I have not been “on campus” for (checks notes) 49 years, for which I thank God on my knees every fucking day—and that ain’t no lie. So I am not the best person to review The Chair, a Netflix mini-series that has gotten props for taking a reasonably honest look at political correctness, sexism, racism, and, I guess, the damned cussedness of old people (more on this later) as depicted through the trials and tribulations of Professor Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra), newly minted first female chair of the English Department at New Englandy Pembroke University. But I was an English major—most definitely for better and for worse—so I felt that I ought to take a look.
There were several things to like. Ji-Yoon is not just “Asian”, but Korean. She speaks unaccented English, but at home, with her father, who speaks only Korean, well, she speaks it as well. It’s also “interesting”, if not actually likable, to learn that T. S. Eliot is still considered “heavy” (my word) on campus, at least according to co-writer Annie Julia Wyman, who received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 2017 and teaches there now.1 There’s also quite a funny bit when très branché2 black (of course) prof Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah) leads the kids in an adlib riff on Moby Dick, centering ultimately on the hilariously unself-consciously (or not) homoerotic spermaceti-squeezin’ passage, which I always thought très amusing myself back in the day.3
But then the clichés start piling up. We meet tortured, moody, brilliant, adored by the kids, self-destructive prof Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass). Not only is he tortured, moody, brilliant, adored by the kids, and self-destructive, his wife just died! Yo, authors! I hate being asked to feel sorry for a character! Furthermore, “the kids” adore him even though he always shows up late for class, hung over, and unprepared! Like, you know, every other “cool” guy in movie history! One has to ask why Annie and co-writer Amanda Peet4 felt compelled to make Bill a walking compendium of male screenwriter clichés. Can’t we at least have some female ones?
When we get a little glimpse of Ji-Yoon’s home life, it gets even worse. She’s a single mom—hubby split years ago for unknown reasons—given an adoptive daughter “Ju Ju” (Everly Carganilla), so that poor Ji-Yoon can get hit with monster guilt lines like “You’re not my real mother!” And then, wouldn’t you know it, whenever Ju-Ju needs her mom, well, there’s a crisis at work so mommy can’t be there. Gee, a charming protagonist who’s somehow “always” an absent parent! Never seen that before!
Well, I was already staggering from the burden, but when it turned out that Bill was—wait for it—great with kids! Especially Ju-Ju!—it was just one cliché too many. My gag reflex kicked into overdrive, and I bailed, switching to something less formulaic, like Gilligan’s Island.
Afterwords
Ji-Yoon’s many “more important than Ju-Ju” crises include endless budget cuts—because what is more useless than a BA in, you know, English—hyperventilatin’ PC undergrads, old fogy resistance to promotions for très branché women of color, and, perhaps most of all, refusal of old fogies to, you know, die! Like God intended! Because the only people you can safely make fun of these days are geezers and kids!
There are less grumpy, more coherent, and more substantive reviews available, by actual academic Daniel Drezner, Korean and former doctoral student Inkoo Kang, and Karen Tongson (first woman of color to be full professor of English at USC)
If you want to know how bad campus life can in fact be, check out Aaron Sibarium’s horror story for the Washington Free Beacon, recounting what happened to a Yale Law School student found guilty of talking trash while being a member of the Federalist Society. Imagine busting your ass to get into Yale Law School and then being told that said ass will be handed to you unless you kiss their ass in a most public and degrading manner. Shame the sinner! Shame him! And, what the hell, let’s throw a few rocks while we’re at it!
1. In her self-write-up at her Harvard site, Wyman says “My dissertation presents three readings of comic novels (by Dickens, Joyce, and Ben Lerner) not just to make the case that comedy has become late-phase capitalism's dominant aesthetic mode but to suggest that because life has become thinly, oppressively comic we need true comedy — its subversions and affirmations — more than ever.” Dunno how she thought Thomas Stearns Eliot fit in with late-phase capitalism, but I thought he was a major-league asshole when he wasn’t writing poetry and, often, even when he was.
2. “Branche” means “branch” in French, but used as an adjective, with the accent acute over the “e”, it means “plugged, trendy”.
3. Check out Chapter 94, “A Squeeze of the Hand”, for details.
4. The Amanda Peet.
