TV Sitcom Fleabag: How to Be a Funny Feminist on Television
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TV Sitcom Fleabag: How to Be a Funny Feminist on Television. Or Maybe Not Annette Pankratz (Ruhr University Bochum) ou know that feeling when you show won the Writers’ Guild of Great Yreally get into a series and happily Britain Award for best TV situation binge your way through all the episodes comedy; Waller-Bridge won a BAFTA in one late-night sitting, only to wake up for best female performance in a comedy the next morning with a hangover and programme, the Royal Television Society a strange taste in your mouth? This is Awards for Best Writing (Comedy) and what happened to me when I watched Breakthrough Star of the Year, as well the first series ofFleabag (BBC, 2016)1, as the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards the sitcom created by and starring for best writer.2 By 2018, Waller-Bridge Phoebe Waller-Bridge. In 2017, the was considered one of the leading “dramedy queens: the women who built TV’s new golden age” (Press 2018). The same year, the BBC commissioned a second series of Fleabag to be broadcast in 2019. In short: Critics, TV executives and viewers are equally enthusiastic about Fleabag. But what about the strange aftertaste? ut maybe I should start at the beginning, with Not a happy family (from left to right): B Godmother, Fleabag, Claire, Dad heavy breathing and the © Hal Shinnie, many thanks to Twobrothers close-up of a door at night. A young Page 146 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Annette Pankratz woman in a trench coat enters the trench coat – lives the life of an urban frame and addresses the audience: hedonist. She has on-screen sex, not only with Arsehole Guy (no offense, this is the You know that feeling when a guy sends you a text at two o’clock asking only name we get to know him by), but if he can come and find you and you’ve also with her best friend’s lover, someone accidentally made it out like you’ve just she meets on the bus, her long-term got in yourself. So you have to get out of partner Harry, a vibrator and – albeit bed, drink half a bottle of wine, shower, shave everything. Decide I’m going to indirectly – Barack Obama. She indulges up my game a bit. Dig out some Agent in alcohol, nicotine and the occasional Provocateur business – suspender belt, joint, usually hanging out with her best the whole bit and wait by the door until friend Boo (Jenny Rainsford) and guinea the buzzer goes? (ep. 1, 00:16-00:31) pig Hilary in their own rickety café. You know that feeling? I don’t. Never he celebration of a liberated mind for the moment and dig out Tlifestyle is undercut by Fleabag’s some suspension of disbelief. The comments and her frequent moments of buzzer goes, the guy enters and very desperation. The sitcom developed out soon the two have sex in all possible of a stand-up piece first performed at positions. Despite her obvious physical the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013, in which commitment, the woman delivers a Waller-Bridge plays with the sympathies running commentary into the camera: and antipathies of the spectators: “I After some pretty standard bouncing, I knew I wanted to write about a young, realise he is edging towards my arsehole. sex-obsessed, angry, dry-witted woman, I’m drunk, and owe him a ‘thank you’ for but the main focus of the process was her coming over, so – I let him. He’s thrilled. direct relationship with her audience and The next morning, I wake to find him sitting on the bed, fully dressed, gazing how she tries to manipulate and amuse at me. [...] He touches my hair and and shock them, moment to moment, thanks me with genuine earnest. It’s sort until she eventually bares her soul” (2013, of moving. He kisses me gently. [...] And vi). Adapting this strategy for TV seems I spend the rest of the day wondering: Do I have a massive arsehole? (01:08- to have worked brilliantly. As Stuart 02:41; cf. Waller-Bridge 2013, 23) Heritage points out in his review for the a: Fleabag is full of unlikeable characters, (Post-)Feminism(s) “defeated and broken”, but the series as a whole is “hilarious, obviously” (2016). he opening sets the tone for the entire Tshow: Fleabag combines formal he protagonist’s sarcasm not experiments with racy outspokenness. Tonly highlights the absurdity of Protagonist Fleabag – the woman in the the situations she gets herself into; Page 147 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) TV Sitcom Fleabag: her main target is herself. Behind the feelings. I wanted to explode the myth self-confident façade hide loneliness, that feminism is without personality, insecurity and haunting memories, and that women who talk about it are mainly circulating around two watershed sanctimonious. Fleabag is me trying moments: the death of her mother from to inject some humour into the issue” breast cancer and the accidental suicide (quoted in Bullimore 2016). The of Boo (after finding out about her author here seems to have forgotten or lover’s infidelity, she walks into a busy suppressed the existence of sitcoms like bike lane and is eventually killed by a Absolutely Fabulous (1992-1996; 2001- car). This is enhanced by the filming 2004) that already feature loud, unruly, and editing. The series works with a sexually self-determined, unlikeable, fast-paced montage of shot and counter- but funny main characters. Moreover, shot, thereby emphasising the isolation Fleabag itself perpetuates the myth of of the characters. We usually do not see feminism as drab and sanctimonious. two people engaged in a dialogue, but a succession of close-ups of (cartoon- hen the lecturer of the “‘Women like) talking heads, with Fleabag often WSpeak’ (since 1998)” series (Tree addressing the audience and thereby Waller-Bridge) asks her audience: “please adding even more distance between raise your hands if you would trade five herself and her respective interlocutors. years of your life for the so-called perfect 3The interspersed flashbacks from her body” (ep. 1, 13:52-14:03), Fleabag and point-of-view – to her crises with Harry her sister Claire (Sian Clifford) are the or the good times with Boo – create only ones to raise their hands, admitting: narrative complexity and suspense, “We are bad feminists” (14:12-14:13). hinting at some unresolved trauma. The stepmother (Olivia Colman) claims to be a good feminist, believing in the he combination of sex, wit and power of “innate femininity” (22:45). Tmelancholy lends the sitcom a very As an artist, she professes to celebrate specific flavour. It seems to encapsulate the female body in a “sexhibition”. But the feelings of a new generation, who behind her stance of female solidarity see through the cant of sixties feminism lurks a narcissist ego full of malice. and still have to put up with old-style The exhibition hosts only self-portraits, patriarchy. In interviews, Waller-Bridge statues of naked men and sculptures of positions herself firmly in the feminist penises. And when the family gathers camp: “I think feminism is integral to for the commemoration of the dead everything that I’m trying to write but mother, she greets the sisters with: I didn’t know how to articulate my own “It’s a sad day, sad, sad day. I’ll get the Page 148 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) Annette Pankratz At the “Sexhibition”: Godmother, Arsehole Guy and Fleabag © Hal Shinnie, many thanks to Twobrothers champagne” (ep. 5, 03:18-03:19). personnel). “We’ve paid them to let us clean their house in silence” (14:39- he ambivalent attitude of the series 14:42), as Fleabag whispers to her sister. Ttowards feminism is very obvious in While the women adopt traditional episode four. In order to commemorate roles, a group of men nearby practices their mother on Mother’s Day, Fleabag anger management with plastic doll and her sister Claire are gifted a weekend ‘Patricia’, which basically boils down to at a very expensive country house by their them shouting “slut” at the top of their father (Bill Paterson). In the “female only lungs and kicking ‘Patricia’ around. Breath of Silence Retreat” (ep. 4, 05:34), the Retreat Leader (Jenny Galloway) hese only slightly exaggerated admonishes them that “women don’t Toppositions of traditional speak” (05:34) and “a word must not be masculinity and femininity serve as heard” (06:50). They find themselves in frame for the two sisters’ personal a group of women who scrub the floors dilemmas. Claire received an ardently or cut the lawn in order to rediscover craved promotion, but does not want their own spirituality. The therapeutic to go to Finland and leave her husband women-centredness sells Victorian and stepson, claiming that “My husband misogyny as Zen exercise. It appears a is my life” (17:16-17:17). Fleabag tries sham to make money (and to save on to come to grips with her betrayal of Page 149 Hard Times 102 (2/2018) TV Sitcom Fleabag: Boo. (We find out at the end of the traditional gender roles. “Young women series that it was her who had the brief are able to come forward on condition sexual encounter with Boo’s lover that that feminism fades away” (2009, motivated the lethal accident.) Moreover, 56). This perfectly describes Claire’s she meets her nemesis, the bank manager personal predicament and her decision (Hugh Dennis) who refused her a loan for family and husband. Fleabag’s life, in the first episode, called her “slut” however, is slightly more complex.