Streaming Our Discontents: Amazon Prime’s ‘We Were Liars’ is a Missed Opportunity for Meaningful Caste Representation

Amazon Prime’s “We Were Liars,” based on E. Lockhart’s bestselling young adult novel, joins the growing roster of television shows about the wealthy elite’s summer escapades. The series premiered on June 18, 2025, and follows 17-year-old Cadence Sinclair Eastman as she returns to her family’s private island after a mysterious accident left her with amnesia.

While the show has garnered attention for its psychological thriller elements and star-studded cast including Emily Alyn Lind, Shubham Maheshwari, and Mamie Gummer, it has also drawn significant academic scrutiny for its handling—or lack thereof—of caste representation in American television.

A Breakthrough That Wasn’t

According to scholar Sohini Sarah Pillai, writing for Religion Dispatches, “We Were Liars” represents “perhaps the first mainstream program to directly acknowledge caste and casteism” in American television. This acknowledgment comes through a pivotal scene in the fourth episode, where Indian American character Gatwick “Gat” Patil (played by Shubham Maheshwari) encounters his white love interest Cadence reading Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 bestseller “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”

Pillai, an Indian American scholar of South Asian religions and media, notes the significance of this moment against the backdrop of her own experience “growing up only seeing other South Asians represented on TV by The Simpsons’ controversial Apu Nahasapeemapetilon character.” The appearance of Wilkerson’s book—which draws parallels between U.S. racism and India’s caste system—seemed to promise a meaningful engagement with these complex social hierarchies.

Surface-Level Representation

However, as Pillai’s analysis reveals, the show squanders this opportunity. Rather than exploring the implications of caste or its relevance to American society, “We Were Liars” reduces the moment to a mere visual reference. Cadence dismisses Caste as a “performative social justice how-to manual,” and the conversation goes no further.

This superficial treatment is particularly problematic given the show’s broader context. Pillai points out that while South Asian characters have become increasingly common in American television—from “The Mindy Project” to “Bridgerton” to “Never Have I Ever” — these representations consistently feature characters from caste-privileged backgrounds. “To the best of my knowledge,” Pillai writes, “no American TV shows include caste-oppressed South Asian characters from Shudra, Dalit, or Adivasi communities.”

The Erasure of Caste in American Media

Pillai’s analysis extends beyond “We Were Liars” to examine the broader pattern of caste erasure in American television. She demonstrates how South Asian characters across popular shows can be identified as coming from privileged castes through surnames, cultural practices, and regional markers that would be recognizable to South Asian audiences but invisible to others.

While the industry has made strides in moving beyond crude stereotypes like Apu, it has largely replaced them with a narrow band of upper-caste characters.

For instance, she notes how The Mindy Project’s Mindy Lahiri bears a common Brahmin surname, while Bridgerton’s Sharma sisters and Never Have I Ever’s Devi Vishwakumar are marked through specific cultural and linguistic practices as belonging to Brahmin families. This pattern of representation, while providing increased visibility for South Asian actors, simultaneously perpetuates the invisibility of caste-oppressed communities.

The stakes of this representational gap extend far beyond television. Pillai emphasizes that caste-based discrimination is not merely a historical or subcontinental issue but an active force shaping American institutions. She cites reports of Dalit employees at major tech companies including Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Facebook facing harassment and discrimination from caste-privileged South Asian colleagues.

According to Equality Labs, this system of oppression affects nearly 6 million South Asian Americans, yet it remains largely invisible in popular culture. The failure of shows like “We Were Liars” to meaningfully engage with these realities contributes to what Pillai calls the “obscuring and perpetuating of casteism in American popular culture and broader society.”

The Limits of Diverse Casting

The production of “We Were Liars” made efforts toward inclusive representation, hiring four South Asian writers and crediting actors Shubham Maheshwari and Rahul Kohli with helping to “deepen the diversity” of the story. However, as Pillai argues, “representation, while important, is insufficient.”

The show’s failure to meaningfully address caste despite literally featuring Wilkerson’s book illustrates this limitation. Surface-level diversity in casting and creative teams cannot substitute for substantive engagement with the systems of oppression that shape the lives of diaspora communities.

Pillai’s critique ultimately serves as a broader indictment of American television’s approach to South Asian representation. While the industry has made strides in moving beyond crude stereotypes like Apu, it has largely replaced them with a narrow band of upper-caste characters whose privilege remains unmarked and unexamined.

The irony is particularly sharp given that Amazon, the show’s distributor, is among the tech companies where caste-based discrimination has been documented. As Pillai notes, “at a time when tech billionaires and their platforms are having an unprecedented impact on American culture and U.S. domestic and foreign policy, ignoring caste and casteism’s influence on American culture just isn’t cutting it.”

“We Were Liars” had the opportunity to be genuinely groundbreaking in its approach to caste representation on American television. Instead, it serves as a case study in how good intentions and surface-level diversity can still perpetuate harmful omissions. The show’s treatment of caste as a prop rather than a lived reality reflects broader patterns in American media that continue to marginalize already vulnerable communities.

Pillai’s analysis serves as both a critique of this particular show and a call to action for the industry as a whole. Until American television is willing to engage seriously with the realities of caste oppression—both in diaspora communities and in the institutions that shape American society—increased representation will remain insufficient to address systemic inequities.

The missed opportunity of “We Were Liars” ultimately demonstrates that in the landscape of American media, visibility without substance can be just another form of erasure.