The Chair is about to land on Netflix, and since the trailer, we’ve been beyond keen to watch.
From writer, showrunner, and executive producer Amanda Peet, The Chair follows Dr. Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) who is made the first woman chair of the English department at Pembroke University.
In the clip above created by Netflix, Oh and Peet unpack some of the nuanced challenges Ji-Yoon faces through the six-episode comedy series. She’s not only navigating this male-dominated realm of academia alongside professors Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah) and Joan Hambling (Holland Taylor), she’s one of the few staff members of colour at the university, all while steering through a publicity storm involving her professor colleague Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass). Plus, she’s raising her daughter Ju Ju (Everly Carginilla) and caring for her elderly father Habi (Ji Yong Lee).
“I think The Chair is really about the present moment,” says Oh. “How to live right now with all the things that I think everyone is going through, and hopefully that everyone is more conscious about. Patriarchy, sexism, ageism, what it is to be a single mom, being stuck between two cultures — and it’s all a comedy.”
