in lieu of the announcement saying that supriya ganesh will not be returning for season 3, i really want to discuss noah wyle's absolute dismal "take" here on his character and her's.
i, of course, do not know the intricacies of the situation and what has transpired behind the scenes. there is rumor spreading that supriya herself made the decision to step back from the show due to the treatment of her character. like i said, i have no way of conclusively saying this is fact; however, i wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.
something i've been internally tackling with for the past couple of episodes is if the writers/noah are aware of the way they are portraying robby; that is to say, as a racist and misogynist. as viewer, who is a brown woman as well, it is very obvious to me that the pressure robby is under is chipping away at his "shield of tolerance." like with most privileged individuals, he will exert said privilege when he feels as though he is losing control/needs to regain authority. whether or not he means to do this is irrelevant (and i'm tired of people using his ignorance as a way to soften the blow of his actions), what matters is that he actively berating and belittling a brown woman for doing the exact same thing as him. he is being hypocritical, he is being unkind, he is being a fucking dick. and perhaps if he exerted the same amount of malice he deserves for samira to the other people in this hospital, i wouldn't immediately dub him as a racist and misogynist. but the show specifically directs his more uncouth, inappropriate behavior towards the women of color. he is unable to envision al-hashimi as a suitable leader, he chastises samira for not unhealthily compartmentalizing her emotions, he displays gross jealousy/possessiveness towards collins despite them not even being together. this is not even mentioning his hair-trigger reaction to call CPS on the haitian siblings whilst not batting an eye to the white mother with a child suffering from heat-stroke. all signs, to me, point to him being a bigot; and yes, it is still bigotry even if it is done unintentionally.
i truly did not know if the writers were being purposeful and meticulous by extracting these hyper-negative traits in robby; i thought perhaps they trying to get some point across about the unchecked and toxic biases of white men in any profession. maybe they were trying to parallel langdon's arc by reaffirming to the audience that unfavorable actions done under impairment (whether this be drugs, declining mental health, etc.) still hold validity and are susceptible to scrutiny. i do not maintain this belief anymore, and it was the video above that really shattered it.
you can say "oh, maybe noah is just misreading robby's character/actions," but i think that's a pretty facile outlook. he is a director, writer, producer, and actor on the show; to proclaim he is unable to dissect the ideologies of his character is, frankly, childish. if the man so integral to the making of this show cannot look at his own character and recognize--or even name--his most glaring moral defects, then perhaps those defects were never meant to be seen at all. i think it's particularly interesting, as well, that he immediately jumps to excuse/rationalize robby's behavior rather than empathize with samira. "it's less aggressive than people perceive it" he says when talking about the diminishing and maligning of a WOC, an act that will always be seen as aggressive in my eyes. it doesn't matter if, internally, robby thinks samira is the cream of the crop; what matters is his actions, and his actions all but point to the complete opposite of what he is saying. i'm not proclaiming that an actor can't share their own examinations of their character and present it as fact, but noah is quite literally stripping away the essence of the show--which is to say, how people act in highly strenuous and morally exhausting situations--so that he can hammer this point home that robby is this ultimately good-natured guy.
it's just a very "white male" way of assessing robby's flaws. it is so clear noah is not thinking about the racial and gender politics of the situation between him and samira at all. juxtapose this interview with any interview supriya has done, where she is CONSTANTLY discussing the sociopolitical commentary of the the pitt. i do not wish to speak for her or act like i know her, but i can tell that, to her, the brilliance of the pitt derives from the highlighting of marginalized communities and the various ways in which society and the healthcare system has failed them. it is not a stretch for me to assume that she saw the way in which samira was being treated by robby and immediately caught onto the power imbalance and exploitation at play. it, perhaps, is a stretch for me to assume that she saw the way her character was constantly being demeaned by a white male authority figure and was disgusted at the fact no one on/off screen seemed willing to name it as such.
to be the punching bag of a white man over and over again is a dehumanizing experience, one that i know WOC are familiar with. usually the most debilitating part of the experience is knowing that, when you walk away, there will be others out there who will try to excuse his behavior. this is all speculation, but i don't think it's outrageous at all to proclaim that maybe supriya was fed up with the side-lining and mistreating of her character for the sake of bolstering a white man's narrative. it would especially be jarring for her to witness the lack of integrity from those around her, those unable to label robby's "tough love" for what it actually is: race and gender based discrimination. that’s where it becomes eroding. not because any single moment is the most extreme thing imaginable, but because of the repetition and the plausible deniability. it mirrors a real-world experience where you are asked--implicitly or explicitly--to endure, to second-guess your own perception, to wonder if you’re “overreacting.” over time, that does something to you. it fractures your sense of certainty. it makes you hyper-aware, constantly scanning for tone, for shifts, for the next slight. it’s exhausting in a way that’s both emotional and cognitive.
i absolutely despise the fact supriya is leaving, but i can't really blame her in the slightest if her departure was of her own accord. i can’t imagine being asked to perform scenes that echo the realities she’s likely faced as a woman of color, only to then accept a narrative that frames a white man’s belittling as mere misguidance--or as care clumsily expressed, rather than harm plainly done.
no matter what, i just hope supriya knows she means the world to so many people and that her character has been an endless beacon of light and life in this show. whatever she wants to do in life, i'll be there to support.
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