Beef: Embracing Nastiness

As a writer and content creator who's putting their thoughts out in the public domain, it's always tempting to whitewash my words under the guise of making a positive difference. After all, one has to be aware of the impact they are putting out into the world. Who wants to leave behind a legacy of murky darkness and icky goo? We all want to put our best foot forward, uplift others, and be the hero. Yet, try as you might, you can't live a full life without being a villain in somebody else's story. Quite often we're villainous to ourselves. 

Beef is a short but juicy story packed with meaty goodness and iconic entertainment; All with plenty of fun sprinkled on top. Unlike most stories that seem to inadvertently make me anxious to achieve something, this show is the rarest of rare unicorns that makes me feel sane. It's beautiful, funny, thrilling, and nice to look at. It also leaves you feeling like there's a lot to process once it's over. It has ten episodes, forty minutes each. I'm not going to do a whole cinematic analysis with behind-the-scene coverage like a good journalistic piece. Instead, I will try to appreciate and take notes from it.

I really loved how each episode has an interesting title that probably has a deeper meaning that a much smarter YouTuber can break down for me. But this is not a show that makes you want to analyse or decipher it. It's a very personal story that's better left unspoken of. I also like the fancy classical music and artwork showcased in each episode's title card. It was always something of a throwaway rather than something pretentious and high-minded. To me, that also coincided with the overall narrative of the show and how appearances are important and necessary to maintain, but easily taken more seriously than they're worth. In the same way that the show has some meaningful references about representative artworks, but they're not worth mulling over or focusing on. They're just there, for the sake of it.

(Spoilers from here on)

The main two characters of the show are both imposters. One's faking it while struggling to make it, while the other has made it, but struggles to stop faking it. The games people play require so much deciet and manipulation that we've all learned to be mindful of how we act. The charade often reaches a point where the player forgets what it's like to be honest in the first place. What results is quietly sinking sense of madness with lots of internal screaming and a disconnect between inner feelings and outer actions. One of my favorite things about the show is all the unsaid conversations. I loved how both the characters refused to truly acknowledge the core of their issues and instead chose to engage in an exceedingly unnecessary altercation with a level of energy that's beyond uncalled for. 

Just like their lives are preoccupied with the pursuit of false idols, so their forms of catharsis are unusually indirect and a bit random. The theme is honestly ingenious as it perfectly dissects a very common phenonmenon that we see all around us and gives us all a powerful sense of perspective on every day things that would otherwise be inexplicable. It's funny how when you pursue happiness directly and tie it to certain achievements, it becomes even more elusive. This is extra frustrating because you start to see yourself as a person who puts more energy into improving your life. The harder you work, the more you feel entiled, the greater your suffering and disappointment, rinse and repeat.

In this way the most cherished of all values become false idols, as freedom and self actualization gets tied to your net worth. To some extent, we all have to play this game to ensure our security. The show also has some immense power dynamics. Each episode is dripping with subtext and really clever comedy that never crosses the line toward cringe or pretensious. In fact, every aspect of the show screams raw, intense honesty. By the end of the show, when Amy and Danny finally have a real conversation while tripping on hallucinogenics/poison, it's easily one of the most cathartic exchanges I have seen to date. We see the masks and shells come off, in an intense display of vulnerability and understanding.

Talk about resolution. Honestly one of the best-written, well-shot, and spectacularly-performed shows I have ever seen. All in that tight 10 episode window. The soundtrack is mostly absent and that lends itself well to the stripped-down feeling of the cinematography, and that works well because the show is ultimately about real people. Not the literal characters, but the millions of middle-class Americans and their struggle with mediocrity. As much as I hate to admit it, the show makes me feel like it's okay to be a part of that group. It also makes the viewer feel like it's okay to break down, go insane, and act irrationally. In that raw exchange of the ugliest of all emotions, is one of the best opportunities for real connection.

Not romantic connection, because that often becomes about using people and relying on them to an unreasonable level. Just real, sincere connection with no strings attached. At the end of the day, we all want to be held, seen, heard, and appreciated. We all want someone to support us and have our backs. But if it reaches a point where you become a burden on those around you, is it still within the realm of love? Isn't it far better to make efforts at being independent, while also relying on people as much as they can allow it? Or is love nothing else but self-sacrifice and service? To me, Beef was a show that truly had something to say, while also leaving it's viewers with pleanty of questions. As a storyteller, there's no higher goal than that. 

I don't suppose such a form of love can last very long. At the end of the day, if the act of giving doesn't energize by itself, it's a broken cycle and it doesn't work. I still believe that there is a very real cause and effect system behind each of our emotions, and that it's worthwhile to try and figure it out. Living your life completely tied to your goals, always obsessed with hyper optimization and effeciency, and being excrutiatingly enslaved by your higher self is a special kind of hell. Every higher self also comes with a shadow and together they form a real human being. If I meet someone who's constantly walking on sunshine and acting like the most perfect one in the room, it's triggers massive alarms, sierens, and red lights in my head. 

Now I can only hope that the person is simply hiding their horror from me for personal reasons, but I can never trust them until they come clean. What's truly problematic is when the person truly believes to be a saint. People in such cases tend to act hysterical, blowing up like a volcano, and are generally inexplicable. You can never predict what maight happen to a person who neglects huge parts of themselves. The atrophied areas lash out in rebellious tantrums that aim to burn the whole world down. Instead, I truly love people that are truly comfortable with being a little devilish. They act like rascals and are coy about it. Those people I can truly trust, for I can make it a point to guard myself against their sharp edges, and not take it personally when I cut myself on them anyway. 

Whether it's with yourself or with others, there can be no trust until you aim to integrate these extremes. That's the core of what the show is, and it says all this without ever covering it directly. The "scumbag" cousin Issac ends up being one of the most honorable people in the story while Danny's brother Paul and Amy's husband George give off a blissfully unaware naivety. While Geogre might seem like one of the most admirable characters on the show, his self-righteousness and sense of superiority comes on full disply when push comes to shove. At the end of the day, the man lives far disconnected from society and enjoys the luxuries that come with life in the ivory tower. Of course he's the nicest of all on the show, he's never had to get his hands dirty. Even his career was inherited from his family. His choice of alienating Amy at the slightest hint of unpleasantness shows his unwilling to step out from that ivory tower.

Ultimately, if he has a choice to live this way, then good for him, but without knowing about the burden of his extistence he's testing all those on which he relies on. As a human being he's tied to countless others and enjoys his life on all their backs. By disconnecting himself he shows a sever lack of appreciation along with a blatant commitment to imcompetence. This is why I think it's so appropriate that he ends up shooting Danny by the end. Meanwhile, Paul who seems like the poster child of blissful ignorance, incompetence, and stupidity, ends up being the most likeable characters on the show once he gets his own hands dirty. Of course, the most blatant example of what George only elluded to, is what happens to Jordan, the rich lady. She's literally split in two between the struggle of outright criminals and ambitious middle-class folk. Not very subtle, but quite appropriate. Talk about eating the rich.

I also think that it says so much about the show, that Jordan's demise and Isaac getting shot by the police were by far the most gruesome and horrifying thing to happen on the show, and they feel as such, yet those are not the things that remain. At the end of the story, all that remains are two people that have blown up their entire lives and having nothing left except for their future, which is still filled with hope. For at least they still have each other.