Stop Erasing Tashi Duncan Because You Want New Internet Boyfriends

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Luca Guadagnino's latest offering Challengers (a deliciously horny tennis drama that follows a trio of players led by the Emmy-winning Zendaya) has already proven to be one of those rare films that sparks almost immediate obsession in its audience. With costuming by Jonathan Anderson, a pounding soundtrack courtesy of iconic duo Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and a stellar script from Mr. Celine Song (Justin Kuritzkes) himself, it is unsurprising that Challengers has already cemented itself as a modern classic.

There's much to fall in love with; in typical Guadagnino fashion the film is lusty and ripe with symbolism, following characters who are at turns so pathetically down bad and maniacally self-absorbed you have no choice but to obsess right along with them.

Challengers also gives us another Guadagnino staple: a complicated biracial woman as our lead.

From the moment you meet Tashi Duncan (Zendaya), it is abundantly clear that you are in the presence of a woman who knows what she wants. She sits untouchable and coldly chic in the stands, watching a heated game of tennis between her two love interests, her husband Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and former boyfriend Patrick Zweig (Josh O'Connor).

Internet fandom has always been incredibly male-centric — a new internet boyfriend is crowned every month or so — and Challengers has gifted the internet with not one but two white men to lust over. Thousands of posts labelling both Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor "babygirl," trending hashtags like TEAMART and TEAMPATRICK, fan edits of the two boys taking over our feeds: it is a hysteria that would almost convince you that the film doesn't have a female lead.

And it seems to some man-obsessed stans, the film would be better off without her presence. They are wrong.

Tashi Duncan is exactly what we have been missing from our screens; a selfish, messy, calculated woman who wields her intelligence and sensuality as weapons. She's a cheater, a woman unable to see beyond her own needs, who refuses to lie even when she could save someone the heartbreak of the truth — "unlikeable" by all standards. When her golden retriever malewife of a partner Art tells her he loves her, she simply looks over and purrs "I know" in response. It is coolly dismissive and self-assured in a way that we do not usually get to see Black women behave onscreen.

She's hot, and she knows she's hot. She thrives off just how badly Art and Patrick want her, pressing an ear to their door, giggling at the sound of the chaos she has caused when she turns up to their room. It is a delicious departure from the characters Zendaya has played before, and Tashi Duncan is too formidable a character to be pushed around, least of all by white stans who don't know what it means to strive beyond the approval of men. The story underneath all the tennis is about Tashi's heartbreak, the mourning over the loss of her career and the identity it gave her and how she forges ahead anyway.