#we barely get a sense of who ji-yoon is as the chair or a teacher cause she just played pr crisis manager for him since the very start

[areyouleading]

I've literally only seen 1 episode of the chair so far, but already there is way too much focus on the guy for my liking😓 Sandra is incredible of course👏

yeah it's that x6

#listen it's got a lot of redeemable qualities and that makes me even more mad cause clearly and as expected the potential was there #but the writers just wormed him into every single aspect of the show i liked and made it almost impossible to try to #you know - judge even the positive aspects without him being in the way #like ju ju was an absolute standout for me but it feels like most of what shes been written in for is validate him #we barely get a sense of who ji-yoon is as the chair or a teacher cause she just played pr crisis manager for him since the very start #i loved joan and some of the conversations she introduced but really her own plotline was basically its own curve that barely intersected #the main plotline #dont even let me started about the hypocrisy of putting vague statements in the mouths of the borderline caricatural students #about performative intersectional feminism while being so blatantly guilty of it yourself (literally put a back woman in the promo #and then she's in it for maybe 10 scenes total) #dont get me started about episode 5 and the amount of screentime wasted there #also like how is this show a comedy #most of the humour is slapstick or the kid being a kid no merits to the writing there at all #im gonna rewatch it now that i know what to expect so i can properly appreciate the parts worth appreciating #but yeah please take woc characters away from yt women writers #the chair spoilers #i suppose that was not all i was gonna say then sorry #i feel so bad cause of course free guy also deserves a 3k words essay on everything that's wrong with it and i hate that i chose to pick on #this instead but i just hate when something is marketed as a brilliant innovative piece of media and then turns out to be this #a whole other essay could be written about how the whole nazi salute controversy plot read like a mockery of online activism

[wearevillaneve]

Today I watched "The Chair". When I saw that annoying, alcoholic manchild in the first episode I thought "Please, don't tell me that her character will spend the whole show babysitting that annoying, alcoholic manchild". And she didn't. She babysat him for half of the show, and spent the other half doing damage control for something he did, so her role as the chair lasted...how much? Two weeks? SMH.

(SPOILERS for Season One of The Chair follow.)

You're not the only one shaking your head. As soon as I saw Bill's bare, pasty ass as he took a leak, I knew we were on some bullshit. Despite some overeager asshole on Twitter spoiling the ending for me, I still enjoyed watching how Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim got there. The Chair is a solid "B", but there's a thing that prevents it from getting an "A." That thing was Jay Duplass as Bill, the shambling human train wreck. All that shit stopped the show dead in its tracks. Why is Ji-Yoon so desperately trying to help this man-child who screws up constantly, engages in numerous acts of self-destructive behavior repeatedly, and has a flippant and dismissive attitude toward her despite her being his boss? Where is the respect a woman of Dr. Kim's accomplishment is due? Bill disrespects Ji-Yoon from the jump, but we're supposed to identify with him because he lost his wife a year ago and when he's not being a drunken, stoned, selfish dick, he's supposed to be this really great teacher? Yeah, miss me with that. Ji-Yoon should have told Bill to go to rehab and then seek grief counseling.

A White guy like Bill gets to fail repeatedly and still receive chances to do the same shit all over again because he learns nothing from the experience. If you're dumb enough to give a Nazi salute in a classroom you can't play the victim when people start calling you a Nazi, so when Bill started whining to Ji-Yoon that she should do more to help him, she should have said "Go fuck yourself. As a privileged White man, you have all the advantages and none of the disadvantages except you don't like being called out on your bullshit and held responsible. Help yourself for a change instead of demanding the Asian woman to save your ass!" The Chair was not adverse to talking about matters of race, but they still put Bill and his entitlement front and center. I did not enjoy it. Bill brought all of his misfortunes down on his own head and by the end, I was pulling for his ass to get fired. They manufactured a limp pretext for it not to happen, but despite his funny interactions with Ju Ju, Bill was only slightly less of a brat than she was.

We're told Ji-Yoon and Bill have this old romantic relationship, but please explain in what world would Sandra Oh choose scruffy, messy, and probably smelly Jay Duplass over Daniel Dae Kim? Go back and look at the picture hanging on Ji-Yoon's dad's refrigerator and make it make sense because any world where that could happen is not the real world. I did enjoy Ji-Yoon's interactions with Holland Taylor as Joan and Nana Mensah as Yaz, as well her interactions with the students. Bob Balaban and the other crusty old White folks scheming to take down the two women of color was quite believable. With sexism, racism, ageism, gender politics, a single mom trying to raise a biracial adopted child, and more, The Chair covers a LOT of ground in only six 30+minute episodes but it does so nimbly. What made the show drag was when it kept trying to make me care about Bill and whatever that David Duchovny weirdness was. Neither of them worked for me at all. If The Chair gets a second season both characters should end up in the same trash can Joan set on fire.

I'm here for Ji-Yoon dropping F-bombs on the deserving fucking fucks, but she should have told Bill to fuck off with his tiresome issues. Romantically, there was no chemistry and no sparks. Not for one second did I buy that she found any of his act to be charming. If they must cast Sandra Oh with male actors, there are plenty of dudes, Asian and non-Asian, who would look more natural paired off with her, instead of seedy types like Duplass and Owen McDaniel as Niko on Killing Eve. Not only do they look the same, but they also look like they're one missed paycheck from standing by a freeway exit with a cardboard sign that reads, "Homeless. Will Teach For Food." Don't serve any more Niko Lite for Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim. Ditch Duplass in Season Two.

#The Chair #sandra oh #jay duplass #no chemistry #white guys #he was so annoying #daniel dae kim #holland taylor