{"id":15987,"date":"2021-12-13T22:19:52","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T22:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blue-subtitle.com\/blog\/?p=15987"},"modified":"2021-12-13T22:19:52","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T22:19:52","slug":"natasha-rothwell-margaret-qualley-sandra-oh-unpack-power-and-privilege-on-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blue-subtitle.com\/blog\/natasha-rothwell-margaret-qualley-sandra-oh-unpack-power-and-privilege-on-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Natasha Rothwell, Margaret Qualley, Sandra Oh Unpack Power and Privilege on TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

In tune with rising awareness of the world\u2019s inequities, a slew of 2021 shows sought to unpack the nuanced dynamics of power and privilege through the lens of their leading ladies, portraying women from diverse backgrounds facing a variety of obstacles \u2014 both personal and institutional.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most obvious example of this is \u201cSquid Game\u2019s\u201d Kang Sae-byeok (Jung Ho-yeon), a North Korean defector who participates in the series\u2019 deadly games for the mere chance to provide for her younger brother. Meanwhile, on \u201cSuccession,\u201d Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook) yields an inordinate amount of power as one of the siblings poised to take over her father Logan\u2019s (Brian Cox) conglomerate Waystar Royco \u2014 yet this season has proven how easily the domineering titan dilutes her strength with as little as a callous, dismissive phrase. And \u201cHacks\u201d sees its main characters \u2014 Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) \u2014 as two sides of the same coin, mirroring and juxtaposing each other\u2019s advantages. While Deborah had to break the glass ceiling in the comedy world, she now reaps the benefits of her status and class; and Ava \u2014 raw after facing an online reckoning \u2014 must come to terms with her own privilege and arrogance under the veteran comedian\u2019s begrudging wing.<\/p>\n

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Though these characters, as a collective, don\u2019t provide a solid answer as to how a more equitable society can be achieved, they offer up authentic critiques and satires of power imbalances. By extension, these portrayals poke and prod at audiences, inviting watchers to stew in their indignance and, at times, discomfort.\u00a0Natasha Rothwell\u00a0understands the latter dynamic well. As Belinda, the spa manager at the titular resort in \u201cThe White Lotus,\u201d she serves as the sole character with whom viewers wouldn\u2019t be mortified to identify, offering a stark contrast to the guests\u2019 out-of-touch elitism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so funny to be the moral touchpoint for people,\u201d she says, \u201cfor fear of them at all being connected to the other cast members.\u201d It\u2019s this authenticity around which Rothwell shaped her character\u2019s essence, even as she caters to a majority white and wealthy clientele. The actor, who prepped for the part by consulting the head of massage at the spa at the Four Seasons, Maui (where the series shot during the pandemic), adds that it was vital for Belinda to \u201cnot be a caricature \u2014 the idea of Black girl magic and de facto white person healer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a complicated role, especially when you\u2019re one of the only persons of color dealing with concepts of privilege and you have a person of color in a servile position, wanting to make sure that her humanity wasn\u2019t lost in service [to] the other characters,\u201d Rothwell says.<\/p>\n

Belinda\u2019s arc largely unfolds vis a vis Jennifer Coolidge\u2019s Tanya McQuoid, a disillusioned socialite who\u2019s grieving the loss of her mother. After a brief moment of connection, Belinda is soon swept up in Tanya\u2019s hurricane of influence with the promise of a fully financed independent spa venture.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo much of their power dynamic is never spoken up between them,\u201d Rothwell says of the two characters. \u201cI think it\u2019s so subtextual, and I think so much of the disparity of class, wealth and privilege is this insidious, unspoken way we view each other and the decisions we make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Belinda,\u00a0Margaret Qualley\u2019s Alex works in the service industry. As a domestic service employee in \u201cMaid,\u201d she juggles motherhood with navigating the endless bureaucracy of the U.S. welfare system, all while living under the poverty line and dealing with the fallout of an abusive relationship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do come from privilege, and so I was learning \u2014 in real-time \u2014 just how impossibly tricky the system is,\u201d Qualley says of the role. \u201cAlex is learning in real-time how to navigate this, and every time that she thinks that she\u2019s going to catch a break, another door shuts in her face. There\u2019s another hoop to jump through, and it\u2019s frustrating as hell.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Qualley acknowledges how much more \u201ccomplicated\u201d Alex\u2019s circumstances and her place in these rigged systems of poverty and welfare would be if she weren\u2019t white. \u201cIt\u2019s almost impossible to navigate the system no matter who you are, but if you added on the extra layer of the implications of being a person of color in America, it might just be actually impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this way, Alex is both privileged and not, though she eventually \u2014 through a network of support and sheer will \u2014 asserts her agency by the end of the series.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Rothwell sees the duality of power and privilege within her character: While Belinda walks through the world \u201cmasked and silenced, for all of her powerlessness, she\u2019s still able to see that she has power and has the agency and potential to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandra Oh\u2019s Ji-Yoon Kim, a professor-turned-head of the English department at an Ivy-adjacent university in \u201cThe Chair,\u201d embodies this \u201cmagic of nuance\u201d well, according to the actor. In Ji-Yoon\u2019s new role \u2014 for the first time occupied by a woman of color \u2014 she triages the interests of the ailing department, as well as those of her students and mentee Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah), a gifted Black professor who is up for tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t win, but what we tried to portray \u2014 in my portrayal and the writing of it \u2014 is that here is the best of our abilities,\u201d Oh says. \u201cWhen you are as aware as possible, competent as possible, supported as much as the system really is supporting you [and] this is how far one can get, this is how difficult it still is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finding herself blocked by a glass cliff of institutional barriers within academia and left to clean up the messes of her white patriarchal predecessors, Oh was \u201csurprised\u201d at discovering how much Ji-Yoon had been \u201csitting on her anger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as Oh tried to \u201cpepper in\u201d this exasperation throughout her portrayal, so did Rothwell, who likened her character to \u201ca kettle on the stove\u201d with a \u201cquiet storm inside of her.\u201d For Qualley, there are moments of frustration \u201csprinkled out\u201d throughout the show as Alex regains her \u201cstrength\u201d and \u201cself-respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

While these women reckon with varying degrees of influence, each character offers a teaching point, if just an elementary expos\u00e9 into structural inequities. Qualley sees her portrayal \u2014 and \u201cMaid\u201d as a whole \u2014 as the latest attempt to familiarize audiences with struggles they may not see.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that because there\u2019s so much shame baked into the topics, whether it\u2019s poverty or emotional abuse or physical violence, that people are often reluctant to talk about it,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen you say something out loud, it takes a little bit of the weight off of it. If something\u2019s being talked about, then we\u2019re being educated about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source:variety<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In tune with rising awareness of the world\u2019s inequities, a slew of 2021 shows sought to unpack the nuanced dynamics of power and privilege through the lens of their leading ladies, portraying women from diverse backgrounds facing a variety of obstacles \u2014 both personal and institutional. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is \u201cSquid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7036],"tags":[18529,18528,18532,18530,18531],"class_list":["post-15987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-margaret-qualley","tag-natasha-rothwell","tag-power-and-privilege-on-tv","tag-qualley","tag-sandra-oh-unpack"],"yoast_head":"\nNatasha Rothwell, Margaret Qualley, Sandra Oh Unpack Power and Privilege on TV - blue subtitle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blue-subtitle.com\/blog\/natasha-rothwell-margaret-qualley-sandra-oh-unpack-power-and-privilege-on-tv\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Natasha Rothwell, Margaret Qualley, Sandra Oh Unpack Power and Privilege on TV - blue subtitle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In tune with rising awareness of the world\u2019s inequities, a slew of 2021 shows sought to unpack the nuanced dynamics of power and privilege through the lens of their leading ladies, portraying women from diverse backgrounds facing a variety of obstacles \u2014 both personal and institutional. 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