Let’s Call This Season’s Mindy Project Storyline What It Really Is: Abuse

Danny Castellano, Mindy’s coworker/fiancé /baby-daddy isn’t shy about his pretty antiquated desires for her to leave work and stay home to take care of their newborn son, Leo. Not only that, but he also wants her to get pregnant again as soon as possible. Utilizing the Italian mamma’s-boy stereotype as a plot device, the show’s writers have taken the same man who once wooed Mindy by performing a panty-moistening dance routine and now have him doing things like tracking Mindy’s ovulation and saying he doesn’t wear condoms because they “make his dick sweat”—all in the hopes that Mindy will “accidentally” get knocked up. 

He also calls Mindy selfish for wanting to work. He criticizes her parenting skills. He literally says things like, “You’re too busy getting half of Manhattan knocked up, and Leo is out there by himself alone playing patty-cake against a wall while his mom is working.” Danny has become a parody of the type of guy who holds women back. He doesn’t trust Mindy to make her own decisions and values his own happiness over hers. Not only that, but he manipulates her by putting their wedding on hold when she won’t relent to his demand to quit her job and birth more children. Simply put, he is the worst. 

Mindy has explicitly told Danny that she doesn’t want more children just yet, however, when she finds out his devious insemination plan, she decides not to confront him about it. Instead, she secretly goes on birth control.

“He doesn’t trust Mindy to make her own decisions and values his own happiness over hers.” 

It’s always been odd that a highly intelligent, successful female gynecologist would get pregnant without planning it (I’m not saying it can’t happen, but…). But it’s a sign of a much bigger issue that she would stay with a man who doesn’t respect her autonomy and is plotting to get her pregnant again without her consent. There’s nothing rom-com cute about this. What this is is wildly problematic and very, very sad. 

In her recap for The Atlantic, Megan Garber writes that this is just a form of boring romance, and the necessary conversation Mindy and Danny need to have is “the stuff that is not at all romantic but that is, for better or for worse, life.” But it’s more than that. Accidents happen, but if someone is purposefully trying to get you pregnant when you don’t want to be, that’s straight-up abuse. It doesn’t matter if you’re engaged, married, or already have children together—it’s abuse. And it’s really uncomfortable to watch it be portrayed as anything else.  

As the The Guardian recently pointed out, in some parts of the world, like Afghanistan, women must secretly take birth control to prevent pregnancy. But Afghanistan is a country where the majority of women are treated as property, and even though the Qur’an says that women should use contraception to space out their pregnancies, preventing reproduction is not discussed because reproduction is still (in not all, but in many cultures) considered the ultimate purpose for women. Thus, women are forced (like they have always been forced) to take family planning into their own hands and risk facing extremely dire consequences if their husbands find out. This is serious stuff there—and there’s a good reason no one is making romantic comedies about it.  

“If someone is purposefully trying to get you pregnant when you don’t want to get pregnant, that’s straight-up abuse.”

However, here in America—where our reproductive rights are still far from ideal—we do have the freedom to do things like buy condoms for ourselves, have almost any primary-care doctor prescribe us free birth control, and more importantly, choose partners to whom we represent more than a vessel for child-rearing. We are very lucky in that regard, and yet too many women are still stuck in unequal and sometimes abusive relationships. This is why this season of The Mindy Project is so sad to watch—it’s not just about Danny turning into a bad guy, but also about Mindy being unable to stand up for herself for all sorts of complicated reasons. 

I still have very fond sexual feelings about pre-season four Danny Castellano, and I understand that it’s easy to be swept away by the allure of a taboo office romance, the charm of Chris Messina’s rugged looks, and the generosity of a smooth dance performance choreographed only for Mindy. But here’s the thing: When Danny asks Mindy to abandon her gold standard of having it all to stay home and raise children, my lady-boner immediately shrivels up and dies. It doesn’t matter how cute he is—I want the Mindys of the world to be happy, and I don’t want any of the Dannys of the world to get in their way. 

“It’s not just about Danny turning into a bad guy, but also about Mindy being unable to stand up for herself for all sorts of complicated reasons.” 

In her Atlantic piece, Garber suggests that perhaps Mindy and Danny have a “Real Talk”—“the thing that is in some sense romance’s opposite: the mundane decisions and revisions that are necessary when two lives are woven together.” But I would like to suggest something else: Mindy needs to just get the fuck out of there entirely. Leaving Danny won’t be easy, but it’s what she needs to do. Hopefully all her friends who have witnessed his asshole-ery will be there to support her along the way. 

Caitlin Abber is the senior editor at WomensHealthMag.com. Follow her on Twitter.