The Brilliance of Severance: Alienation & Non-Places [Video]
A Fun One on Media, Labor, and Internet Phenomena to Hold Us Over Until S3
Synopsis: Severance is a great show. It’s struck an incredibly resonant chord across the Internet. My binge through coincided with a career transition, which made it all the more captivating a watch. So captivating, in fact, that I spent some time trying to unbundle what about the show made it stick - for me, at least.
I’ll zero in on three topics:
Alienation: The social theory of detachment from work and ourselves. The work may be “mysterious and important” but that type of work comes with side effects. Namely: disillusionment. Something theorized 150+ years ago, literalized in the show as a medical procedure, and felt internally in reference to our actual work (see, r/antiwork for a display of the disillusionment)
Non-Places: We all spend a lot of time in non-places whether we know it or not. They feel familiar but they become eery and unsettling if we stick around too long. In the case of Severance’s workselves (innies), the non-place is all that’s ever known. From the hallways of corporate offices to airport terminals in the physical world to the slop-infested Facebook feeds in the digital world, non-places have captured the attention of the Internet since 2019. A non-place is the perfect setting for a show with a theme like “labor and alienation.” (See also, “liminal spaces” or “backrooms”)
Tension: How does a show owned by a major streaming platform/for-profit corporation deal with the alienation Severance has created? How will the narrative arc resolve satisfactorily given its context?
Run-time: 12:08
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