#I'm Villanelle to your Sandra Oh | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wearevillaneve · 2 years

Text

Sandra Oh the Homophobe? Yea or Nay: A Discussion (with Teeth!).

This entire debate spun out several essays from @anevolutionarynecessity's page where she makes her case that Sandra Oh is a homophobe. Some of her posts can be found here, here, and here. Anybody who's read this blog knows already this is a Sandra Oh safe space. I freely admit my bias toward her., but I'm not put off by having a tough discussion with someone who puts as much thought into their position as @anevolutionarynecessity has in her assessment that Sandra is indeed homophobic. I contend that the assessment is incorrect. And away we go. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve With all of this firmly in mind, it is literally only possible to deny that Sandra Oh is homophobic, and that this is a problem, if you’re wholly willfully blind to it. Or if you disingenuously choose to shut down this viewpoint by dismissing it or excluding it by narrowly focusing on Sandra Oh’s race. Again, Sandra Oh is both Asian and homophobic. And her race isn’t the point here, her disappointing and hurtful homophobia is. She’s complicit in Killing Eve’s homophobia.

That’s an accusation, but an accusation is not evidence. I am not trying to “shut down this viewpoint by dismissing it.” I disagree with it. That’s not the same thing. Nor am I excluding the viewpoint “by narrowly focusing on Sandra Oh’s race.” I’m expanding the discussion into an area you haven’t bothered to consider except to use Oh’s Korean heritage against her because South Korea’s culture is homophobic in your opinion. Sandra’s parents were born in South Korea. She was born in Canada, but if you want to use her parents’ birthplace to indict their daughter, I certainly can’t stop you. I agree that Sandra Oh is Asian. Whether she is homophobic depends on whether or not I accept your insistence that she is. I don’t. My belief is you built the roof first and then set forth to construct a house under it. The conclusion had been reached before you made a substantive case of Oh’s supposed homophobia.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve We know that Eve’s lover Villanelle is shot in the arms of the woman she loves, shortly after their passionate kiss and (implied) consummation of their same-sex romantic relationship. Sandra Oh even confirms Laura Neal’s disturbing viewpoint that Eve experienced a “rebirth”, as her comments in that awful recent Deadline interview identify her soul destroying scream as a “life cry.” Among Sandra’s many other shitty homophobic comments and her concerning roles over the years. I'm still waiting for the confirmation of what those "many other shitty homophobic comments" are. Do you have a quote where Sandra Oh says, "I hate doing these gay parts" or "Does anybody with half a brain really believe two women can have a happy relationship together?" That would really add some meat to this bone. What I've heard over the years is Oh casting doubt on the idea that there could be a happy ending for Eve and Villanelle. She disagrees with fans who crave just that, but what does she know? She's only played Eve Polastri over four seasons and 31 episodes. If Oh is guilty of anything it is not feeding into some in the fandom's desire for the Villaneve Endgame. Neither Oh nor Jodie Comer has gone all-in for such a thing, but only one of them has been put on blast for it.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve Sandra Oh has a proven track record of being a straight woman playing explicitly same sex roles and on top of that problematic roles. The same sex relationship in Catfight is fraught with hostility and violence and raw emotion in a way that so obviously draws comparisons to Eve and Villanelle in Killing Eve. We all know how Sandra Oh’s bisexual role in that turned out, don’t we?

Actually, we don’t because Sandra Oh is not bisexual in Catfight.

The same-sex relationship in Catfight is between Anne Heche and Alicia Silverstone, not Sandra Oh. She plays the ex-friend of Heche’s character. The synopsis for Catfight reads as follows: Two former college friends, who now find themselves in very different walks of life, meet up at a fancy cocktail party: Veronica has become the entitled, wine-loving wife of a rich businessman, while Ashley, along with her lover Lisa, struggles to make ends meet as an artist. As the two women reconnect, long-buried hostilities, jealousy, and anger explode into a vicious, bloody fight that leaves both of them battered and bruised.

So this is not the example of Sandra’s “problematic roles.” But I’m curious, if you have a problem with straight women playing same-sex roles, why is Jodie Comer’s name conspicuously absent in your damning of Sandra Oh playing these sort of parts? Is there a double standard at work here?

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve (cont) Catfight (2017) Sandra Oh plays a bisexual woman who runs into her ex girlfriend one night a social function and because of their unresolved romance and bitterness, they get into increasingly brutal fights that puts each of them in a coma. The violence and resentment escalates until they both have nothing left to lose but their lives. And they do. The movie ends with them literally beating each other to death.

Yeah, I saw the movie. Her co-star was Ann Heche, the former girlfriend of Ellen DeGeneres. It’s a black comedy that is brutally funny. I liked it. Sorry you didn’t, but the brutality is the point of the film. There have been literally hundred of films of men beating the snot out of each other for various reasons, but when it is two women squaring off and going toe-to-toe, blow-for-blow, it’s jarring as Oh and Heche discussed in an interview:

When you hear the title Catfight, you're expecting maybe a slap or some hair pulling. But you two full-on brawl in this. Why do you think that title was chosen?

Oh: I think that's one of the great things about the actual film. One of the things that I also liked about it is the actual title. Because it's exactly that -- you have an image of what a catfight is, and this film really upends it. Those images of what you might think a catfight is is not what these two characters do. At all.

Heche: It's also the depth of feeling that women have and how we express it. Like, women and our behavior, we're supposed to behave. But if we would let out our anger toward another girl, we wouldn't be violent. We'd just smack each other and pull each other's hair a little. Even "catfight" in its essence of fighting doesn't allow women to be powerful in the depth of emotion. I think that's one of the things that we liked exploring.

Like, if we can take all of this life that these two -- for lack of a more complicated term -- flawed women [have], who are so angry at themselves or the world or anybody else that they can blame, when you dig down as deep as you can possibly go to get yourself to the place that would make that fight happen, that starts to encompass what we think complicated women are about. And how it's expressed is through the fighting, and we loved that metaphor, obviously. I think, really, women are hungry to express themselves as we see men express themselves. But we've learned different ways to do it.

Having sat with you for about 15 minutes, you seem to get along really great. But you hear stories about how Hollywood and this industry can pit women against each other. Is that something you feel you've experienced?

Heche: You mean women who don't like women? Yeah, all the time. We're not those kind of women.

Oh:I haaate you. I know that you have expressed that before. I will say, for me, of course there is that, but [in] my experience, just the work that I've done over the past year -- all women, mostly women of color, directing and writing for me -- it's also my choice, to veer toward working with those people.

The blazing anger you have against Oh and seeming contempt for her has obscured the reality of how Oh purposefully seeks out projects with women to act with, women to be directed by, and to play the characters as they are written by women. This includes queer and bisexual women. But you are erasing all that because Oh has not articulated an unambiguous pro-gay, anti-homophobia position with the fervor and passion that you have for this issue. I contend no one is in a position of such purity to demand anyone else fight as hard for an issue as you are fighting it yourself.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve And because you mentioned Sandra Oh’s prominent same-sex roles, I’m going to point out a disturbing pattern in all of them: they’re tragedies where the lesbian couple is punished via the BYG trope (literal death) or a break up. Every. Single. One. Here’s specific examples: Under The Tuscan Sun (2003): Sandra Oh plays a pregnant lesbian whose partner breaks up with her. 3 Needles (2005): Sandra Oh plays a lesbian nun on a mission in Africa battling AIDS. Lots of death and tragedy.

It's great that you did the work to do a deep dive into Sandra’s same-sex roles, but this is a case of being edgy without having a point. Not one of those films was written or directed by Sandra. . She was hired to be an actor and that's her job. She may have some thoughts as to what her character might say or how she would respond, but she has no more power to change it on her own than a house painter can decide the owner’s home would look better in firetruck red than the light blue that was chosen.

Why is it Oh’s fault if these roles have tragic ends? The answer is it is not. By the way, you left out Tammy (2014) where Sandra plays the love interest of Kathy Bates. It’s a Melissa McCarthy comedy and I haven’t seen it, but if anyone has please let me know if Kathy and Sandra get run out of the neighborhood by vicious homophobes or hold hands and bravely, but tragically drive off a cliff together.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve Nor does an affluent celebrity ever deserve my defence, especially not when their success is earned on the backs of LGBTQ folks’ passion, dedication, and money. Not when that same celebrity is complicit in homophobia and BYG. I don’t care about awards, race, talent, industry, eloquence, education, culture, religion, gender, age, or even sexuality–homophobia is homophobia in all its vile forms. And I’m going to spend my time fighting it, instead of propping up homophobes.

As well you should. That’s your issue and you can fight for it as hard as you want and against anyone you want to fight with. That part about Sandra being an "affluent celebrity" whose success is earned on the backs of LGBTQ folks' passion, dedication, and money? That comes as a hyperbolic rant. Sandra Oh is not exploiting the LGBTQ community, but even if she was, why is she the ONLY person among the Killing Eve crew to receive ALL the blame?

You have singled out one person for all your righteous rage. You are blaming Sandra Oh in a way you are not blaming Jodie Comer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Emerald Fennell, Suzanne Heathcote, Laura Neal, and Sally Woodward Gentle who by your broad brush should be equally culpable in conspiring to bring Killing Eve to fruition and pushing an anti-gay agenda under the deception of a women-led production.

Your absence of anger against those heterosexual White women illustrates how the selectivity of your rage is allocated. You have all this bile to spill on Sandra Oh’s head, but not once do you condemn Comer for passing herself off as a queer woman for four seasons. Not once do you condemn Fiona Shaw, an open and married lesbian for accepting the role of Carolyn Martens, the woman so desperate to return to the MI6 patriarchy that she orders the assassination of Villanelle, the most prominent queer character on Killing Eve. Selective outrage is the worst kind of outrage and you have carved out exemptions for Killing Eve’s White actors, writers, and producers while absolutely shredding the Asian actress as a malicious homophobe.

This selectivity does your argument no favors.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve As with any actress taking on a major role, Sandra has furthered her career and made heaps of money because she played Eve, a bisexual character. Her success was fuelled by a fandom with over 80% queer people, and her contemptuous, condescending, and callous homophobic remarks that dismiss Eve’s sexuality and Villaneve are not something I will ever defend. Yes, you’ve made that clear, but where does your figure of the Killing Eve fandom being 80 percent queer people come from? That number seems high and arbitrary. What's the source for that percentage?

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve Aside of the government policies, Sandra Oh has spoken candidly about being raised by her Korean parents, and in strict Christian household. She’s very much a contemporary woman but she’s also had to grapple with her upbringing just like everyone else. You can’t ignore that aspect of her culture and race either. Finally, I love that Sandra brought her Korean culture to Eve’s character. It’s enriching. But in real world terms, Sandra’s homophobia does real harm.

What does Sandra being raised by religious parents have to do with your conclusion that she is homophobic? You seem to be implying being religious equates to hostility toward gay people. What do her Korean parents have to do with this? Are they homophobic? How do you know that? Do you know if part of her “grappling with her upbringing” was throwing off the shackles of her homophobic religious indoctrination?

Unless you have proof of this, you’re throwing out bait of implied religious bigotry into the waters and hoping a shark swims by for a bite. This is just wild speculation on your part. You can't fight religious intolerance by the religious with secular intolerance.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve All this brings me to my final point, and it’s one I really cannot emphasize enough: Sandra Oh being Asian and Sandra Oh being homophobic are not mutually exclusive. It’s well documented that in particular, South Korea is still homophobic in its society, culture, and economic policies. Feminists and LGBTQ activists in particular have struggled since 2007 to implement anti discrimination laws that have yet to pass. If you want to talk about race, then you have to acknowledge that.

No, not really, because that's a cultural issue, not a racial issue. South Koreans are not a race. This entire line you're pursuing hinges on the condemnation of an entire country. This attempt to make Sandra Oh a proxy for South Korea’s homophobic culture might work if she was a native South Korean, but she wasn’t even born there. Sandra’s parents were. She was born in Canada, but if you want to use her parents’ birthplace to suggest their supposed sins were passed onto their daughter, I certainly can’t stop you, but I won't entertain this sort of character assassination either.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve Sandra Oh is also straight. And so is Jodie Comer, and Camille Cottin, although in Camille’s interview with The Guardian she at least had the integrity to freely admit she was bisexual and tackle the burning question of if it was for her as a straight actress to play Hélène, an unapologetically same sex attracted woman. I critique Sandra on the basis of her sexuality too, because her remarks harm queer representation. I find it hard to believe you can’t see that as a dire issue. Okay, so which is it? Is Camille Cottin straight or is she bisexual, because you just described her as both, so I'm a bit confused here?

By the way, when did Sandra Oh declare she was straight? I missed that announcement. How do you know which direction her sexual orientation compass points and what is your point if she is straight? Surely you are not suggesting straight women should not play queer characters, because if you are I cannot wait to see how you rewrite your rules for Jodie Comer.

Or maybe you already have?

I've never understood why you exempt Jodie Comer from the stinging criticism you blast out at Sandra Oh. Comer gets a total pass from you despite playing the character who was presented early as coded bisexual and then as the show went on became exclusively focused on same-sex encounters. Wasn’t Comer the one who said in a post-Season 3 interview that Villanelle and Eve walk away from each other on the bridge? That might be where Laura Neal got her stupid idea to open Season Four with the two of them split apart for seven to eight months and at odds with each other again.

That also gets a pass from you. The lengths you are going to blame Oh while absolve Comer is transparent.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve And here are my closing points for you to consider, if you can: 4) Sandra Oh does not represent or speak for all Asian women, and she certainly is not representative of their typical struggles because she’s an affluent actress with tremendous, enduring popularity. I critique her along the lines of her privileged status that affords her the ability to overcome the hardship of racism comparatively easily to others groups. Her wealth and status eases many of her struggles.

It took me a few cracks at this to dial this down, but let me be direct with you @anevolutionarynecessity As a White woman, you are not remotely qualified to critique how Sandra Oh does or does not represent Asian women. You have not spent one second of your life as an Asian woman. You know nothing of what their typical struggles are. The sheer audacity takes to even suggest you possess more insight into the Asian condition in America than Oh does is infuriating in its audacity and its arrogance.

Sandra Oh is iconic in the Asian community. She is a beloved role model who gives back to and stands up for the Asian community. I know after a mass shooting of Asians in Atlanta I saw an impassioned Oh stand on a street in Pittsburgh yelling into a bullhorn to assert her right as an Asian person to simply live and be here in the U.S. She didn't HAVE to be there. She didn't take a public stand to defend Asians who don't have as much money as she has or isn't as "popular" as she is. She did it despite the fact there was nothing of direct benefit to her. She wasn't promoting a movie or a TV show and she wasn't doing it for clicks, lives, retweets, or to trend on Twitter.

She did it because people who look like HER were being gunned down and she was PISSED THE FUCK OFF about it! Sandra Oh’s “privileged status” didn’t get her the role of Eve Polastri. After reading the script, she didn’t even know what role she was playing on the show. She said she had been so brainwashed by the racism she had experienced that she couldn’t even imagine herself as the lead role in a television series. And here you come along saying because she’s made some money and has a little popularity, she’s been insulated from the bigotry Asian people face every damn day in this country.

How absurd. How wrong you are to try to diminish and erase the woman who said, “It’s an honor just to be Asian.” and "Stop Asian Hate."

What even qualifies you to go at her in such a way?

Nobody speaks for all Black people. Nobody speaks for all gays. Nobody speaks for all lesbians. Nobody speaks for all bisexuals. Nobody even speaks for the entire Killing Eve fandom. Nobody speaks for everyone in any group.

But one thing is certain. Nobody OUTSIDE of a historically oppressed and discriminated group gets to speak whether someone INSIDE the group belongs there and definitely not a Caucasian woman declaring an Asian woman who has some money and achieved a degree of success and fame has forgotten the prejudice and discrimination she faced (and still faces). That is an appalling display of smug hubris and this is the part of this entire discussion that actually made me angry. It is so unfair and untrue.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve If Sandra was a man or if she was white or in any other industry this would be textbook toxic workplace abuse. It’s the same thing with Sandra’s homophobic remarks–which by the way, I am not “reading into” with I’ll intent or hanging onto her words, I am literally QUOTING the woman’s words herself. Sandra is literally expressing herself and her own mind, and you are one of the loudest people falling over yourselves to defend her at all costs. Sorry, but I don’t do that.

Sandra is not a man. Sandra is not White, but you are and so is Jodie who is for reasons unexplained totally immunized from any criticism.

What you call a toxic workplace sounds to me like honest disagreements on Grey’s Anatomy that occurred between an actress (Sandra Oh) and the showrunner (Shonda Rhimes). If Oh were that toxic on the show they would have simply fired her ass the way they did Isiah Washington who DID make homophobic remarks about another actor on the show. There have been ZERO reports of Sandra engaging in “textbook toxic workplace abuse” on the set of Killing Eve. But by all means let’s dredge up some rumors about her interaction with Rhimes on the set of a show she left over a decade ago. Apparently, there’s no statute of limitations on Oh’s bad behavior. Behavior that was so egregious when Sandra made the TIME 100 list in 2019, Rhimes wrote this about her:.

One of the greatest gifts of my creative life has been the opportunity to write words to be spoken by Sandra Oh. The reason is simple: Sandra Oh is a virtuoso. She treats dialogue like notes of music—every word must be played, every syllable correctly toned. She’s always been an extraordinary actor. Her body of work makes that clear. Ten years of playing Dr. Cristina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy made her place in the acting landscape undeniable. Her award-winning turn as Killing Eve’s Eve Polastri makes her legendary.

Her comic timing is priceless. Her dramatic well is endless. Her talent is a song to be heard. With her nuanced characters, Sandra Oh has chosen to fearlessly take up space in a universe that has not always made space for her. Now, the power of her talented presence makes space for others. And that is a gift to every artist of color who follows in her footsteps.

Wow. Such glowing praise from Rhimes for such a terrible human being. It’s SO bizarre.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve Sandra herself mentions race wasn’t even a factor of concern at the beginning, until Sandra herself became more demanding as she approached her departure from the show. Instead of showing solidarity with Shonda, Sandra threw temper tantrums and abused her influence as an actress for a beloved character to pressure her conworkers into giving her the story lines she demanded. Again, all as reported by Glamour and Variety. Sorry, but until you produce the evidence of these alleged “temper tantrums” and how Sandra “abused her influence as an actress” allegations are all they are. If Glamour and Variety reported this obnoxious behavior it shouldn’t be hard to find the link to those stories, please provide a link. Otherwise, I can’t accept the veracity of these allegations simply on your say-so. Sandra has described the sudden rise to fame on Grey’s Anatomy as “traumatic” and harmful to her mental health, but I suppose that is irrelevant to casting her in the part of a shit-stirring prima donna.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve You also mention SO and Grey’s Anatomy, but neglect to mention that she constantly pressured and fought with Shonda Rhimes, a black woman, the show runner, head writer, and executive producer. Glamour and Variety articles report that Sandra bullied the writers and Shonda into changing Christina Yang’s entire character arc to suit Sandra’s every whim. She was literally gloating about fighting every day with them. And the strangest part? It wasn’t about Sandra Oh’s race.

See above. Proof, or it didn’t happen.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve You can’t be angry about the obstacles racism poses for SO and then reduce everyone else down to their own race, which they never chose, especially if they’re white. But once again, with utmost feeling, this isn’t about Sandra Oh’s struggles with the racism she’s over come or about her race. This is about her homophobia, and my reply to Anon was a case in point.

I disagree. This IS about Sandra Oh’s struggles with the racism she’s overcome and her race. I understand why you don’t want it to be about that because it undercuts your argument, but the unhappy fact is race does matter and it is relevant to this discussion. You made it that way when you singled Sandra Oh out for your righteous rage but carved out an exemption for Jodie Comer who played the openly queer role of Villanelle.

The KE fandom has always had a marked preference for Comer over Oh, and I totally get it. There are a lot of young White women in the fandom and naturally they gravitate to the character who looks like them and is closer to their age and racial demographic.

But if you want to tell me the obstacles Oh has faced to stay relevant and, in the picture, when Suzanne Heathcote deliberately reduced her to near-supporting cast status and sidelined her from an entire episode aren’t part of this discussion, then I don’t see what we are discussing has any merit to it.

Race does matter. Race always matters. You put an Asian woman in a role where even the original author didn’t make space for her, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge had to fight for Oh as her Eve Polastri and race matters. You put an Asian woman who is older than the White woman she’s playing off against and race matters. You put an Asian woman as the only person of color on the set of a television show and race sure as hell matters.

It only does not matter if you purposefully remove race from the equation because that doesn’t suit the agenda of scourging Sandra Oh for not speaking out against the rampant homophobia on Killing Eve that you have perceived as being present from the first minute of the first episode.

However, it begs the question of WHY is it only Sandra Oh that gets all this negative energy from you and everybody else evolved in the show gets NONE. It also makes one wonder why you have largely chosen to hold your fire until the show concluded.

It looks like the blame has fallen upon the Asian woman because her face and name is well known and she was the most prominent person in the production. By going scorched earth on Sandra Oh and nobody else that lends to the perception her race factors into why she and only she, is being singled out for this vitriolic attack.

Sandra Oh is being scapegoated.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve I was born during the Balkan wars. I almost died as a child from the bombings. I come from a homophobic culture, one that still hasn’t gotten any better. It is ridiculous and hurtful and again disingenuous for you to accuse every single white person as not speaking out enough about the racism SO faces because you see’ to have an axe to grind. I am not a typical North American Caucasian woman and it’s bold of you to assume other people are as well.

While I can and do respect the difficult circumstances you survived, you are still a White woman, I am still a Black man and Sandra is an Asian woman. We all live different lives and how we appear impacts how we move through this world. There is no hiding my Black face just as there is no hiding Sandra Oh’s Asian face and as Americans, we both have to deal with a racist culture. You are not viewed the same way. There are advantages to being White that people of color do not have, but this isn’t a “who’s got it worse” contest. Not being a typical North American Caucasian woman does not mean you can’t participate in the benefits of being White in a predominantly White world. Benefits that people of color like Sandra and myself cannot access with the same degree of ease that you do. It is simply a fact that race and gender stand out in a way that sexual orientation does not. I’m not here to tell you your concerns are invalid, but neither are you here to tell me mine are. I DO have “an axe to grind” in regard to race, but I make no apologies for that. Your axe is just as sharp when it comes to homophobia and you aren't making any apologies for it either.

The blade does not discriminate whose flesh it cuts and if my remarks in defense of Sandra Oh have been overly strident or accusatory or seemed like a personal attack, I sincerely apologize.

However, I will never apologize for standing up for women of color when they are being unjustly attacked. I've done this within the Black community and I have no reluctance to do the same when the attack comes from without by another community.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve 3) Your own lived experiences and your identity as a POC inform your perspective. I am not a POC, which is why I have also not seen it as my place to write 10,000 word essays about this topic. There’s no reason to take that maliciously. More to the point, even thought I’m not POC, I’m a Slavic lesbian woman. I was born in a multi-ethnic state that has its own complex, violent, harrowing struggles with racism and ethnocentrism and religion. It’s so delicate and complicated.

That which divides human beings is always so delicate and complicated. But what unites human beings are we all have the same basic needs. The reasons we shouldn’t be friends are many. The reasons we are comes down to we both dug the hell out of a silly television show and a bond was forged. Killing Eve was the place of confluence where all these disparate streams from around the world came together. All our differences became secondary to our commonalities. Now that the show is over the streams are diverging again and our differences are being pushed back to the forefront. We are not going to agree here. Not this time on this subject. That’s okay. I don't agree with your central argument or with some of the ways you are presenting it, but I won't say you are ALL wrong, because you aren't. We disagree, and we aren't going to reach a happy medium here. I fundamentally do not believe Sandra Oh is a homophobe. You do. Two different things can both be true. This is not a zero-sum game. Nobody has to “win” this.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve So please don’t be disingenuous. Especially when 2) Nothing in my particular answer to Anon even mentions Sandra’s race. This is not about Sandra being Asian. This is not about the obstacles she’s overcome. This is about her homophobic remarks, since 2019 and throughout the years. YOU explicitly chose to make this about Sandra Oh’s race. And that brings me to my next points. I made it about race only because you don’t believe it is relevant. On the contrary, it is very relevant and the targeting of the only prominent woman of color while taking pains to exclude EVERY White person who might be equally or even more justifiably accused of homophobia can’t be waved away as irrelevant. Why is Jodie Comer exempt from your critique? Why are the White writers and showrunners and producers and executives exempt from your critique? Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer have both only spoken once or twice publicly since the finale. Jodie takes no questions about Killing Eve focusing instead on her one-woman play. Sandra takes a question about Eve being straight and replies “No” and you say it doesn’t matter. Jodie’s silence is protecting her, but one day some interviewer who actually has some journalistic credentials will ask her about the finale and she will either have to lie, say “no comment” or give an honest answer. When she does, let’s meet back up here and see how many words her response prompts you to compose, because right now the number is ZERO.

It is my position that a bigot does not go out of their way to be around or exposed to groups they hate. IF I were to grant your point that Sandra Oh is homophobic, she’s a pretty contradictory one because she is constantly saying things no straight woman says and constantly taking parts where she is loving on women (usually White) instead of telling her agents, “Nah, I don’t want to kiss on any more girls.”

That’s not a defense. She’s an award-winning actress who could just be running an elaborate scam on the gays, but why and why for so long? Sandra is going to be 51 years old this year and she’s been in acting since her teens. Why gaslight the gays so long if she really hates them so much?

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve 1) You and I have been good friends for years. You very well know that I write whole ass dissertations about Killing Eve. And so do you 😉 And you reblogged this directly from me, too. So why don’t you call me out directly? Why take cheap shots and imply that a discussion of Sandra Oh facing racism is somehow not on my radar? You know it is. I was right there with you calling out the all-white writers room. And yet, when they added more POC it didn’t fix the story problems or BYG.

After Sandra called out Killing Eve’s lack of diversity on-set (and by default in the writer’s room as well), Sally Gentle added a Black woman, Isis Davis as a staff writer. She already had Kayleigh Llewellyn, among the openly queer writers, but that didn’t stop the show from killing gay characters (Villanelle, Helene, Fernanda, Carolyn’s father) left, right and center and it didn’t get us any more people of color beyond Yusuf, Pam and the return of Martin. There hasn’t been a prominent Asian character on Killing Eve since The Ghost two seasons ago.

This shows it isn’t enough to bring in a Black woman or a lesbian when straight White women are calling the shots and making the final decision. I just posted where Llewellyn said how she had to fight to get her story ideas in a room with nine writers and answering to three producers.

We’ll never know if Llewellyn would have given us all the Villanelle content we craved in a fifth season, but if people of color or gay people are always going to have to run a gauntlet of heterosexual gatekeepers to get their ideas taken seriously, there’s never going to be real substantive change taking place.

I reiterate that racism within the KE fandom is not the same priority for most Whites as it is for non-Whites. I know you’ve written about this on your own blog, but it’s not as nearly important to you as calling out homophobia and queerbaiting when you see it. It’s not a “cheap shot” to say Sandra Oh facing racism is not on your radar when it isn’t as important or relevant to you as it is for me.

anevolutionarynecessity said: @wearevillaneve You bring up so many good points here, including the misogyny and bigotry Sandra Oh has faced throughout her career. And especially the point that we all bring so many perspectives to discussions, including this one. There’s a few things I’d like to point out though, and I hope you’ll answer honestly.

When have I not?

There’s a Sandra Oh interview for Variety, post The Chair and pre-Killing Eve’s fourth season from February 2022 where she said, “The social media… It’s hard to gauge when it’s going to bite you. It doesn’t matter what your intention is, or what your reality is for you. When it gets out there, it doesn’t belong to you anymore… and I find that dangerous.”

This entire discussion, this entire debate we’re engaged demonstrates how terribly right Sandra is. It IS dangerous.

Someone can take one sentence from one interview in one sketchy publication, and it is hung around that entertainer’s neck like an anchor. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer haven’t done any more interviews with Gay Times since 2018. Even then there were two points of view whether or not Killing Eve and Oh were queerbaiting the audience, but the other side never got as much play as the initial comment.

I am a published writer with years and years of writings behind me. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to go back and find something I wrote that makes me look like the biggest asshole in the world. Most interviews are not the complete record of what was said between the interviewer and subject. I have no idea what the content was of Sandra Oh’s “you guys are tricky” comment to Gay Times, but I’m doubtful she was trying to gaslight the fans and bullshit the writer.

I try to assume good intentions until I have reason to no longer assume. You believe Sandra Oh is a homophobe. I do not, and that is where I'm going to leave this. There's no absolute wrong here and no right here. Just an honest difference of opinion without a middle ground in between the opposing viewpoints.

#killing eve #sandra oh #homophobia #queerbaiting #ke s4 #killing eve analysis #killing eve reactions #agree to disagree #two sides of the story #honest disagreement

31 notes · View notes