Why did we fall in love with Jennifer Coolidge as Tanya in White Lotus?

Why did the queer community fall in love with the character of Tanya McQuoid on the series White Lotus? The gifted Ms. Coolidge has been around since her first appearance on Seinfeld in the “Masseuse” episode in nineteen-nighty three, thirty years ago. We have laughed and loved her in American Pie, Legally Blonde, the wonderful Christopher Guest films Best in Show, A Mighty Wind, and For Your Consideration. She spent six years on 2 Broke Girls, and most recently on The Watcher with her classic line to a waiter at Christmas, “That’s not enough, I would like a holiday pour.”

We found out last week that the new season of White Lotus will be in Thailand, sans the character of Tanya. Fans are so obsessed with her that they don’t believe she is dead, that she will come back as a ghost, or she has a twin sister. I have been trying to figure out why after all these years so many people old and young fell in love with the character of Tanya. I had the great good fortune of working with Jennifer three times. The famous Groundlings Improve Company produces a parody of actors performing a show case for agents. Beverly Winwood Presents the Actors Showcase was brilliantly conceived and directed by Tony Sepulveda. This hilarious event included some of the best comic actors in Los Angeles. Jennifer always stole the show doing either a scene from The Glass Menagerie as Laura or, of all things, Robert Shaw’s infamous monologue from Jaws. Jennifer could do a slow head-turn to the audience like Bea Arthur and get applause. She is literally one of the funniest people I ever worked with, and I have been lucky to work with some of the greats. Putting aside Mike White’s exceptional writing of the character who is equal parts comic and tragic, what is it about this character of Tanya? I have many queer friends who only discovered her on White Lotus. A good friend said she is the new Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. I pondered that thought for a while but it didn’t feel right.

The character of Tanya embodies the symbolic Greek Mythology theater masks of comedy and tragedy. The masks were created so audiences in the back could see if the character on stage was exhibiting a happy or sad emotion. In many ways that is exactly what Ms. Coolidge is doing. She can be so broad with her comedy and so subtle at the same time. I can’t recall a character who embodies comedy and tragedy as deeply as Ms. Coolidge does with the role of Tanya. I believe that is one of the key factors why the world fell in love with this character.

My bigger question is why did the queer community fall so in love with Tanya? It goes way beyond her comedic and dramatic acting skills. I ruminated about this for a long time. Through my queer lens, I believe it is because we as “queer people” have had to wear masks.

Growing up queer we had to laugh through our pain, pretend we weren’t humiliated, put on the comic mask when a relative made an anti-gay remark. One Thanksgiving when I was fifteen, I mentioned I’d seen the film The Sunshine Boys and how adorable Walter Matthews and George Burns were. My uncle yelled with such disdain, “Men don’t call other men adorable.” The room fell so quiet, all you could hear was breathing. I felt such shame so I laughed and said, “I mean adorable like two little kids; you have to see the movie, it’s so funny. They are very childlike.” Then I laughed again, to squeeze out the tension. Later I went in the backyard, took off my comic mask, put on the tragic mask, and I sobbed. How many times where we shamed, made to feel less than. I think of my trans friends and how often they are misgendered and have to cover up their hurt, rage, and disgust. I think of my lesbian sisters who have had to endure disgraceful jokes. Queer people have always been the brunt of hostile jokes. A non-binary friend of mine told me that at a major college students made jokes about they/them pronouns. “Hey, instead of they/them can we just call you Twat, Cunt? How about duplex?” My friend said the students weren’t worth a response so they walked away. My friend laughed about how stupid they had been, and then their laugh suddenly turned into tears. There it was…the two masks.

We ache when Tanya is throwing her dead mother’s ashes over the boat; then we are laughing as she thanks everyone for coming, as if she were hosting a dinner party. We laugh

when she tells the old boat captain that the gays were after her, even though we know she could be killed. She does this with such skill that we will always root for this character. Queer people know Tanya. We understand her. In many ways we are her.