Sandra Oh continues to have an epic television career — from the fierce Cristina Yang in the operating rooms of Grey’s Anatomy to the clever Eve Polastri navigating her way through the intelligence agency in Killing Eve, Oh never shies away from portraying ambitious women on screen. In her latest endeavor, Netflix’s The Chair, she plays Ji-Yoon Kim, Pembroke University’s newly appointed English department chair, who tries to balance work and her personal life as they continue to intersect.
The Chair tackles many important issues, such as equal pay, lack of diversity in the academe, and grief, but it also gives us a look of what ‘cancel culture‘ looks like from the inside. The series kicks off with Ji-Yoon immediately dealing with the lack of enrollment in her department. As if that problem weren’t enough, she now also has to deal with one of her department’s most beloved and well respected professors, Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass), routinely coming to class late and intoxicated. The two are close friends, putting her in a difficult position, seeing that Bill doesn’t take her threats for him to pull it together seriously. This dynamic becomes more difficult when Bill faces the danger of suspension when his students discover a Nazi joke in one of his past video lectures.
The university earns heat on social media from the students posting tweets like, “No Nazis at Pembroke!” forcing Pembroke to clean up their image to please current donors and potential sponsors. Interestingly enough, this begins the conversation on cancel culture, and audiences get to see how an institution views a situation like this. Eventually, the dean himself (David Morse) asks Bill to issue a statement with the help of their public relations person; however, he refuses to do so and proposes to hold a town hall instead. Attempting to patch things up, Bill openly apologizes to his students in the episode “Town Hall,” which doesn’t go his way and lands him a temporary suspension.
From the get-go, it is obvious that the show prides itself on having Oh front and center, but eventually struggles in creating the correct narrative for her character. When Bill is forced to ponder his actions as he awaits his disciplinary hearing by staying at home and babysitting Ji-Yoon’s daughter, Ju-Ju (Everly Carganilla), the newly appointed chair is left to pick up the pieces back at Pembroke. In addition, instead of letting Ji-Yoon venture off on her own, she winds up looking like the protector of his image and sacrifices her position, leaving no room for its main character to grow and leading Ji-Yoon into further hot water when she attempts to fix Bill’s mistakes.
On the other hand, The Chair reveals to us the inner workings of an institution handling cancel culture, making for an interesting conversation. Not only does it give us a glimpse of Pembroke saving their image, but it also shows us a more humane side of the situation. Ultimately, Ji-Yoon is just attempting to assist her friend Bill as he struggles through his bad days, even if that wasn’t the case the students believed. As the show backpedals on Ji-Yoon’s narrative in the show, one of the things that always prevailed was her friendship with Bill, making the case that being involved in this kind of situation is not always as black and white as it often seems and that in the end the people involved are just humans trying to repair their faults.
The Chair tackles cancel culture from the inside, as well as revealing the consequences of its nature, particularly how things can be taken out of context, especially in the heat of the moment. For instance, Bill’s teaching assistant, Lila (Mallory Low), accidentally talks to a reporter about the controversy and states she wants no part in it to avoid further fuss. However, Lila forgets to state it’s off the record, leaving her statement open to interpretation. This eventually ends up in an article exposing Ji-Yoon issuing a gag order, placing her into another disadvantage in the eyes of Pembroke.
In the penultimate episode, “The Last Bus in Town,” the main concern of the institution is seen, which is to earn back the trust of its stakeholders. The dean himself offers no remorse for Bill, the students’ concern, or even the situation itself. Even at the end of the series, Pembroke holds firm to protect their image by firing Bill, stating that the more this issue drags on the harder it is to manage the students’ concerns. With this decision, The Chair shows the indifference of Pembroke, informing us that this big and sudden change did not come from a place of growth, but rather a response to outrage and a form of people-pleasing. Ji-Yoon’s words in the finale have never rung so true until this exact exchange: “Our job is not to trick them or make them fall in line. Our job is to offer refuge from the bullshit, to level with them.”
The show also communicates to the viewers that even institutions are subject to catering to a persona, not only to its donors but also to the student body. Pembroke’s handling of the situation proves to be even more faulty when they plan on firing Ji-Yoon, but ultimately choose not to in order to avoid another controversy. However, this doesn’t save Ji-Yoon from the wrath of her older colleagues as they proceed to vote her out as the department chair.
In the end, Pembroke’s apathy on the matter proves to be firm when Bill’s employment is terminated and Ji-Yoon is out as the chair. While seeing the now ex-department chair out of her position is a bummer, this could be good for Oh’s character if The Chair has its second season. It would be interesting to see if Pembroke’s handling of the situation answered the students’ concerns and if Ji-Yoon’s arc can be explored further in ways that don’t let her take the backseat, considering there’s a potential to see her learn from her experience as chair and further her mother-daughter relationship with Ju-Ju. One thing’s sure: Oh knows how to deliver a punch of performance even when the spotlight is not on her.
