NEVER HAVE I EVER: Season One Overview

Name: NEVER HAVE I EVER: Season One Overview
Item: NEVER HAVE I EVER: Season One Overview
Author: Tess Farrand

"Too Sexy for High School"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

NEVER HAVE I EVER is a crass coming-of-age story about a first-generation Indian girl named Devi. Devi’s father died, so she now lives with her mom and beautiful cousin. Devi is a bit of a social outcast. She briefly lost the use of her legs her freshman year of high school. She can use them again because she wants to stand up to see a boy. Devi is good at her studies, but she believes she needs a boyfriend to be accepted.

NEVER HAVE I EVER has a strong overarching Hindu worldview, which makes it unappealing for Christian audiences. Devi prays to a shrine of Hindu gods in the first episode. There’s also a running gag that one of her textbooks can’t hit the ground because it’s been blessed by Hindu gods. The program, aimed at teenagers, also has foul language, occasional drug references, and many sexual references and jokes. One teenage boy is clearly a homosexual. The program’s quality is only average. The actors could have used more chemistry. Overall, MOVIEGUIDE® found NEVER HAVE I EVER to be excessive and unacceptable.

Content:

(FRFRFR, Ho, L, SS, N, DD, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong overarching Hindu worldview with prayers to a shrine of Hindu gods and a running joke about a textbook being blessed by the gods, plus one male student is clearly homosexual

Foul Language:

Each program usually has some foul language, including light profanities, occasional “d” or “s” words, girls are repeatedly called sexually undesirable using an “f” word, and an occasional anatomy profanity or vulgarity

Violence:

No violence

Sex:

Strong sexual references include teenage girls are called sexually undesirable using an “f” word, girl asks boy to fornicate with her, girl prays to have sexual relations, zoomed-in shot of a boy’s crotch while he has a swimsuit, teacher calls out a boy for wanting to look at girl’s breasts, one teenage boy is clearly homosexual, and teenagers often look at one another as sexual objects

Nudity:

Significant upper male nudity and teenage girls often wear immodest clothing

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Girl continually asks someone to prescribe her prescription drugs, boy accused of being a hillbilly tweaker, girl wants the opportunity to be exposed to hard drugs so she can say no; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Strong miscellaneous immorality overall such as friends lie to each other about boyfriends, racism and teenage daughter disrespects her mother.

More Detail:

NEVER HAVE I EVER is a crass coming-of-age story about a first-generation Indian girl named Devi. Devi is a bit of a social outcast who briefly lost the use of her legs her freshman year of high school. She can use them again because she wants to stand up to see a boy. Her small friend group is ethnically diverse, and other high schoolers call them the UN. Devi assumes it’s because of their races working together like the United Nations, but it’s actually because many of the boys consider them UN-f* ( a filthy word for not promiscuous).

Devi’s father died of a heart attack, and she now lives with her mom and beautiful cousin. Devi is good at school, where she’s also in a competition with a stereotypical white man who loves hot cheerleaders and girl’s physical assests. Teachers even call him out on it. Devi insists that in order for her friend group to be popular, they must get boyfriends. These are not innocent first relationships, however. In order to impress boys, Devi decides she’s going to dress sexy and put on a short skirt. She decides her first boyfriend should be a boy named Jonah who’s clearly homosexual. Devi only wants to date Jonah because her real crush, Paxton, is out of her league. She lusts after him when he jumps out of the pool, and there’s even a brief camera shot zooming in on his crotch.

Devi’s teacher tries to encourage her by giving her a grief journal. Rather than read the grief journal, Devi has a conversation with her dead father and feels empowered to go talk to Paxton after swim practice. What one would assume would be her introducing herself and asking him out actually turns into Devi point blank offering to have sexual relations with him if he wants it. Paxton agrees, but says to schedule it for a later date.

The show’s continuity is a bit confusing, with tennis legend John McEnroe narrating the life of a young Indian woman. The quality is par for the course for Netflix, which is to say it’s not the worst, but it’s also not Emmy-winning material. The actors could have used more chemistry.

NEVER HAVE I EVER has a strong overarching Hindu worldview. Devi prays to a shrine of Hindu gods at the beginning of the series. There’s a running gag that one of her school textbooks can’t hit the ground because it’s been blessed by the gods. The program, aimed at teenagers, has an excessive amount of sexual references and jokes, some foul language and an overarching Hindu worldview that make it unappealing for family audiences. Also, one teenage boy is clearly a homosexual. Overall, MOVIEGUIDE® found NEVER HAVE I EVER to be excessive and unacceptable.

Watch NEVER HAVE I EVER: Season One Overview →

Quality:

- Content: -3