YouTuber and TV host Lilly Singh is opening up about her latest movie, and she’s got plenty to say about important themes around women and sex in this country.
During a conversation with Kara Swisher at SHE Media’s SXSW panel, Singh got into details about Doin’ It, her new comedy about a 30-year-old virgin who gets a job teaching sex ed in high school. “It’s a commentary on sex education in schools and how there’s a lack thereof,” Singh says.
The 35-year-old says that the movie’s main character struggles with not feeling empowered, which is a theme she says plenty of women can relate to. “Essentially she’s unlearning shame, because shame is the weapon of mass destruction used against most girls and women,” Singh says. “I believe it is the thing that upholds the patriarchy honestly — shame.” Women are often shamed due to their views and actions around sex and sexual health, Singh adds.
But Singh also says she’s concerned at how social media plays a role in this, noting that it allows people to “rapidly” spread stories that can increase feelings of shame in women. “Everything you know is a story,” she says. “Culture is a story. The patriarchy is a story — it’s a story that’s been passed down. If we can change the stories, we can change the culture.”
And while Singh is grateful for the way in which social media allowed her to express herself in an unfiltered way and build a community when she first started out on YouTube, its evolution has taken a toll on her mental health.
“Over the past two years, I’ve had to do so much therapy around redefining what success means,” Singh explained, adding that since she launched her YouTube channel in 2010, her perception of her own success has often been tied to social media metrics. “Now I’m in this place where I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to create stories that talk about things that are really, really important to me. It’s okay if they don’t go viral.”
Singh also expressed concerns about the growth of AI and its role in all of this. “It will also spread bias at an alarmingly fast rate,” she says.
Singh points out that her main character “learned a bunch of stuff about what was right and what was wrong, how she’s supposed to act how to not act, and she just living for everyone else.”
Doin’ It was funded “by a group of South Asian people — majority doctors — who came together to finance this film,” Singh says. “It takes a village. This movie might not have been made by traditional means because it is through the lens of an Indian woman.” She adds that she’s “very proud” of the fact that the movie is independently financed.
This isn’t Singh’s first movie: She’s also released The Mindful Adventures of Unicorn Island and Kick Ass Drag Queen. She also has big plans for the future, including a movie that’s inspired by her mom and aunts.
“I’m obsessed with my mom,” Singh says. “She’s an immigrant woman from India who just crushes it and kills it.” According to Singh, her mom and aunts have a WhatsApp group chat that’s highly entertaining. “They make sex jokes, they do shots and they’re like not what we see on TV,” she says. “I want to make a heist movie about them.”
Singh also shares that she wants the women to be “empowered” in her future work. “They never treat themselves like the main character, I want to make them the main character,” she says. “I want to make stories like that.”
While Singh has her hand in a lot of different projects, she told She Knows last year that it’s important for her to make a positive impact. “Giving back remains so important and I continue to ensure it’s part of my everyday life,” she said.