Enlightened
A friend suggested I watch Enlightened, an HBO series starring Laura Dern. She thought the half hour format and Laura’s character Amy would be right up my activist ally.
I’d never watched an HBO Series and didn’t know what to expect. Regular TV series all seem to be about folks working like dogs or folks solving murders or folks getting horrible surgeries or folks doing forgettable things. I’ve often said to others, “Why do most TV characters work and not do anything else?” Sends a weird message.
After figuring out how to use the On Demand feature on cable to watch the first four episodes (At points just randomly hitting buttons hoping to get where I needed to go.), I kicked back and met Amy.
I loved her. She has a public, angry nervous breakdown at the office in the first episode. It appears to be fueled by a break-up with a married co-worker. I figure it’s about something much deeper, some conflict with the real her and the fake her. The outburst sends her to a three-month meditation, self-love program in Hawaii. She returns seemingly calmer to live with her mother while she gets her finances in order.
Surprisingly, she returns to the company where she was a highly level health and beauty expert. Her job has been eliminated and it’s clear HR doesn’t want her back. (After all, we can’t have emotional outbursts at work. We have to feign self-control at all times. Business does not like emotion.) She tries to get them to create a position for her as a community outreach liaison – someone who makes sure the company does no harm. They don’t go for anything that progressive, but do agree to place her in the basement of the building doing data entry (reminds me of the guy in the fab movie Office Space.)
At first glance, her colleagues all appear to be freaks. They seem to be there because they’ve had a problem working “above ground.” I suspect that will also change as the series continues.
It’s clear that Amy struggles with her former angry self, her still angry self and the calm, caring person she wants/needs to be.
I relate to her character because she’s been enlightened. She now knows that there’s more to life than fancy generic job titles, making money, workaholicism and shopping. She wants to stop corporations polluting. She wants to stop companies from paying workers unlivable wages. She wants to stop the mother of two young daughters from being deported.
She cares, but no one else around her seems to except maybe one colleague, who seems to like her romantically.
I feel for her character because she thinks she’s stuck in this limbo world. She goes for and gets a job working at the homeless shelter but won’t work for $24,000 a year. Instead, she chooses to stay in the basement. It’s a pivotal, painful scene for her. And for anyone that feels stuck by circumstances.
I know people who want to leave their soul-numbing jobs but say they will only leave for the same salary.
I did quit a soul-numbing job and at first made diddly-squat, but within a year I was making more than my previous job. I’d probably be in a psych ward if I had not taken that chance on myself. Yes, it takes a leap of self-faith to cut the golden handcuffs and believe you can fly.
What’s so sad about our developed world is that we tell young children “You can’t fly.” How many parents tell their children who want to major in music that it will not pay the bills and instead to major in engineering.
Why not change the economic world so music and engineering can both produce livable wages? We create our world no matter what we’ve been taught to believe. Many of the math and science jobs out there are funded by the government. They can fund any sector they want. Why not music and art?
But I digress.
I find the show Enlightened enlightening because she wants to do good. Maybe, her company will create this position for her? During the last episode she hands her ex-lover a packet filled with info on the company’s clients and says “please read this.”
Can one enlightened person, enlighten another?
RSS
Interesting premise. Shame she didn’t take the shelter job… I guess it would be boring if there weren’t conflicts and dilemmas and mistakes.
You know my story, G. I haven;t replaced the ridiculous salary that I was making in my soulless corporate job yet, after 2.5 years, but writing a first novel can, I’m told, take a while.
Even if I did make as much as I used to, I think I’d have to give a lot of it away now. What seemed like barely enough then, would constitute a 600-700% raise compared to what I’ve chosen to live on for the last two and a half years.
Perspective is so cool.
Hi Michael,
You’re right that the show needed the conflict of her continuing to suffocate in the windowless basement of the building – a symbolic “hell” of some sort.
That’s where the “sinners” go in corporate America, down into the belly of the beast. I’m eager to discover the work sins of the other folks. They’ve alluded to them, but never mentioned them.
It really is all about our perspective. We “think” we need all this money and stuff to be happy, yet we really don’t.
Now that would be so cool if you did end up re-making the gobs of $$$ and gave it away. I’ve met waiters and waitresses I wanted to grant wishes to if I were a fairy godmother. I’d love to see more tax dollars going to regular folks with neat ideas instead of the big corps or large non-profits.
Novels can take awhile because no matter what you’re writing about on the surface, you’re writing about yourself underneath.
Thanks! G.
Reading this not only made me curious about “Enlightened” but also very frustrated that in my current living situation, I’m unable to get HBO.
As for choosing to remain in the basement vs. a more fulfilling job in a shelter earning only $24,000 a year, I have to say that – assuming she’s not in NY – she should have opted for the latter. Ten years ago, I chose to remain in the phone room, making around $18,000 a year rather than take a high-pressure job in LA at $110,000 a year. Most people thought I was crazy and several didn’t believe me. Truth was, I’d been there and done it, and why get back in the rat race when I was comfortable with the life and work I had – though eventually I compromised for a freelance position.
As for funding of the arts and encouraging artistic leanings, I heartily agree with you. But in this science oriented world, it looks like the arts are rapidly being relegated not even to a second place but to some basement area where pursuing any arts – except maybe musical – is almost frowned upon as a waste of time and energy in the young.
Hi Penelope,
Glad you choose not to get back into the rat race. Takes strength of character to make a choice like that. We’re trained to take the higher paying job, no matter what the psychological costs.
I’m working on a science op-piece. Have been collected all sorts of fragments. Clearly, they are going in the wrong direction, which gets cast in stone until something catastrophic happens. But then it’s all driven by monied interests.
Maybe you can buy the DVD set of Enlightened? It’s worth it! G.