Che Diaz & Exiting the Vampire Castle

alt title: Mark Fisher's prophecy of the 46 year old fictional tenderqueer in the Sex and the City reboot

On the 24th of November, 2013, the English writer and political/cultural theorist Mark Fisher (1968 - 2017) published a piece on openDemocracy titled “Exiting the Vampire Castle”.

On the 9th of December, 2021, a sequel to the iconic American television series Sex and the City was unleashed onto the world in a joint attack effort by Michael Patrick King and Sarah Jessica Parker, titled “And Just Like That…”.

The character of Che Diaz is played by Sara Ramírez.

Mark Fisher’s piece is one of the earliest critiques of what would go on to be known as “cancel culture” in the 2020s. He talks about his disdain for the tendency of self-proclaimed leftists on Twitter (RIP in pieces) to “call out and condemn” other leftists, creating a culture of moralism and fear that pervaded throughout the left. He asks the question:

“Is the only way to avoid this drip-feed of abuse to remain in a position of impotent marginality?”

Let’s talk about the first five minutes of Che Diaz’s portrayal onscreen. The following occurs in the first episode:

Jackie Nee: “What’s up sister… brother.”

Che Diaz: “That’s right because I’m both and neither. I am Che Diaz, your host, and queer nonbinary Mexican-Irish diva representing everyone else outside these two boring genders.”

*WOKE MOMENT BUTTON*

Che Diaz: “I know that no one person can represent all the genders and sexual orientations or an entire race, and I fully acknowledge that we are complicated, diverse beings here on this wondrous planet all just striving to be our very best self. Many of us just tryin’ to get laid.”

After this interaction, Jackie Nee proceeds to ask Carrie Bradshaw about why we don’t see women jacking off on the subway.

Che Diaz: “Yeah good one Jackie. I was worried you were gonna ask something sophomoric, like “What can I as a straight cis male personally do to eradicate the harmful patriarchal system of the gender binary and compulsory heterosexuality?”

Every queer person I know groaned at this sequence of events. The first new reoccurring queer character in the SATC franchise we’re introduced to, who isn’t an emotional support twink, turns out to be a pure distillation of the worst queer you’ve ever met.

I wavered for some time about whether to refer to the character of Che Diaz as a tenderqueer for two reasons.

1. “Tenderqueer” usually describes a white queer who uses their queerness to shield themselves from any kind of criticism, particularly accusations of racism.

2. Tenderqueers are usually younger, ranging in age anywhere from the teens to about thirty-ish. Che Diaz is forty-six years old.

I came across this article by Daisy Jones and realised that Che Diaz matches the description provided almost entirely to a T.

When queer people are more likely to have experienced violence and abuse, it is radical to cultivate and encourage a culture of softness and positivity within our community and modes of interaction. But this isn’t about that. It’s more about wearing that type of language as an aesthetic. In other words: just like the straight softboi who uses performative sensitivity to get away with being a little shit sometimes, so does the tenderqueer.

The performativity of “radical softness” with Che’s propensity to take to delicate emotional situations with the grace and humility of a sledgehammer is pretty reminiscent of what Jones describes.

The character of Che Diaz is played by Sara Ramírez (who uses They/Them pronouns). They are on the record saying multiple times that they are not their character. They don’t relate to Che, and Che is not a full reflection of who they are as a person. I would invite you to read the below from this article from The Cut by Brock Colyar and make your own decision on to what extent Ramírez had an influence on Diaz:

Ramírez explains they’re “holding space” for “these difficult truths” and brings up that George Floyd was murdered three years ago to the day. They later lecture me a bit about “bi antagonism” and how “some people don’t even know the history of the word bisexual. To me, it’s crystal clear.” They add, “I’m very lucky and blessed to have made in-person contact with bi-plus elders.” They do not mean Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, or Miranda.

The article was later rebuffed firmly by Ramírez, who chastised the “white gen z nonbinary person” writer and later refers to them as a petulant child.

People in the industry other than Ramírez, namely Cynthia Nixon and Lea DeLaria, hit back at critics of Che Diaz: it wasn’t Che that was the problem. It was the audience who were too small-minded and were carrying over their -isms about queer folks and projecting them onto this loud and proud character. To an extent I could agree with that, if it weren’t for the fact that on virtually every social media platform queer people were commiserating about how Che was probably setting back our cause by at least a few years.

If there’s one thing queer people love, it’s being condescended to by other queer people. Being told that we simply aren’t intelligent or progressive enough to understand something, and that clearly our internalised homophobia is why we could never possibly understand the complex emotions evoked by Che Diaz.

Mark Fisher described his idea of “the Vampire Castle”, or the toxic moralising atmosphere of the left, as follows:

“The Vampires’ Castle specialises in propagating guilt. It is driven by a priest’s desire to excommunicate and condemn, an academic-pedant’s desire to be the first to be seen to spot a mistake, and a hipster’s desire to be one of the in-crowd. The danger in attacking the Vampires’ Castle is that it can look as if – and it will do everything it can to reinforce this thought – that one is also attacking the struggles against racism, sexism, heterosexism. But, far from being the only legitimate expression of such struggles, the Vampires’ Castle is best understood as a bourgeois-liberal perversion and appropriation of the energy of these movements. The Vampires’ Castle was born the moment when the struggle not to be defined by identitarian categories became the quest to have ‘identities’ recognised by a bourgeois big Other.”

In turn, we are crippled with self-consciousness about making a mis-step with our language and accidentally causing offence. Suddenly, we treat each other with suspicion and malice, and are positively vibrating with a need to highlight each others faults and shortcomings.

The main reason why I bring up Mark Fisher’s piece in relation to this awful TV show is the fact that not a single character has ever displayed a shred of class consciousness. Carrie buys and sells houses on a whim, Miranda’s previously dilapidated Brooklyn townhouse has exponentially increased in value, and Che motherfucking Diaz is an Airbnb Landlord Leech. Fisher wrote that “the Vampires’ Castle uses an ultimately liberal understanding of race and gender to obfuscate class”, and we see this on full display with Che’s expression of frustration that their neighbours aren’t cool with the constant revolving door of Airbnb tenants in their building. In my research for this piece, I wrote the following about Che and their new home in Manhattan:

Che has a massive fuckoff apartment to themself in Manhattan. They are the most Upstairs Neighbour to ever exist, constantly having friends over for loud obnoxious gatherings until 4am, wonky Ikea furniture banging against the floor all night, and smoking copious amounts of weed at all hours. AND THEN BEING AN AIRBNB LANDLORD MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRRR

I have some personal experience of living next to an Airbnb property in a major city, in case you couldn’t tell.

According to Fisher, the whole point of the Vampires’ Castle is this: “…how do you hold immense wealth and power while also appearing as a victim, marginal and oppositional?” The character of Che Diaz answers the call.

Che Diaz watching the focus group for their test pilot.

Che’s arc reaches a crescendo in the scene where they are watching the focus group for their test pilot. In this scene, they are relaxed, confident, and looking forward to hearing all the positive feedback that they have. Until this point, we have seen Che largely operate in hugboxing environments, where cool progressive people with equally cool and progressive haircuts hang onto their every word and nod approvingly at their insights about gender and sexuality.

The focus group expresses enjoyment for the character played by Tony Danza, but seem inconclusive on Che. The focus group leader eventually turns his attention to someone in the room who seems entirely nonplussed: a nonbinary person of colour with an interesting haircut from Brooklyn. When asked why the character of Che didn’t resonate, they had this to say:

“I mean, the whole “Che” character was like a walking boomer joke that felt so fake to me. Just some phony, sanitised, performative, cheesy-ass, dad joke, bullshit version of what the non-binary experience is. It sucked. Also they would not be able to afford an apartment that big in Bushwick.”

This sequence, which lasts no longer than two minutes, shatters Che’s entire worldview. In the following scene they exclaim to Miranda: “This isn’t a game, this is my life! This is my career! 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!” It’s hard to be sympathetic for Che when up until this point every single move in their life has been about maximising their own pleasure, with little regard for Miranda’s wants or needs.

The reason why Che is so uniquely affected by this is because of how those within the Vampire Castle extend and maintain their power over others. In the words of Fisher:

The bourgeois-identitarian left knows how to propagate guilt and conduct a witch hunt, but it doesn’t know how to make converts. But that, after all, is not the point. The aim is not to popularise a leftist position, or to win people over to it, but to remain in a position of elite superiority, but now with class superiority redoubled by moral superiority too. ‘How dare you talk – it’s we who speak for those who suffer!’

Che’s superiority was supported and affirmed by those within the Vampire Castle who believed in it. Those who believed that they were above criticism, and that Che’s lived experience of being queer and nonbinary superseded everything else about them. All it took was this one individual who chose to leave the Vampire Castle and point out Che’s tired schtick to remove all of their power and moral superiority.

One of the last things we see of Che Diaz in AJLT is the awful “standup” routine in which they trot out tired biphobic tropes and reduce a life-changing relationship for Miranda into a mild inconvenience for Che.

“I just got out of an eight month relationship with a married, straight white woman. Wouldn’t it have been less painful to slam my dick in a car door? … Before me, she’d only been with men. So the first time we had sex, it took forever! No really, she kept waiting for my clit to get hard. It was like… Should I just do that? *handjob motions* My lady was very confused. “Am I queer? Am I bi? Am I les? Am I…” Just all over the LGBTQIA+ menu. Just, “I’ll take queer. Yeah, with a side of bi. Hold the mayo.” And it’s not just her. Yeah, I was confused as well. We were both kind of in the same place. She was confused about everything, and I was confused about why I was fucking her.”

stupid

In this short matter of time, Che shows just how shallow and pig-headed they can be. Miranda hasn’t exactly been on her best behaviour given the circumstances, but she never deserved all that. But it doesn’t matter, because now that Che’s feelings have been hurt, they have artistic liberty to punch down on anyone they please. When confronted with this, Che is indignant. They refuse to believe they’ve done anything wrong. They express this to their potential new love interest (who is naturally a young nonbinary Brooklynite with an interesting haircut):

“Why am I always having to remind people who I am? I’m so fucking tired of having to explain myself to people for years. Or go on stage and perform some fucking version of myself that they’ll find acceptable. I’m so fucking over it. Sorry. You know what? I’m not sorry.”

“The third law of the Vampires’ Castle is: propagate as much guilt as you can. The more guilt the better. People must feel bad: it is a sign that they understand the gravity of things. It’s OK to be class-privileged if you feel guilty about privilege and make others in a subordinate class position to you feel guilty too.”

Che is suitably soothed after they are told by their potential love interest: “Good. Don’t be. Own it all, all of your feelings. There’s nothing hotter than a strong enby person.” In the final episode we see what looks like the two characters beginning a fledgling romance. Now that the character has been cut from the show, we’ll never know how Che Diaz rebuilds their gargantuan ego from scratch.

Sara Ramírez has recently taken a step back from social media, but prior to that they posted on Instagram about their belief that they were removed from the show for being vocal on Gaza. They expressed their concern that Hollywood was blacklisting those who were vocally supportive of Palestine, and that this was the reason, alongside the growing ire of fans towards their character, which resulted in their departure. I believe there is truth to what they’re saying. Cynthia Nixon has also been vocal on Gaza, but her character is far too critical to the show to be axed.

The final words of Exiting the Vampire Castle are as follows:

The goal is not to ‘be’ an activist, but to aid the working class to activate – and transform – itself. Outside the Vampires’ Castle, anything is possible.

Sexual liberation, queer liberation, dismantling the patriarchy, none of these things are possible within our current structures. Carrie Bradshaw isn’t a revolutionary figurehead. The character of Che Diaz lecturing others about microagressions isn’t activating the potential of the working class. Television shows on HBO aren’t meant to have revolutionary potential. But they do serve as a mirror that can reflect parts of our culture back at us, and in this instance, I’m glad to see that the wokescold tenderqueer persona that was so prevalent just a few years ago is being roundly rejected by queer people this time around.