CHENNAI: Avantika, the Indian-origin American actor who has shot to fame with a fresh remake of Mean Girls, has been honoured with the South Asian Person of the Year Award from Harvard University. In her acceptance speech, she dedicated the award to people who are fighting on behalf of the people (“our people”) of Gaza, who are currently experiencing genocidal military attacks. This has infuriated rightwing trolls in India.
Avantika is just 19 years old, and at the start of her career. To take a stand now is brave. As an American citizen, speaking up for Palestinians at a time when her own government is funding Israel’s attacks on them makes her a voice of dissent — always an unpopular stance in the eyes of the elite and the moneyed influential in any industry. As a person of Indian origin, and as someone who has also found work opportunities in South Indian cinema, she runs the risk of losing opportunities.
Her Indian online detractors demand that she be stripped of OCI status, have her visa revoked and so on. Saved screenshots of deleted posts in which Avantika expressed support for Kashmiri self-determination were also shared (that she deleted them at all indicates prior bullying). Whether or not these trolls will have their demands met is immaterial — the culture of silencing and censorship that they espouse dominates all discourse in India today, as well as among NRI populations.
Avantika has also recently dealt with racist American trolls responding to rumours that she would play the lead in a new live action movie based on the animated film Tangled, which itself was based on the Grimm Brothers’ Rapunzel. It turned out, however, that the rumour was spun out of a stray thought that a social media user put out, and no such film is in the works. For now, anyway. Producers may do well to take notes on how to cast it. She’d be perfect for the role. Tangled is about maternal abuse, a topic of great importance in South Asian communities. Plus — good South Asian hair genes!
One can’t help but make a comparison between an emerging talent like Avantika and the most successful South Asian actor in the West today: Priyanka Chopra. Unlike Avantika, Chopra has consistently taken problematic stances that lean right-wing. When it suits her, she uses the label of person of colour to make strides internationally, while thoroughly enjoying proximity to power in India.
Some of Avantika’s gumption will wear away in time, as it does to us all with wave after wave of scorn and disillusionment, but hopefully the fundamental goodness and belief in human rights that she has openly displayed will not.
Avantika appeared to be a little bit out of breath and emotional, perhaps simply really excited, in the minute-long clip that trolls posted of her acceptance speech. After praising humanitarian workers in Gaza, she shared that she felt that this had been the year in which she had come into her own personhood. If this is who she chooses to be — a person who uses her platform conscientiously and beautifully — then she is deserving of this accolade and many more.