The Bear Fans Opposing SydCarmy Are Exposing Their Own Racism in the Name of Platonic Love
Courtesy of FX 2023 / Getty Images / Art treatment by Kaitlyn McNab
In this op-ed, writer Jendayi Omowale traces the potential romance between Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White's characters in The Bear season 3 and questions the racist and misogynoiristic implications of fans who are vehemently disapproving of Sydney and Carmy as a couple.
Warning: spoilers for The Bear season 2 ahead.
Keeping track of controversial fandom politics can be like conducting an ethnographic study. As The Bear season 3 approaches, the latest and buzziest case subject is “SydCarmy,” the ship name for main characters Sydney Adamu and Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, played by Emmy-winning actors Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White, respectively. The intimate nature of these two characters has caused dissent among The Bear fandom, as a platonic faction has emerged to outright resist the idea of Sydney and Carmy engaging in a romantic relationship — a resistance that seems to be rooted in colorism and racism.
As a proud SydCarmy shipper, it is clear to me as an audience member that the foundation for Sydney and Carmy’s potential romantic relationship has been established since season 1 as a slow burn. It isn’t until season 2, however, that as the kitchen power dynamics shift, with Sydney becoming Carmy’s second-in-command rather than his subordinate, that the two grow closer and find safety and inspiration within each other.
The set up is a shipping gold mine. There’s pastry chef Marcus and old flame Claire, the marginal romantic interests for Sydney and Carmy who complicate the progression of their own relationship. There are precious stolen moments with significant meaning, like Carmy gifting Sydney with a custom, embroidered Thom Browne chef jacket after she marvels at his own. And, famously, there’s Carmy’s episode 9 panic attack — the one he is only able to pass by thinking about the first time he met Sydney. Hell, I don’t even need to mention the profoundly intimate and emotionally charged under-the-table scene. And still, many The Bear fans hold this romantic ship in dismay, insisting that Sydney and Carmy’s connection is strictly platonic.
Many fans cite Edebiri and White’s season 1 press run comments supporting the platonic nature of their characters as the basis of their disapproval. But it’s important to note that despite Edebiri’s own personal opposition to SydCarmy and White's assertion that their relationship is platonic, the show’s writers are still divided on their fate.
And while it’s valid for fans to advocate for more platonic opposite-sex relationships on-screen or have their own preferences against romantic slow burns, these preferences can feel insidious — especially when it comes to films and television series with white male and Black female leads.
As TikTok user (@blondeblueeyedbaddie247) Aryel points out, it is odd the number of times people default to platonic shipping or even saying that the main character is queer, when a dark-skinned Black woman and protagonist, usually a white man, are paired together. She says that if the Black woman in question is light-skinned, or if the dark-skinned Black woman is in an intraracial ship, then people don’t care as much.
The Bear
HULU/Courtesy of FX“[It seems like] a lot of white women would rather a man be chosen over them,” Aryel says. “Because it's like, 'I wasn't even an option. They don't even like women,' rather than [it be a] Black woman that is chosen… that's unfathomable.”
There are multiple close knit friendships between men and women depicted in The Bear, with a favorite being Ebraheim and Tina. Their friendship got a separate plotline in the second season when they supported one another while retraining in culinary school together. As noted by writer Danielle Momoh, The Bear has many expressions of deep, meaningful love between characters that don’t fit squarely into platonic or romantic boxes. So why should we deny the strong romantic chemistry between these two main characters? Why does SydCarmy need to be the be-all and end-all for platonic representation? This specific desire to relegate interracial pairings on screen to platonic companionship can be a cover for racism.
“There are a few general stereotypes that we see with Black women, specifically with the sassy Black girl trope or the popular mean Black girl,” says Jianna Ewuresi, a film and TV critic with a platform on TikTok. “To see a Black woman in a different kind of perspective, like in the romantic area with someone who is of a different race… it [can] create a divisive environment.”
Black women have been typecast into offensive caricatures for decades — especially darker-skinned Black women, and especially in romance media. According to Atlanta-based filmmaker Jamila Bell, colorism can be more prominent in genres like the rom-com or, frankly, any story that involves love interests due to biases against dark-skinned women.
“[In older media] dark-skinned Black women were definitely portrayed as more aggressive, more argumentative, [as if] it’s hard to get them to settle down because they’re just so overtly strong,” says Bell. “Then I saw a shift of them becoming the sidekicks and the best friends, and they’re just so funny and always the scapegoat of the comedy aspect — which is not necessarily a bad thing, but when you see that becoming a trope, there’s a reason for that trope. It’s because a lot of these filmmakers [are] not seeing these women [or their] ability to be in these leading [romantic] roles.”
The Bear
HULU/Courtesy of FXThe Black best friend trope has groomed generations of television audiences to only accept Black women as their mammy and magical negress wrapped into one. The most these characters could hope to be is the “disposable Black girlfriend,” but never the most desired, never the leading lady.
In addition to the colorism that impedes Black women from becoming a main love interest, interracial relationships are represented differently in film and TV altogether, according to a paper published by the Pepperdine Journal of Communication Research. The study revealed that interracial relationships in media were shown to be less intimate and less communicative compared to intraracial couples. It would make sense then that fandoms, groomed by decades of on-screen portrayals of loveless, PDA-averse interracial couples would balk at the idea of them becoming the centerpiece of glorious shipping wars.
In the case of SydCarmy, Sydney and Carmy’s very slow burn is underlined by Carmy and Claire’s very fast burn. Although we do get to see Carmy and Claire be physically affectionate, even to the point of implied off-screen sex, Carmy and Claire’s relationship subverts the intraracial intimacy dynamic.
Their relationship begins with Carmy intentionally giving Claire the wrong phone number. Carmy and Claire’s affections for each other can appear to be more empty, cold, and surface-level, even without mentioning the kitchen freezer scene. Season 2 uses Carmy and Claire’s dynamic to present Claire as a distraction to all of the things that Carmy knows and loves and all of the people who ground him — this includes the restaurant, and it definitely includes Sydney. Carmy and Claire’s relationship almost acts as a foil to Sydney and Carmy's inimitable tight-knit bond.
It is the inherent right of dedicated fans to be for or against a ship. Nevertheless, SydCarmy is only one of many hotly contested interracial relationships in fictional pop culture, only the latest to face both explicit and subtle misogynoir. (One The Bear fan claimed on social media that those who ship Sydney and Carmy together “think Shonda Rhimes wrote the script,” alluding to the multiple interracial relationships between Black women and white men depicted in Rhimes’ shows.)
Percabeth in the Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians and Bonnie Bennett and Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries also faced much opposition, besides both relationships canonically existing in their respective book series; Candice Patton notoriously faced nearly six years of racist online harassment for portraying Iris West, Barry Allen’s love interest on CW’s The Flash; and Laci Mosley endured racist comments for just being cast as Carly’s new best friend in the Paramount+ revival of iCarly.
But as Black women in Hollywood trudge onward, Black leading ladies are returning to the screen regardless of whether toxic fans want them to take up screen time or not — and as the most recent award season shows, they are here to stay. White male actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Mescal have publicly requested Quinta Brunson and Ayo Edebiri, respectively, as their rom-com costars of choice. And as both Ewuresi and Bell point out, it is still early in The Bear’s narrative for SydCarmy to prevail, as their relationship was left ambiguous at the end of season 2.
Where Sydney and Carmy are currently could lead to a fruitful lifetime of friendship in the same way it could lead to a romantic soulmate connection. But as evidenced by the countless TikTok fancams and video essays, SydCarmy isn’t going anywhere, and neither is Sydney.
Ayo Edebiri has officially transitioned from supporting actress to lead actress. Black women are not just the side characters for comic relief or present only to aid the protagonist along their journey — they are the main characters, too. And as we all know, protagonists get love interests. So get used to it.
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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