{"id":13376,"date":"2020-04-14T15:49:09","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T19:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=13376"},"modified":"2020-04-14T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T20:00:00","slug":"kaleidoscope-5-longing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2020\/04\/14\/kaleidoscope-5-longing\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaleidoscope #5: Longing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Honestly, the premise of this post is a bit of a stretch. But stick with me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Being cooped up inside has made me discover some things I should have watched\/listened to\/enjoyed a long time ago. One of those things is the British TV series \u201cFleabag,\u201d specifically Season 2. For those who haven\u2019t seen it yet, \u201cFleabag\u201d is a dark and hilarious portrait of a woman trying to heal from her traumatic past. I ate up all 12 episodes in less than 48 hours.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I finished binge-watching the show at 3AM, I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about it. I looked up reviews. I watched interviews. I re-watched episodes. And when I found out there wouldn\u2019t be a third season, I felt a wave of sadness, then contentment. Finally, I wondered why. Why had I gotten so invested? What was so special about \u201cFleabag\u201d? Then Carly Rae Jepsen came to mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was similarly late to listening to Jepsen\u2019s music when I dived into it last summer. I had heard rumblings of how she was so much more than the \u201cCall Me Maybe\u201d girl and I finally set aside time to find out for myself. The rumblings were right. Her latest two albums, <\/span>Emotion <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Dedicated\u00a0<\/span><\/i>are 80s-inspired pop perfection. I ended up working my way through her discography just as quickly as I consumed episodes of \u201cFleabag.\u201d But that\u2019s not why I made the connection between the two.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, I think that both operate by touching on a very particular, addictive yet completely obliterating feeling. Both \u201cFleabag\u201d and Jepsen\u2019s music let you sink your teeth into the \u201calmost.”<\/span>
\n<\/span> Throughout Season 2, the main character in \u201cFleabag\u201d is on the cusp of a forbidden relationship. Played by the show\u2019s creator and writer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, this character is having her comeback and the viewer finally feels like she has a real shot at love. Unfortunately, that love is for someone unattainable. A priest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Strangely enough, Jepsen\u2019s music covers the same theme. I\u2019m not the first one to point this out (a superfan wrote a 150-page essay on the \u201cJepsen pattern\u201d you can check out here: <\/span>https:\/\/www.ascarnooneelsecansee.com\/<\/span><\/a>), but pretty much all Jepsen sings about is longing. She never gets the guy. The relationship never works out for her. But Jepsen\u2019s also never openly heartbroken about it. She just really, really likes this guy and wants him to know it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t picture Waller-Bridge\u2019s character singing along to \u201cI Really Like You\u201d or \u201cCut to the Feeling.\u201d Mostly, I think, because she\u2019s British. But the feelings are there. Both \u201cFleabag\u201d and Carly Rae Jepsen\u2019s music make not quite getting what you wanted feel magical and frustratingly fulfilling. A difficult feat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

,<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Honestly, the premise of this post is a bit of a stretch. But stick with me.\u00a0 Being cooped up inside has made me discover some things I should have watched\/listened to\/enjoyed a long time ago. One of those things is the British TV series \u201cFleabag,\u201d specifically Season 2. For those who haven\u2019t seen it yet, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2218,"featured_media":13377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13376"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13380,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13376\/revisions\/13380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}