‘Sex Lives of College Girls’ Fans Think One Character’s Behavior Would Get the Show Canceled if She Were Male; Why That’s Not True
Bela Malhorta (Amrit Kaur) is among the sex-positive characters in Mindy Kaling’s The Sex Lives of College Girls. While many find Bela’s attitude toward sex inspiring, others think the character would easily be considered offensive if she were male. One fan says the HBO Max series would be canceled if Bela were male, but we’ll discuss some of the sex-positive male characters who prove that isn’t true.
Bela loves two things: comedy and sex
The Sex Lives of College Girls character knows what she wants — to write solid comedy and have a lot of sex during her time at Essex College. “I’m super sex positive,” Bela tells her roommates in the series’ first season.
As a woman of South Asian descent, Bela’s attitude toward sex isn’t one that’s commonly portrayed on television. That was intentional on Kaling’s part and hasn’t gone unnoticed by viewers.
“What I really appreciated about Bela was the lack of soul-searching and hand-wringing,” Harleen Singh, associate professor of women’s studies and South Asian literature at Brandeis University, told NBC News. “She’s unapologetic.”
‘Sex Lives of College Girls’ viewer thinks Bela’s behavior would cause backlash in another world
“If Bela was a male character, the show would get so much backlash,” one Reddit user said. “She’s very weird and crosses a lot of boundaries…sexual ones too. She’s ok recording naked guys, going on dating apps in front of her hookup, wearing other people’s underwear.”
They added: “[I know] it’s just a show and she’s supposed to be a raunchy character but come on she’s just weird,” they concluded.
A few others in the thread agreed with this person, calling Bela’s behavior “a little juvenile sometimes.” Another said: “They make her too extra, it’s not funny; it’s annoying.”
And yet, The Sex Lives of College Girls is in its sophomore season, which debuted in November 2022, Bela remains a character, and her attitude toward sex is amplified. Clearly, something’s working.
Hyper-sexual male characters like Barney Stinson and Schmidy are fan favorites
We’re not here to critique someone else’s opinion, but we are here to point out the many over-sexualized male characters in television who are generally beloved among fans. Take Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) from How I Met Your Mother. He’s one of Ted Mosby’s (Josh Radnor) best friends in the series — the one who wrote “The Playbook” on how to pick up women. The show ran for nine seasons and ended because the cast felt like they had told their characters’ stories — not because of Barney’s overly sexualized, sometimes “cancelable” nature.
Another boundary-pushing male character from a beloved television series is Winston Saint-Marie Schmidt (Max Greenfield) from New Girl. Schmidt is a character who prides himself on appearance and strives to date only the best-looking women. Like HIMYM, New Girl had a successful run, lasting seven seasons. At the time, it became Fox’s longest-running live-action comedy.
These characters haven’t caused shows to get canceled — if anything, they’ve allowed them to grow in popularity because of how relatable they are. Usually, it’s when fans learn the actors themselves are inappropriately sexual behind the scenes that they get “canceled.”
Bela’s hyper-sexuality is a good thing in the world of ‘The Sex Lives of College Girls’
As Singh told NBC, “we’re all messy.” So a “messy character” like Bela is a reflection of human beings. On top of Bela mirroring how many women behave, she’s also an inspiration to those who might not feel comfortable being as outright as she is.
“I think that Bela is a lot more brave and outgoing than many of us were,” Trisha Sakhuja-Walia, CEO and co-founder of Brown Girl Magazine, told NBC. “But I think that almost every brown girl can see a little bit of herself in Bela. Even if they weren’t her, maybe they wanted to be like her.”
Note that Bela is a character in a fictional television series. As such, her behaviors are on the extreme end of the spectrum. However, that doesn’t make them any less sex-positive.
Watch The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max.
