We know him as Alex, the lion from the “Madagascar” franchise and Larry Daley from “Night At the Museum.” In his latest production, Ben Stiller has taken a much darker turn. “Severance” is one of the newest Apple TV+ originals, and although season 1 just concluded, fans are craving season 2.
Starring Adam Scott and Patricia Arquette, this alternate reality allows workers at Lumon Companies to be separated from reality during their work hours. In other words, they have one conscious mind for their personal lives and another conscious mind for their work lives, work and home never cross paths. More deeply than that, though, their home mind and work mind are completely unaware of the facts of each other; the work mind knows they are the ‘innie’ and the personal mind knows they are the ‘outie,’ and that’s that. Stiller sparked a very interesting conversation many Americans have struggled with: the ability to not bring work home with them, as well as being able to separate their personal dramas from their work responsibilities. The show, however, quickly takes a dark turn, the classic ‘the government controls everything’ type motif we all have seen in a science fiction/dystopian society.
Beyond the conspiracies, I felt like I could surprisingly relate to much of what Stiller was portraying with his show. When the workload becomes complicated and draining, it would seem like a dream to completely shut off that part of my life. Until I realized how much of my work stems from my personal life experience. Especially for us art students and my fellow creatives. So much of our emotions are poured directly into our work. A photoshoot, fashion show, or painting may not have even happened without certain personal experiences. Although many believe it is the easy choice to become severed, and if the show’s concept existed in our reality, they would choose the same. Creatives don’t have that choice.
Creative work would never be produced if our personal experiences weren’t involved. That is exactly why being “severed” as an art student is completely unrealistic and not an option. Nothing we do is muscle memory. We’re never simply going through the motions while working. Most creatives don’t work a typical nine to five, and the line between work life and personal life is blurred. In the show, it is revealed that Scott’s character chose to be severed because he didn’t want to cope with a traumatic loss he suffered. Artists would turn that loss into creative energy for their work.
It’s a hot topic that the work-life bleeds over too much into the personal life and that an employee starts to behave like a robot and not actually live. As the season progressed, the four main characters banded together during their work lives to not succumb to the robot-like way of thinking Lumon was trying to emulate. Even with severed employees. The workplace can be very toxic and is for many. Being able to simply “block” that a workday ever happened is not the answer to fixing an unbalanced system, which I believe is Stiller’s point. Especially since the pandemic, many crave the ability to separate work from home, but the literal act of separating the two is just as harmful.
There are many unanswered questions Stiller has yet to reveal the answers to. And not just in the show, but how to, in reality, balance work, and play. It is a blessing in disguise for us creatives to blend the two together. Instead of creating two lives that may be more structured or stable, we get to live and create one big beautiful mess.
Words by Amanda Applebaum.
Graphic by Aarushi Menon.