Thank You, Phoebe

At my book club last month, one of my friends called me out on how I hate every book:

“Tedd, did you always hate every book, or do you just feel comfortable now complaining about all of them?”

For a minute I defended myself. Or tried to.

“I don’t hate every book! You know, I did like…”

But as my mind went back, I had to admit to myself that… I did, in fact, hate every book. Even the book I “liked” from book club I spent 10 minutes talking about how the second half was a structural and narrative failure.

I think part of the book problem is that recently I’ve been reading things that have been recommended via Facebook ads or books that have won awards. Award books are THE WORST. I don’t know how book awards work, but I assume it’s just a hat with paper in it and then if your publisher pays enough, your book gets put on a piece of paper that goes in the hat.

There was one “award-worthy” book that came out this fall I was excited to read because it was a queer writer and his other work had received rave reviews.

Woof.

Cancer is not funny, but I laughed out loud in the book when his grandmother got cancer because… like, that was the 10000th trauma that happened in 200 pages. At a certain point, maybe just discuss one trauma? Don’t worry about every possible one that could possible befall someone? “My grandmother’s cancer only slightly affected me due to my own HIV diagnosis and my sister’s fight with her abusive husband who also is an alcoholic who shot my best friend. Also a miscarriage.”

I had given up on “high” art due to the hat-paper voting system, so a few weeks ago when Frozen 2 came out, I was excited. Disney movies are always well done! They’re fun! There is good music!

Then Frozen 2 sucked. *Spoilers coming* They couldn’t write one catchy song? Anytime Olaf wasn’t onscreen cracking a joke, I was looking at my watch. I didn’t think a story about a snow witch, a magic snowman, and a fire lizard could be a snoozefest, but I felt like every plot point was telegraphed.

“There is a fifth spirit! And its symbol is a snowflake! What could it be?”

It’s you Elsa… It’s you.

After I complained about Frozen 2, I had to take a long look in the mirror: Did I hate everything? Was I one of those people who couldn’t enjoy books, movies, or TV shows because he’s pretentious? In the past month I’d described movie plots as “derivative”, books as “narrative failures”, and refused to see a romantic comedy based on some anti-rom-com principle I didn’t know I had.

WHO WAS I?

But then came Phoebe.

When I saw that the TV show Fleabag had won a bunch of Emmys, I kind of assumed it would suck. (For reference, the Emmy voting process is boots and handkerchiefs instead of hats and paper.) But I did know that the writer of the show, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, wrote Killing Eve, which is really funny, dark, and amazing.

Last Friday I didn’t have anything going on, so I went to Amazon and clicked on Fleabag. What sold me on it wasn’t the Emmys, but the fact that it was 6 episodes and each one is 25 minutes.

“I can commit to that,” I said putting down my book, The Pretentious Persons Guide to Chortling.

That’s when I discovered:

Fleabag.

Is.

Amazing.

I have become so obsessed with Phoebe that I watch her interviews on YouTube. I watch her acceptance speeches. I watched her 72 question Vogue video. I WATCHED EVERYTHING. I legit plan to re-watch Solo because she plays a robot in it, and I made my own Fleabag shirt because I NEEDED one.

In terms of the show, the first season is good, but it’s the second season that had me feel like I had been plunged into a lake of bad art and Fleabag pulled me out for some air.

It’s hilarious, but in a smart way – not just smart, actually brilliant. The first episode of the second season… the structure alone is incredible. The narrative grapples with love, God, depression, extended families, alcoholism, bad relationships, grief… There are moments in the grief when I know Phoebs (I call her Phoebs, we’re close) is going to sucker punch us with a good laugh, but she always surprises me with it. I never, ever see the joke coming and that feels sooooo goooooood!

I was sitting there thinking about how amazing Phoebe is as a writer (she writes the show herself), crying at the end of last episode of the second season of Fleabag, whilst also gawping at how amazingly she played with the convention of breaking the fourth wall, when I realized SHE ALSO WROTE KILLING EVE.

In the world of Hollywood there really aren’t really writers anymore. Movies and shows are written by committees of writers, or scripts are shopped so many times that when you see the writers in the credits it’s literally 15 people. But Beebee (I also call her Beebee) wrote two of the best shows in the past 5 years…

I’m not even joking when I say that I felt better about the world in general after watching Fleabag. There are still brilliant people. Writers are still grappling with big ideas like religion and love. Every piece of culture isn’t the 15th reboot of a superhero movie. Critics gave awards to something that is novel and fun and interesting.

I’m very much of the belief that smarter art means a better world and the fact that I got to watch someone write a brilliantly complex human deal with incredibly complicated life events and make it all funny…well, geez, give me a handkerchief and let me vote in a boot.

Since finishing Fleabag I have started re-reading Matilda by Roald Dahl. And, once again, am reminded that I still like stuff, but I just want it to be good. So, thank you Roald and Phoebeebay (I also call her Phoebeebay) for reminding me that I can continue to hate stuff at book club.

It’s okay to expect more.