FLEABAG and the Inner Monologue

Recently taking the award season by storm, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s two season Amazon series Fleabag has earned itself every accolade it has achieved. The mind of Waller-Bridge’s is a force; she writes, she acts, and more than that she has an incredible connection to the human psyche. I’d happily spill my guts out to her in a therapist’s office. She just seems like she gets it. She has mastered the ability to connect art in the form of cinematographic expression to the feeling of the human mind. Literally, what it feels to have a human mind. she's not the first to have done this, but her choice of expression is definitely unique.

In an abstract way (the use of fourth wall breaks as a staple of the series) viewers can see how a human brain (not just the body controlled by the brain) can be the true star of a television series. Phoebe doesn’t just act outwardly as a character does, but her brain—her mind—is its own character. Impulsive, inappropriate, invasive—it broadcasts the truly wonderful and truly horrific reality of having a consciousness and a never-ending, potentially life ruining inner monologue.

This entices a lot of questioning, and a lot of denial. Now, no one wants to admit their inappropriate sexual, violent, or cruel thoughts on a day to day basis. But we all have them. Frustration, trauma, even just disappointment—all of these emotions can be incredibly severe inside of us. Much more severe than how we choose to express them to the world. Who doesn’t have an incredible inappropriate—dare I say, evil—thought in the seconds following an emotional situation? Or sometimes, even just intrusive thoughts out of the blue. I’ve had to keep myself from laughing at funerals, during arguments, even during job interviews because sometimes tragedy, opportunity, or any heightened emotion can just bring the bonkers side right out of us. However, we can’t blame ourselves for these thoughts. Our psyche is a powerful thing, we can filter it out to look better, but also just to express who we really are instead of what our inner ramblings want us to be. What we think is not always what we are. Thoughts and the person are distinct entities. I mean, we can literally be haunted by our intrusive thoughts if we try to push them away. They are THAT intrusive. They are your younger brother breaking into your bedroom and trying on your clothes and stealing your sanity. They are you getting called into work last-minute when you’re deep into your fourth margarita and you just know you’re about to get fired. They can mess us up, give us anxiety, self-esteem issues—the works. It’s not fair for someone to tell you that they aren’t real. They are incredibly real, but they are distinguished by the fact that they are not entirely you.

What Waller-Bridge’s highlights in her show is not just how your inner monologue and relationship with yourself can lead to some awkward and hard to explain social interactions; it also highlights how you have the choice to be the person you want to be outwardly, protecting your self-preservation, while controlling and still having a relationship with the person within you who represents your basic instincts. So, (some spoilers here) sometimes you might pull a Waller-Bridge’s and fuck a priest. Other times maybe you steal important gold works of art from your step-mother. You can’t always resist these urges that are so much a part of you, but we damn well try as hard as we can to keep from looking insane, to keep from being humiliated, or to just preserve the lines we have built between what we sometimes want to do and what we must do. It’s a Freudian twist , so to speak. The Id and the Ego as characters are often represented by people’s choices on television and in film, but the unique distinguished character Waller-Bridge’s creates out of her inner-most thoughts is likely one of the best and most realistic representations of the insides of a human being that I have ever seen.

So, time to let the flea out of the bag. Let’s put science aside and focus on how we really feel about those voices and thoughts in our heads. Do you think the inner monologue and the psyche are characters in their own right, or just extensions of the human? Are we made up of one personality—who we think we are and how we act it out—or are there many completely normal (and some not so normal) characters within us that we both control and learn from constantly? And do you think Fleabag depicts this as well as I think it does?

Rating: 5/5

Let me know your opinions in the comments!

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