Fleabag and The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known (or, Seen)

Still from Fleabag - by Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Fleabag will be immortalized in history as the show that not only made its viewers feel seen for its poignant relatability, but feel as equally observed and involved as the characters. As Fleabag makes her way through life, the fourth wall is broken as she talks directly to you, or well, the camera to be more technically correct. Breaking the fourth wall is not something that is groundbreaking nowadays, but the way in which Phoebe Waller-Bridge utilizes this breakage to further involve the observer is what caught me off guard. Fleabag’s character is emotionally closed off and afraid to let down her armor in front of nearly every character, but as the observer we see who Fleabag really is, and in turn not only become her confidant but also a mirror for her emotions. We become one with Fleabag’s anxious glances and disgusted eyerolls. We share in her pain and hope that we can hold some of the love that she feels burdened with to carry.

In these moments of vulnerability she voices her concerns about herself and her place in the world and about nearly every other insecurity that we are too ashamed to admit to our peers. When she confesses - “I have a horrible feeling I am a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.” - it’s like hitting the nail on the head that is our inner shame and confusion. In her crystal clear and witty confessionals we become acutely aware of our inner thoughts that we couldn't articulate until we heard Fleabag saying them directly to us. For those of us that worry we maybe aren’t the perfect feminist, whatever that may mean, Fleabag forces us to face our fears and helps us realize we are not the only ones who feel like this. “Either everyone feels like this and they’re just not talking about it or I am completely fucking alone.” A central theme of the show is the question of whether everyone goes through life’s hardships alone, and if so, how does one deal with that tragic fact? The realization that everyone feels alone yet after all these years of humanity we haven’t figured out how to solve that debilitating feeling is simultaneously comforting and terrifying.

In the second season during a scene in which Fleabag visits a therapist in hopes to exchange the visit voucher for cash, her confessionals to us become strained and heartbroken, a turn from the first season. Fleabag acknowledges us as her friends who are “always there” but while doing so has a pained and regretful look on her face and a serious tone in her voice. If we think of the camera as a diary for Fleabag’s not publicly appropriate thoughts, it is here that her insecurity with admitting her thoughts becomes clear. Just as we may feel somewhat panged emotionally when we write in a journal, due to feeling maybe a little silly, hopeless, ashamed for being hopeful, or a whole other range of emotions, Fleabag feels the same. Sitting and talking with a therapist forces Fleabag to speak about things that she has only spoken to us about and upon realizing this starts building back up her layers of defense. Is there inherent shame in admitting your inner thoughts to anyone, even to our own diaries?

Up until this point it is felt as though Fleabag’s openness with us and the camera is her form of being completely honest and open and that it does not get any more real than that. But this scene in the therapist’s lounge changes everything; it knocks us and Fleabag on the side of the head out of the blue and causes us to analyze the Fleabag-Camera-Us relationship. In an interview with Waller-Bridge, she admits that Fleabag is “using a certain type of honesty as a form of distraction...She’s distracting you from a completely different side of her, which is the side that’s traumatized and in pain.” Aha! Alas, the truth in being brutally honest is revealed. It’s not that Fleabag has been lying to us, it’s that she has been telling certain truths so well that we are not paying attention to other parts of her character that make her the flawed and scared human she really is. She’s tough, she’s snarky, she’s sarcastic and brash to the camera - leading us to believe that though her life really is a shitty rollercoaster at times, she faces it with brute humor. But is facing things with humor really and truly the same as actually facing and dealing with them?

Along comes “Hot Priest'', the sincere and painfully loveable character in season 2 that pokes his nose into the Fleabag-Us relationship. In short, “Hot Priest” slowly becomes sentient of Fleabag’s little asides to us, at one point even screaming at the camera and startling us and Fleabag. His actions shake Fleabag to her core when she realizes that she can no longer hide behind her selective honesty and brute humor to us; her defense mechanisms have been splayed in broad daylight and she is left agast. But what does this have to do with “us” being seen, you may ask? Well, in Fleabag being seen by The Priest, not only is she being seen for every caveat of her personality that every other character in the show seems to miss, but we are being shown that maybe someone out there will also understand us, despite our own defense mechanisms and horror at truly opening up.

The Priest character is complex and serves many meanings but ultimately is a symbol of the show in its entirety - love and people are all we’ve got. Though we may find safety and comfort in hiding parts of ourselves from the world and acting like we can always face life with a big laugh and detach from moments that make us uneasy, doing so dampens the quality of life that can be lived. We understand Fleabag’s uneasiness towards love and vulnerability because of her dark past with both themes, but we and Fleabag come out on the other side at the end of the show when we finally reconcile with the fact that the only way to manage the absurdity of life and the void is with others by our side.