And Just Like That… star Sara Ramirez took to Instagram on Tuesday to offer a rebuke of a profile of the nonbinary actor, calling the writer of the piece from The Cut a “hack job.”
On the same day that Max announced that it was renewing the Sex and the City reboot series for a third season, Ramirez posted a scathing review of the feature article by Brock Colyar.
“Been thinking long and hard about how to respond to The Hack Job’s article, ‘written’ by a white gen z non-binary person who asked me serious questions but expected a comedic response, I guess (?)” Ramirez, who plays nonbinary comedian Che Diaz and Miranda's love interest on And Just Like That…, wrote in the caption of their Instagram post that featured photos of the actor from the profile.
In their social post, Ramirez seems to take particular issue with the profile conflating them with the character they play on the show. This is a point that Colyar makes in the article, noting that Ramirez said they are “not Che Diaz.” But the journalist also points out that the actor’s Instagram bio used to describe them as a “MexicanIrishNon-binaryHuman,” while their character on And Just Like That… called themself a “queer, nonbinary, Mexican-Irish diva.”
In the lengthy article, which originally came out in June, Colyar, who is nonbinary themself, addressed some of the criticism the show has faced for the portrayal of a nonbinary character, writing that younger queer people the journalist knows “found the character a hyperbolized, hypercringe representation of nonbinary identity.” But Colyar points out that the “cringe” factor could be intentional, writing, “Maybe the show was trying too hard to meet the moment, or maybe it was just being cheeky and trolling us all about how self-serious we get over the politics of representation on a fizzy sitcom.”
In Colyar’s article, Ramirez responds to the criticism, saying, “Anybody who benefits from patriarchy is going to have a problem with Che Diaz,” and at one point says that whether or not Che Diaz is a good representation of a nonbinary person “is not for me to answer.”
In their social media post, Ramirez claps back at Colyar, writing that the article is “an attempt to mock my thoughtfulness and softness” that dismissed their “valid existence” in favor of critiquing a TV show. “I am not the fictional characters I have played, nor am I responsible for the things that are written for them to say,” they wrote. “I am a human being, an artist, an actor. And we are living in a world that has become increasingly hostile toward anyone who dares to free themselves from the gender binary, or disrupt the mainstream.”
Ramirez closed the post with some “friendly reminders” that included a reference to series creator Michael Patrick King, saying, “When a cis man is in charge and has ultimate control of dialogue actors say, and you have a valid problem with it, perhaps you should be interviewing him.”