CULTURE
A Tale of A Millennial
A Portray of The Modern Young-ish Adulthood
“I want someone to tell me how to live my life because so far I think I’ve been getting it wrong.” — Fleabag
In 2016, Phoebe Waller-Bridge blessed us with a superbly constructed narrative about those of us who are supposed to have it all together by now but very much don’t.
She poured her heart and soul into Fleabag, frequently incorporating elements from her own life, and while she wasn’t attempting to be the voice of a generation, her show offered a comforting awareness and consideration of the millennial experience in down-to-earth and emotive ways.
However, broad statements about any generation don’t apply to everyone in that age bracket, and these experiences and their emotional cores aren’t exclusive to millennials. But Phoebe is a millennial artist exploring what it’s like to be in this age in this age.
A particular reason why this show resonated with me so strongly was because of how familiar it all felt — the absolute chaos of it all. So, with a re-watch, I attempted to explore the show through that lens.
Fleabag follows an unnamed character we’ll just refer to as Fleabag, who’s coping with uncertainty and self-loathing in her early 30s. The show’s title perfectly encapsulates the dilemma that Phoebe described as “rough around the edges and a bit of a mess” as she dealt with a dysfunctional family and the anguish and guilt caused by the death of her best friend.
Being uncertain about our life paths isn’t a new concept, but the context during millennials’ upbringing adds another layer to that well-worn story, with all the dashed dreams and broken promises of a stable promising future accompanied by constant berating that we’re destroying industries and the very fabric of society. It’s a stressful combination for young people who haven’t met milestones on their parents’ timeline. The feeling that you failed to meet expectations based on what’s normal is more potent in your late 20s.
That is not to suggest that the pressure should be taken to heart, but it does exist and has fostered a culture of uneasiness in our romantic, familial, and financial life.
That big shift from puberty to early adulthood is a whole new horizon, trying to figure out how to stand on your own two feet and make a place for yourself as an independent person, then you’re confronted with real adulthood when everyone’s supposed to have it all together, but what if the confusion and mess of early adulthood due to a mix of internal and external elements, extends much longer than it used to back in the day?
To cope with these overwhelming uncertainties, Fleabag tends to disconnect herself from the present and project a version of herself she wishes she was instead, which is a type of self-assurance as well as an act of deception to herself.
This detachment was portrayed to us as a dialogue in the fourth wall breaks reflecting on the chaos of her life with sharp quips and bold overhearing.
The concept of “Fleabag” started out as a 10-minute sketch for stand-up storytelling and then was adapted into a one-woman stage play. This direct address to the audience makes a lot of sense in a play, feels more natural and traditional, and translating this aspect into TV was a difficult part of Phoebe’s writing process.
Fleabag’s character needed to speak to an audience because it required her to put on a performance, her easygoingness is all an act, she overshares her sexual escapades in order to simulate intimacy with the viewer, in this way, she’s emotionally distancing herself by turning her life into a funny story for her audience, in the same way, people use humor to distance themselves from painful realities, she is hilarious yet you can tell something is going on beneath the surface.
It’s simpler to talk to a voiceless audience incapable of actually judging you, similar to how it’s easier to talk to a stranger about your problems than it is to talk to a close loved one.
So the upside of it no longer being a one-woman show is that we get a greater grasp of how Fleabag tries to manipulate our perception, how her point of view is not always accurate, giving us hints that she’s an unreliable narrator, which was demonstrated to us constantly by her predicting things wrong then subsequently feeling disappointed or confused, as if growth is a foreign concept to her and it conflicts with the story she’s trying to tell us and, by extension, the lies she’s trying to tell herself.
These fourth-wall breaks are merely a coping mechanism, we aren't close to her and she doesn't genuinely want us to be, and she would be better off without us and these escaping tactics.
But she ultimately loses her control of the narrative by the end of the first season and tries to escape our scrutiny by not looking at us again for the rest of the season finale.
Fleabag’s cynical fourth-wall commentary is comparable to superficial social media connections. She’s an expert at appearing authentic while keeping people at a distance, and her confessions are no less staged than their happier online counterparts. Even the act of oversharing does not equate with true intimacy.
The search for genuine authenticity on social media is an impossible endeavor. You’ll never truly know someone if you just see them as an audience member through a screen, and we shouldn’t expect to. We can provide commentary and connect from afar, but we can’t participate.
Even if they’re willing to show us the parts of themselves they deem ugly, in the end, we’re only observers.
Their vulnerability also can be a recipe for cursory judgment, societal pressures are only heightened here as mistakes and flaws are amplified in people’s perception, sometimes becoming a person’s all-encompassing persona, like Fleabag would probably be.
People’s personalities are often pathologized and/or boiled down to their worst essence. Our actions are never just mistakes, misunderstandings, or lapses in judgment. They’re definitive representations of who we are; the internet evaluates in absolutes. It judges through extremes of hyperbole with little to no nuance; genuine honesty about the ugly parts of ourselves is thus discouraged. There’s no room left to be a flawed human being; and, therefore, there’s little to no room left to learn and grow.
There is a resemblance between Fleabag’s real-time annotations to the camera to live streaming, broadcasting, and documenting her life in the way she’d like it to be perceived.
The pressure to fit into social norms extends to how Fleabag approached relationships, not just romantic partnerships but strong ties with people in general. But let’s tackle romance first.
Fleabag’s approach to romance seemed to be one of avoidance of romance, notably in season one, when she used sex to run away, and her body to forge an illusory sense of self-worth. She wasn’t obsessed with sex, but couldn’t stop thinking about the act and drama.
There’s nothing romantic or intimate about the exchange for her; it’s all about the attention, a desire to be desired. She believed that if she didn’t have this, she’d have nothing, that no one would want her for any other reason.
But this pattern shifted later on in the series. Phoebe thought that having a priest as Fleabag’s first true love interest would be quite intriguing to explore. First in the sense that the actual basic principles of kindness and religion are lost in discussions of them, and those sentiments are exactly what she needed to be exposed to this time around; and secondly, in the sense that their journey mirrors each other.
She has the camera/audience witnessing her and keeping her in check, and he has God for the same reason. At first, it appears Fleabag desires the priest because she knows he’s unattainable, but when the priest started to notice her fourth wall breaks, it was really startling almost like an intrusion. We suddenly became hyper-aware of our position as observers, possibly even tense about her dysfunctional relationship with us being discovered.
However, it was a clever way to convey that he truly sees her, which first alarmed her, just as it did us. Gradually, his refreshing honesty becomes contagious, and it’s the first time she’s been entirely truthful with a romantic interest and one of the few times she’s been truly honest with herself. She even shuts us out when they first sleep together, not making a spectacle out of genuine love.
In the end, the priest chooses to hold on to God, he wanted to keep his relationship with his witness, but Fleabag chooses to let her witness, us the audience, go.
Her other most important connection was with her sister Claire; although having quite different lifestyles and personalities, they learned to rely on each other as friends would, and their dynamic was a big element of the show.
Fleabag started out by comparing herself to Claire in terms of her status and success. Later we get to see that she was also a wreck in totally different ways. We're all just trying to figure things out, no one really has everything together.
There’s this pervasive notion that once you reach a certain age, you’re meant to have checked all the boxes, that you’re running out of time if you haven’t, and that once you reach that age, it’s all downhill from there.
But that's simply not the case. In fact, it only gets better, and it's not because everything in your life magically becomes perfect and exactly how you envisioned it should be. Far from it. Usually, it’s because you gradually stop taking these vague external pressures into consideration, you simply start to care less about how other people think you should be living your life, that in itself is tremendously liberating.
In the end, even though Fleabag was left heartbroken, she seemed at a much better place, as she finally managed to sincerely open her heart to another person. Recognizing she could be loved despite her screwups, the hardships were never for nothing.
Having a wonky path in life is normal and doesn't make someone a fuck-up, there's always a chance to do better and be better even if you have to start from scratch.
