But anyone hoping for the scripted series version of “Girls Gone Wild” or Playboy’s “Women of the Ivy League” will have to look elsewhere.
Created by Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble, the series stars Alyah Chanelle Scott as Whitney, a jock and a senator’s daughter; Renée Rapp as Leighton, a closeted Park Avenue princess; Amrit Kaur as Bela, a comedy nerd from a conservative background; and Pauline Chalamet as Kimberly, a regular nerd and a scholarship student.
AMRIT KAUR The universal fears of an 18-year-old are the same, really; their experiences are unique.
CHALAMET Instead of older women who have had years of practice and years of figuring out what they want? It’s like, I want to know that! I want to talk to the 50, 60, 70, 80-year-old women who are still having sex.
SCOTT I grew up with white women being centered in the idea of what is sexy, what is beautiful, and Black woman being centered in the idea of what is hot and scandalous and voluptuous and hypersexualized.
So to now have a character that has sex and has all these ideas about sex, that’s all really important.
I was like, man, five parties in a week? What was I doing in college? Studying? I didn’t party that much in college.
I was so attracted to theater school because everybody was crazy, and I came from such a conservative place.
I relate to Kimberly because she struggles to fit in, in a private university, where people seem to have so much money.
People were talking so much about their sex lives and who was sleeping with who.
My teachers were like, “Are you OK to do a kiss scene?” Because they’re seeing in the media that brown people are not sexual.
CHALAMET In universities like the one depicted here, which tend to be quite liberal institutions, I think there is more and more of an emphasis on, like, safe spaces.
SCOTT Just certain words and things.
SCOTT It was like, “We want everyone to feel their best, most comfortable, most confident.” For some people, they feel the most confident naked.
I talked to Justin : I was like, “I don’t feel good about this.” And Justin was like, “We can just cut the scene.” That was huge because then with that little leeway, I was like: “Actually, I’m OK.