29
Severance’s Skin-Deep Critique of Capitalism (www.currentaffairs.org)
submitted 12 hours ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/movies@lemm.ee
14 comments fedilink hide all child comments
top 14 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 4 points 4 hours ago

Honestly it's all skin deep and not as smart of a show as the praise makes it.
Literally the show performs one of my least favorite tropes for lazy writers that want to write off a character but don't want them dead or have to figure out a good character arc and then even has the gall to act like it was poignant with a literal:

Train To Nowhere

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 25 minutes ago* (last edited 25 minutes ago)

There's no reason to assume Irving won't be a part of the next season (and, IIRC, the actor already stated he'll still be a part of the show).

[-] simple@lemm.ee 57 points 11 hours ago

I don't understand this post, Severance never claimed to be a mindblowing political series. It's a sci-fi thriller that also happens to be a satire of corporate culture, nothing more. It doesn't need to be "a deeper critique of capitalism" to tell a good story

[-] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 18 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Yeah, upon reading the post I immediately thought of an article from a long time ago whether some anime was feminist or antifeminist. It was just an average anime that didn't even engage with the topic.
The conversation around a piece of art becomes infinitely worse once values are ascribed to it based on a (re)viewers personal ideologies and agenda.

I'm all for anticapitalist sentiment and feminism, but not every topic needs to be evaluated under them.

[-] pdxfed@lemmy.world 5 points 5 hours ago

Found the anti-feminist! /s

[-] terraborra@lemmy.nz 10 points 10 hours ago

Office Space on ketamine.

[-] Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Early on the show told us it wouldn't be a deep philosophical exploration. By making that aspect of the show (personified as the brother in law) be comic relief.

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago

While he is comic relief, no arguing that - it doesn't preclude his role in the series from sparking interesting debates. It's just a different discussion than the one you're presumably hoping for.

[-] Fedegenerate@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 9 hours ago

Agreed on both counts. It's true that I went in hoping for a delve in what it means to be severed, but the show told me early it wasn't going to be that and I accepted that.

I didn't see the show as promising to critique capitalism, but explore cults through the setting of an office. Everything outside of the exploration of cult was incidental.

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

I think it's mainly focussing on the emotional part of severance, e.g. immediate interpersonal & especially romantic connections. Some focus on the social & cultural aspects would have been really nice!

Hopefully we'll get some of that in the next season. I couldn't be happier with the first two, so I'd say there's a good chance they'll move to these aspects to keep things interesting, especially after the ending of season 2 seems to be focussing on the conflicts between severed & non-severed!

[-] Krauerking@lemy.lol 1 points 2 hours ago

This is definitely a show about emotional feelings of the situations. It's not really what I would call an exploration of any topic other than what they think humans would be like on an emotional level being put through a world with the setup it has.

It mostly nails it to through execution but man it's a show of vibes and triggering your empathetic response far more than it is any good for commentary.

[-] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Hm, I'd argue that it's just as much about hierarchy as it is about emotions. Almost every interpersonal connection has some kind of power differential, and these frequently lead to abuse, exploitation and pain, whereas interpersonal connection on the same level seems to work in the opposite direction.

[-] Ilandar@lemm.ee 14 points 11 hours ago

Kinda reminds me of the first episode of the latest season of Black Mirror, which was a rather shallow critique of subscription models that received rave reviews from viewers despite the fact they were watching it on Netflix.

[-] reef@lemmy.ca 8 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I agree! I like Severance, but people have been overselling the political commentary angle

this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
29 points (89.2% liked)

movies

3848 readers
206 users here now

Matrix room: https://matrix.to/#/#fediversefilms:matrix.org

Warning: If the community is empty, make sure you have "English" selected in your languages in your account settings.

🔎 Find discussion threads

A community focused on discussions on movies. Besides usual movie news, the following threads are welcome

Related communities:

Show communities:

Discussion communities:

RULES

Spoilers are strictly forbidden in post titles.

Posts soliciting spoilers (endings, plot elements, twists, etc.) should contain [spoilers] in their title. Comments in these posts do not need to be hidden in spoiler MarkDown if they pertain to the title’s subject matter.

Otherwise, spoilers but must be contained in MarkDown.

2024 discussion threads

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
UKFilmNerd@feddit.uk
maegul@lemmy.ml
orangeNgreen@lemmy.world
neidu2@feddit.nl
Emperor@feddit.uk
maegul@lemm.ee
BoozeOrWater@lemm.ee
neidu3@sh.itjust.works
TheImpressiveX@lemm.ee