Peep Show is the most realistic portrayal of evil I have seen (2020)

https://mattlakeman.org/2020/01/22/peep-show-the-most-realistic-portrayal-of-evil-ive-ever-seen/

111•Michelangelo11•9h ago

Comments

ElCapitanMarkla•7h ago

I’ll tell you what, that crack is really moreish.

mmasu•5h ago

please Jez, don’t talk about crack!!

pipeline_peak•3h ago

The twins! The fucking twins. I’m always on about them

Ecstatify•1h ago

I'll never forgive Orange if they've wiped the twins!

aosaigh•6h ago

This is a good read for fans of the the show. I don’t think the central premise of redefined evil holds up, but it’s a fun read and the analysis of their characters is spot on.

jkestner•5h ago

Yeah, I never empathized with Mark and Jez so his thesis falls apart for me. Maybe he’s the baddie?

Nursie•2h ago

I think this is an important point - it's very easy to find oneself slipping into the protagonists' viewpoints, in a lot of media the protagonist is 'good', we see the story unfold from their viewpoint, then sympathise and empathise with them, even when they make mistakes, their motivations were pure, and what’s unfolding isn’t due to problems with them exactly.

But in shows like this, in quite a lot of sitcoms with more cringey aspects, the protagonist is not necessarily a good person and they are often undone by their own pettiness, selfishness etc. Certainly in UK comedy anyway. Look at Fawlty Towers, The Office... Blackadder to a certain extent.

So when the article says this -

> It’s natural when experiencing any story to identify and sympathize with the protagonist.

Yes and no - this is something that creators can play with and may make deliberately jarring. See 'Lolita' for an extreme example. The article even brings up Walter White, saying - "we are drawn to root for the primary subject of the story". If you're still rooting for Walter by the end of Breaking Bad... were we watching the same show?

Lio•20m ago

Well… part of what made Breaking Bad so good was the artful way it manipulated your feelings for Walter.

By the end I was back rooting for him.

I wanted his plan to rescue Jessie (and to an extent Skyler) to work. It felt like a partial atonement[1] and allowed to show wrap up satisfyingly.

I feel the same way the same way about Tony Soprano. A terrible person with terrible behaviour but I still root for him at the end.

1. Of course nothing would really atone for his actions in reality but narrative isn’t reality.

3eb7988a1663•1h ago

It is hard to see many people empathizing with Mark when he routinely makes such terrible decisions. You want him to win, but even hearing his rationalizations -some of his actions are insane.

aunty_helen•3h ago

That’s because it reads like a PR piece. Gauging interest or preseeding a reboot or rerelease.

enneff•3h ago

That’s not how British tv works

processing•1h ago

(Jez)

taylorius•5m ago

Probably put together by someone who likes a logo in the foam!

danielecook•6h ago

I place it in the category of “cringe humor,” and by that standard it’s more cringey than Seinfeld and curb - especially because of the first person shots. It is a great show! Well worth a watch.

yantrams•4h ago

I always refer to it as cringe humour too but for the reason that it makes me physically cringe seeing how they humiliate themselves in social situations - Like NO MARK PLEASE DONT DO THAT! DONT ACT ON THAT IMPULSE PLEASE! kinda thing.

phist_mcgee•6h ago

The article refers to the banality of evil in realation to Eichmann. There's actually been quite a bit of historical push back on this assertion, which in some ways has been used to rehabilitate Eichmann's image as a bureaucrat. Eichmann while not the chief architect, was definitely partly responsible for the Holocaust's "success" and actively climbed the nazi hierarchy by finding a niche to fill - exterminating jewish people.

pessimizer•6h ago

And people just ignore a number of very convincing anecdotes told to Lanzmann from Benjamin Murmelstein, someone who would know, including one with Eichmann personally helping trash the inside of a Vienna synagogue on Kristallnacht.

JadeNB•5h ago

I always thought "the banality of evil" wasn't about minimizing the horror of his actions. It's not saying "what he did wasn't so bad," but "these horrible actions were done not by an obvious villain, but by someone personally unremarkable."

Lio•4m ago

Yes. There a tendency to ascribe charisma to the perpetrators of evil. You see this in the fascination with true crime.

The reality is far more boring; these horrific actions were perpetrated by someone that occasionally had bad breath.

ants_everywhere•5h ago

In addition to the push back there's the fact that Hannah Arendt -- who coined the phrase "banality of evil" -- was also a lover of Martin Heidegger.

Heidegger was an enthusiastic Nazi and Arendt also defended him. Some people see the "banality of evil" book as essentially being a defense of Eichmann.

tclancy•4h ago

Can you supply some sources for this?

ljlolel•4h ago

It’s in Wikipedia

ants_everywhere•4h ago

It should be in all standard encyclopedias, but it's certainly in Britannica and Wikipedia. Usually I like to cite Wikipedia, but I'll add Britannica in case people have conspiracy theories about Wikipedia. And you can read more about their romance in the other sources. The Slate article discusses her use of antisemitic sources in her books.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hannah-Arendt

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Heidegger-German...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger

https://www.openculture.com/2017/05/the-love-letters-of-hann...

https://slate.com/human-interest/2009/10/troubling-new-revel...

tab_jockey•6h ago

· Lies to a woman about accidentally killing her dog to try to sleep with her (also tries to burn the dog corpse and dispose of it)

zxexz•5h ago

And then claims it’s a barbecue turkey, and eats it in front of her in an attempt to save face.

simonw•5h ago

If you haven't heard of Peep Show but you enjoyed Succession you should know that Jessie Armstrong, the creator and showrunner of Succession, was previously one half of the Jessie Armstrong and Sam Bain pair responsible for Peep Show.

I find the similarities between the two shows fascinating: in particular the way they both revel in how flawed their central characters are.

willio58•3h ago

As someone who loves peepshow I might have to finally give succession a go!

jgalt212•5h ago

> Lies to a woman about stalking her so he can continue running into her in different locations

We've all done that.

tclancy•4h ago

Thass a bad miss.

(Admittedly, the next show)

reagle•4h ago

So they were the baddies?

kjellsbells•4h ago

On the topic of evil, this sketch from Mitchell and Webb stayed with me for years.

Are we the baddies?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY

Every villain is the hero in their own story, after all.

disposablese•3h ago

I wish there were a somewhat acceptable, though controversial, way for us to distinguish between good and evil like how success is defined by disposable wealth. You can argue that society does not see it that, but there is no absolute way to denying it.

alanbernstein•2h ago

How about china's social credit system?

blitzar•39m ago

No more or less evil than our one

two_handfuls•2h ago

> success is defined by disposable wealth

Are you sure?

jahewson•2h ago

HN Karma

annie_muss•1h ago

This article really makes sense.

I think back on my past and all the evil actions I have taken have all been fed by very low self-worth and insecurity.

When you think of yourself as below everyone else, trying to bring them down to your level with malicious acts can feel like quite reasonable. You're "punching up" so you can feel a sense of righteous justification.

It's only looking back that I realize I wasn't nearly as weak as I thought.

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Comments

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