![]() Like some sitcoms, Peep Show’s uncomfortable situations are of the character’s own makings, particularly their bad judgement and moral failings. Like any other sitcom, it’s based on “situational comedy” where the characters find themselves in uncomfortable situations that we laugh at. That’s basically how I see Mark and Jeremy on Peep Show. Their evil is not on the level of Eichmann, but their personas are so grounded that the contrast between how they appear and what they do is all the more striking. To Arendt, that was the scariest thing of all – that such evil could be perpetrated by so banal an individual. The way he looked, spoke, and acted made him appear to be a normal dude. Eichmann did unimaginably horrible things, but he didn’t seem like a horrible person. Instead she found an ordinary, boring, middle-manager paper-pusher type who seemed more concerned with getting a spot at the local country club and buying his wife nice outfits than how many gas chambers he filled at work. Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem first showcased the concept of “banality of evil.” Arendt analyzed Adolph Eichmann, one of the chief bureaucrats behind the Holocaust, expecting to find a mustache-twirling villain who gleefully organized the murder of millions of Jews and other undesirables with gusto. Mark: No, Jez, the absolute worst thing that anyone could say about you is that you are a selfish moral blank whose lazy cynicism and sneering ironic take on the world encapsulates everything wrong with a generation. With this essay, I’ll lay out how Peep Show portrays evil, what exactly makes Mark and Jeremy so evil, and how the two protagonists are essentially anti-role models from which we can all take lessons. These are vices that aren’t loudly announced by violent psychopaths or easily identified in scary individuals, but vices that sneak up on ordinary people, latch on to their psyches, and take over their lives.Īlso, it’s one of the funniest tv shows I’ve ever seen. ![]() Not just the classic vices like gluttony and lust, but cowardice, evasion, hypocrisy, and apathy, all born from a rarely acknowledged, yet omnipresent self-loathing. Mark and Jeremy cause bad things to happen to their acquaintances, co-workers, friends, loved ones, family members, and most of all, themselves, because they are consumed by their vices. It doesn’t just portray evil realistically, it portrays the root of evil realistically. This is what makes Peep Show so brilliant. We see this all not just by watching Mark and Jez go about their day-to-day lives, but by hearing their inner thoughts through voice-over monologues, which more often than not, reveal their actions and words as either cynical attempts to avoid facing their own failings, or desperate lies to obscure their true intentions, goals, and personalities. We see modern 30-somethings get rejected by women, get trapped in soul-crushing relationships, get one-upped by social rivals, get caught in countless awkward conversations, get screwed by ruthless corporate bullshit, get betrayed by unreliable friends, get betrayed by reliable friends who had already been betrayed, and so much more. Through nine seasons (each only six episodes) Peep Show mines our worst fears and failures for comedy. They embody the worst, weakest, most destructive traits that every single individual knows exists inside of them to one degree or another. They’re not evil in quite the way serial killers and murderous dictators are, nor in the exaggerated cartoony manner of other comedic anti-heroes like the characters on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Arrested Development, or Archer. Rather, Peep Show’s characters are evil in the scariest way possible – they’re realistically evil. Most people think of “evil” as being synonymous with “malicious” and “doing really, really bad things.” But I have a broader view of “evil.” I consider a thing to be evil if it creates bad outcomes not just out of malice, but instinct or carelessness.īy that standard, Peep Shows’s protagonists, Mark Corrigan and Jeremy “Jez” Usborne, are evil. Peep Show, a British tv series running from 2003 to 2015, starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb as a pair of miserable, co-dependent roommates living in Croydon, London, is the most realistic portrayal of evil I have ever seen.Īdmittedly, I’m using “evil” in an unorthodox way.
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