Fleabag, Feminism, & Phoebe Waller-Bridge
“Welcome to Women Speak. Opening women’s mouths since 1998. Before we begin, I would like to ask you a question. I don’t know about you but I need some reassurance. Please raise your hands if you would trade five years of your life for the so-called perfect body.”
Claire and Fleabag’s hands shoot up. Fleabag whispers, “We are bad feminists.”
(Season 1, Episode 1)
Fleabag (BBC)
The very first time I came across a scene from Fleabag, I was hooked. It was a snippet from the show, posted in a tweet praising British humor. Fleabag, our eponymous hero of the series, sits on a bench in a cemetery with her sister Claire. “It’s really inappropriate to jog around a graveyard,” Claire says. “Why?” Fleabag asks. “Flaunting your… life,” Claire replies. As they settle into the bench, Fleabag says, “My farts used to be like — Pah! Now they’re just sort of fighting their way out.” “I haven’t farted in about three years,” Claire says. Immediately, I knew I wanted to see more of their dynamic, not only because of their quick-witted humor but because of the feeling that there might be something there in this show, something that didn’t take life too seriously but acknowledged, in an honest way, what it felt like to be alive.
I binged this series over the course of two or three days and watched the entire second season in one sitting. Coming from a person who usually doesn’t watch more than one episode of a show at a time, this is highly unusual. It’s a show that draws you in, one that delights you and charms you, and can also make you cry (I know I did, just a bit). It’s excellent, funny, moving, and manages to avoid being too sappy about the drama of it all. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should give it a try.
The first season of Fleabag was released in 2016, and the second in 2019. Phoebe Waller-Bridge based the script on her one-woman live show, also called Fleabag, which she first performed in 2013. She was the creator, head writer, and star of the series, and has since lent her talents to the first season of Killing Eve, as well as co-writing the screenplay for the upcoming James Bond film No Time to Die. She’s picked up a number of awards, including a British Academy Television Award, three Primetime Emmys, and a Golden Globe for Best Television Series, and has also forged a very cute friendship with Donald Glover.
Fleabag-Feminism: Gloriously Imperfect
The show provides a unique perspective on feminism, especially the pressure that women can feel to be “perfect”. It touches on the ways girls and women are conditioned (both formally and informally) to please others, even if that means suppressing parts of themselves in order to make people more comfortable. In an interview, Waller-Bridge says, “With Fleabag, her relationship with feminism is so complex because she’s vulnerable with it. She doesn’t understand the rules of it. She knows in her bones that it’s the thing that she wants to be and she wants to identify as a feminist but she feels like she’s letting feminism down all the time. And in that scene, she’s embarrassed by it because… she wishes she was more perfect, and that feels like it was an attack on feminism itself” (BBC). Fleabag (the character) embodies a sense of unevenness about feminism, as she grapples with how to be honest with herself about how she really feels about life, herself, and her relationships, while also trying to adhere to the feminist principles that women have been taught to aspire to. The show’s portrayal of feminism is very complex, because it doesn’t deal with theoretical ideals any longer; instead, it takes a look at how feminism is put into practice in realistic situations.
Fleabag gets its name from Waller-Bridge’s childhood nickname, Flea. She wanted a name “that would create an immediate subtext for the character, so, calling her ‘Fleabag’... she looks like she’s got stuff together, and yet her name betrays the subtext of her… Something a bit rough around the edges and a bit of a mess.” (Waller-Bridge, Digital Spy). The show is filled with hidden symbolism; a recurring theme is Fleabag’s imperfection, her messiness, and her mistakes, and the guilt and shame she feels for not living up to certain ideals. However, in her messiness and mistakes, the beauty of living real life shines through. Outside the curated and highly aspirational model of feminism are real women who grapple with contrasting feelings and messages surrounding how they should act and who they should be. So in this way, the show takes a look at what feminism can look like in the real world.
Fleabag (BBC)
Another way the show demonstrates two avenues of feminist thought is through the dynamic between Fleabag and her sister Claire, who represent two sides of the same coin. Claire is an archetypal career-oriented woman, able to achieve her professional goals because she works herself almost to the point of exhaustion. “I have two degrees, a husband, and a Burberry coat!” Claire exclaims. These are the types of accomplishments that feminism touts, but it doesn’t always seem to acknowledge the downsides of this one specific idea of female empowerment. Claire (played excellently by Sian Clifford), on the other hand, does. Throughout the series, there are countless jokes about Claire’s eating disorder and the pitfalls of her marriage. She is Fleabag’s “perfect” sister, the woman that Fleabag aspires to be, who seems to have her life together but is secretly crumbling under stress. Both sisters struggle under the weight of having to maintain the appearances of having their lives together, in a gloriously funny and believable way. It’s the mess-ups and the chaos that makes this show enduringly honest, showing us how to have a laugh about the improbability and the beauty in the unexpected situations we find ourselves in.
