Since And Just Like That’s debut in late 2019, the show has been polarising among viewers, but nothing associated with the show has been quite as divisive as Sara Ramírez’s character, Che Diaz.
Che was one of the news addition to the Sex And The City universe when the reboot launched, initially introduced as the main host of the podcast Carrie Bradshaw was contributing to, before embarking on an affair with Miranda.
However, while most of the characters within the show were immediately charmed by Che, the same can’t be said for Sex And The City fans, who have been somewhat more split about the character thanks to their somewhat cheesy dialogue (“Miranda, I’ve done a tonne of weed” being one notable stand-out, “woke moment” being another) and questionable decisions.
In an interview with Elle, Sara said of their character: “The women on the show get to be messy and imperfect, likeable and unlikeable, so of course, Che also gets to be imperfect, complex, likeable, and unlikeable.
“You know, the LGBTQIA+ community isn’t perfect, and we shouldn’t have to be.”
The Tony winner continued: “Ultimately what we’re seeing is a character that is reflecting back to us that none of us are above our own conditioning.”
In episode five of And Just Like That, the show even appeared to address some of the criticisms levelled against the character in a sequence set at a focus group for Che’s sitcom.
During the scene, another gender nonconforming character said they found Che’s on-screen alter-ego within the show to be a “phoney, sanitised, performative, cheesy, dad joke bullshit version of what the non-binary experience is”.
Later in the episode, Che was heard lamenting: “This is my identity! It took me 46 years to figure out who I am – and then a focus group one hour to fucking destroy me.”
Sara previously told The Cut: “I think there are people like Che out in the world, and I think that opinions about whether Che is representing an authentically queer person or not is not for me to answer.
“It’s exciting to have Che be a disruption to the mainstream. We had been experiencing the mass mobilisation for anti-racism for George Floyd, so being aware of how important disruption is, being aware of how important it is to wake people up from the sleep of their own comfort and privilege, was so important to me that summer.”
Before the second season began, And Just Like That boss Michael Patrick King teased to Entertainment Weekly that “a lot of season two is an address to the reaction to season one in my thought process”.
However, he also added: “I didn’t see one tweet and go, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to change everything’. It’s a zeitgeist feeling.”