Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Part 5 returns to the subject of Body Image and Self-Confidence, bookending Kaling’s earlier remarks on the theme as she navigated her weight and fitness as a child. Kaling uses juxtaposition once more to remind readers of this distinction and adds another photo of herself as a child with large glasses and a bulky sweater.

Wearing designer clothes and being made up by stylists are considered well-known features of the celebrity lifestyle, but Kaling argues that Hollywood has not yet learned how to match the evolving shift in thinking about body size. The writer utilizes a listing literary device to clue the reader into the types of outfits stylists tend to select for women with large bodies. These outfits are frumpy, baggy, and formless. Despite her status as “plus size” by Hollywood standards, Kaling shares that she wears a size eight, notably on the lower side of the American average.

Kaling’s approach to body image in Hollywood serves as another juxtaposition—this time to her approach as a child. When she was a little girl, Kaling felt bad that her body did not look like her classmates’ sizes. After Pursuing a Career in Film Media, Kaling was armed with new skills and outlooks that changed how she managed the narrow views of others. Her story of a photoshoot for People magazine offers insight into how her approach has changed over time and serves as a climax to the narrative of this building theme: “I went into the stall, sat down on a kid-size toilet and cried. Why didn’t I just lose twenty pounds so I never had to be in this situation again?” (195). Kaling’s question mirrors the insecurities of her childhood.

However, when Kaling sees a note scribbled by a student on the wall of the bathroom stall along a small dollop of feces, she cannot help but laugh. Her career in comedy has taught her to find the humor in everything and to recognize that this, like every other challenge in her life, could be faced. Kaling leaves the bathroom and insists that the stylist make something else work for her besides a shapeless navy shift. Her action exhibits the confidence and gumption that she learned over time while working in the entertainment industry. Her skills as an observer taught her that telling the stylist that the other outfits made her feel uncomfortable would guarantee a result. Kaling sees her humor as part of what makes her beautiful. At the end of the photo shoot, she brings a friend to the bathroom to show off the graffiti. The ending of this small narrative reveals Kaling’s growth in self-confidence and body image.

Chapters 31 and 32 further apply this humor to the topic of Body Image and Self-Confidence. Kaling shares pictures from her phone and is both self-deprecating and self-inflating about her appearance. She jokes again about her inabilities as an athlete and shares that the only way she can work out is by constructing elaborate revenge fantasies in her head. Due to her confidence, Kaling is able to poke fun at a part of herself that used to be an insecurity.