t give you the treat to be shitty to us.”
Being self-centered, having a short temper and getting mad at everything, being a bad friend, choosing a man you barely know over your friends, being the kind of person who never wants to admit their own mistake, being a liar and a hypocrite – you cannot be all of these and use a traumatic experience in your life as an excuse.
While these perks of Devi helped viewer feel a little relatable, she was not a good role model and did not teach anything inspiring – other than despite being a shitty person, people will still keep forgiving you and be there for you; because honey, this won’t happen in real life.
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