The tragedy of Fleabag: a 19th-century morality tale

Four years after it was first released (2016), I’ve finally caught up with the TV series Fleabag. I’ve watched the first series of six episodes, and the impression of the series has been exhilaration followed by great disappointment. How can six episodes of less than half an hour produce such a mixed impression?

The initial premise of Fleabag, created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as exemplified in the first episode, is exhilarating. Here is a truly original fictional character; a 21st century type. Fleabag is a woman in her late 20s living a life of sexual voraciousness, failing in her job of running a café, but blissfully unconcerned with convention. She gleefully punctuates pretension in the world around her, not least her more conventionally successful, but straight-laced, elder sister, and her appalling domineering step-mother. Fleabag’s repeated asides to the camera, commenting on the action, bond her with the viewer, and her assortment of male lovers, whether over-assertive or inadequate, provides both a biting social comment and uproarious comedy, all in one. One lover, who is credited only as arsehole guy, is particularly offensive. It is very sad but revealing that a 21st-century story shows a woman obtaining sexual pleasure only by herself, not with any partner: there is no mutual pleasure to be found here. The script, the editing, the acting, are all exceptional. To see Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s face is a joy: the wordless gestures are a delight. She can express a feeling without any words.

Fleabag’s sheer incompetence and inability to deal with the world make her very entertaining to watch, because of her devil-may-care attitude to authority and disregard for politeness. She is also remarkably human: incapable of admitting to her family she has no money; she then charges her sister for £25 for a sandwich.

Here, then, is a character worthy of Boswell in his journals, and in some ways very similar. Both Boswell and Fleabag are convinced of the rightness of their actions and cannot understand why they find themselves constantly disappointed by the behaviour of others.  Fleabag identifies posers and frauds, both male and female, with outrageous frankness, but fails to benefit in any way from her honesty.

Yet growing throughout the first series is a very different story: a tragic subplot that jeopardizes the entire premise of the character. Fleabag’s close friend died in a road accident and it is slowly revealed that the cause of death, possibly suicide, was the result of the friend (Boo) discovering her boyfriend was having sex with someone else – none other than Fleabag herself. This subplot of transgression has a very different tone to the rest of the plot. Although the transgression is echoed by Fleabag being kissed by her sister’s husband, in this case the guilty party is Fleabag herself.

Fleabag’s innate sense of morality makes it quite clear, to her and to us. Fleabag is speechless at her brother-in-law’s transgression; however unconventional your behaviour, trying to seduce your sister-in-law is unacceptable. But by the same token, sleeping with the partner of your best friend is similarly unacceptable, and in the latter case it happens to the leading character, with whom we identify. Fleabag, in an outpouring of grief and self-loathing, admits as much in the last episode, stating something like “I fucked my friend by fucking her boyfriend - I fuck everything that moves – there is no good in me – is there anything worse than someone who doesn’t want to fuck me”. Suddenly, the moral ground of the entire series has shifted. From a woman who, for all her anarchy and outrageous behaviour, had a kind of grandeur, perhaps the only uncompromised woman on the planet, she has become one of the figures she herself condemns so ruthlessly; now she is just a soap opera character. Her magnificent promiscuity is condemned, as if she were the heroine of a 19th-century novel by Flaubert. We all know how Flaubert had no qualms about orgies with prostitutes in Cairo, while condemning the slightest stepping out of line by a “respectable” woman like Madame Bovary. Fleabag has plunged us back 150 years, into the same misogynist stew. From a woman of principle (we forgive her petty theft because we know that in her heart she is principled), her sexual desire now condemns her. For this viewer, that is a difficult lesson to take. I was not just disappointed; I felt undermined. One of the great characters of modern fiction had been shackled back to 19th-century morality, with its condemnation of raw female desire.