How Anti-Escapism Shows Force Us To Face Our Difficult Reality
A favorite pastime of mine tends to be running from my emotions. Anyone else?!
Through television, it seems like for a while, there were many people who had the same mindset. Instead of facing the horrors of daily life, many of us would turn to a light-hearted sitcom to act as a form of escapism. When we watch shows like Gilmore Girls, Parks and Rec, Schitt’s Creek, or The Office, we just get to see some silly little characters live their silly little lives. Sure, they run into some problems and have to deal with those, but typically these type of shows just let us disconnect for 30 minutes or an hour and they face struggles with a laugh track instead of head on.
Recently, it seems that audiences have gravitated to less light-hearted shows and have leaned more into really intense and emotional shows that don’t let us run away from reality. These shows force us to face the good, the bad, the ugly and sometimes help us work through our own fears and limitations. Some of the first shows that come to mind include The Bear, Euphoria, or Severance. These shows are uncomfortable for all of their own reasons and many times, they are super tense and somewhat draining. What makes shows like this the more popular show lately?
Anti-escapism shows thrive on things that are uncomfortable. The Bear is highly uncomfortable and always tense. When the chefs aren’t yelling at each other, the show digs into addiction, grief, and dysfunctional relationships. Euphoria also de-glamorizes the high school experience by talking about sex, drugs, addiction, and struggling with one’s identity. Severance dismantles corporate workplace ideation and pulls back the curtain on autonomy, labor, and self-identity.
I think part of the reason we are leaning more into shows that tend to be morally gray instead of the heroic, heartfelt story is all the uncertainty that we have been facing every day for the last decade. Over the last ten years, there has been a whole pandemic that rocked us all, political unrest and uncertainty, high economic instability, and a huge divide between different walks of life. All of those stressors make someone like Carmy or Rue feel more relatable. They aren’t the perfect humans and they struggle to make the right decisions and deal with the complex emotions that they experience. Those characters can be so annoying to watch, but they are typically a mirror for the flaws that we have just below the surface as well. Those flaws are what tie us to shows that don’t allow us to escape to an idyllic world.
Escapist shows will always be popular and I’ll always want something that is a little cute and picture-perfect to watch while I turn my brain off after a long day, but anti-escapist shows are there when we are finally ready to process what we are feeling. You may not even realize that you are working through that knotted emotion as these shows are playing on your screen, but by the end of the episode, you may have realized how to move forward from whatever is holding you back. Stories like those remind us that we aren’t alone, and in a world that feels so isolating, that is the ultimate form of connection.
