On Royal Pains, the Indian female character Divya rejects her Indian fiancee Raj (depicted below) because she has a crush on a white character (Adam). As background, she works for a company called HankMed, a concierge medicine practice.

Then she gets strung along and knocked up by a different white guy.

According to Wikia, “In the second season, she becomes increasingly wary of her wedding (to Raj), culminating in her becoming infatuated with Adam, one of HankMed’s patients. In the season finale, after she and Raj are exposed to pneumonic plague, Divya decides to call off her wedding once and for all, as she felt the universe had sent her ‘one sign too many’ that she could not ignore.” (source: Royal Pains Wikia)

She then begins a torrid affair with another white character, Rafa. In the episode where they hook up (Season 4, Episode 10), there is no dating or even much conversation before hand. The scene is instructive. It begins at a polo event- a classically white pursuit and the entire audience is white.

Everyone talks up Rafa; he is clearly built up by the (white) group. Other white women express their approval of him. They talk glowingly of him and are overcome by lust.

This clearly has an effect on Divya who doesn’t seem to notice Rafa until the white majority manufactures a consensus. This is important to explain what happens next. Divya wanders into a barn by one of the horses. Rafa happens to be there as well. They exchange less than two minutes of conversation before Rafa spins Divya around and forces a kiss on her.

Divya is taken by surprise by it but then goes along with it.

The background is important because it shows how Asian women are influenced by the group to be open to romantic and sexual approaches by those deemed as higher social status. It is a kind of pre-selection by other women of a ‘worthy man’ that she should be “fortunate” to attract.

Studies indicate that women feel less agency in sexual interactions with men when they are insecure. In this demonstrated dynamic, it emboldens the white male to assert himself sexually with a minority woman because of this status advantage. Whereas the TV episode mirrors real life, it also influences real life by imbuing white males with sex symbol status.

Rafa hooks up with Divya repeatedly, then decides he doesn’t want to hang around. He leaves her pregnant & splits. Is it any wonder Asian women often find themselves in one-sided relationships with white men in real life and both parties view it as normal. They are too often viewed as a convenient, short-term sexual options for white men and Hollywood inculcates this idea. It sometimes even becomes a subconscious goal of Asian women to play this role, even if it doesn’t ultimately benefit them in the long-term.

In Hollywood, Asian women are often cast as love interests of white men; Asian men are rarely seen. They are often referenced in passing, usually as inadequate and therefore dumped in favor of the obviously better white man.

As for Divya, she is now flirting with yet another white guy- Jeremiah.

Have a look at the cuckold blueprint that Hollywood uses time and again to show a white male taking the Asian girl away from her Asian boyfriend, fiancee or husband – using the example of Royal Pains.





OFFENDER: USA Network

CATEGORY OF OFFENSE: Gender ( Cuckold)

MEDIA TYPE: TV Show





