The scene was the end of April, the timeline was abandoned, and the mood was growing more and more dismal by the hour. Following the near-instant implementation of quarantine , the uncertainty of finishing the semester remotely, and the ultimate stress-filled exams, I was left to face the unbearable monotony of quarantine season. With all remotely interesting shows and movies already having been watched during my prolonged bouts of procrastination, there seemed to be no light, no hope, and no purpose left for me amid the four bare walls of my isolation. However, as with every storm, there comes a glimmer of sunlight—and for me, it came in the form of Normal People, a TV adaptation of Sally Rooney’s bestselling novel which depicts the growing pains of adulthood through the relationship between two friends—Connell and Marianne—turned lovers turned to friends, turned lovers turned to friends again. To say that I became obsessed is an understatement. But that’s just me, forever in the clutches of obscure British dramas that no one else seems to care about. Except this time, it was different. I wasn’t alone. Normal People had struck a collective nerve.
And why wouldn’t it? While we’re dealing with a situation that nothing—not even our in-progress university degrees—has prepared us for, it’s nice to remember that there are other things people our age should be focused on instead of tracking the rising number of infected people in whatever settlement you’ve found yourself weathering the storm, or calculating how many summer school semesters it’ll take to get your education back on track. Normal People is the perfect show for twenty-something-year-old university students to latch onto amidst these less-than-normal circumstances that will shape our foreseeable future, whether we like it or not. Thus, the escapism begins (or continues, depending on how long you’ve been in this game).
A definite part of the appeal is that the story is told through the lives of two individuals who are not far from any of us in age, beginning during their last year of high school and ending in their last year of university. Despite my hatred of most modern tropes concerned with relatability, it is hard not to project yourself onto either Connell or Marianne. Both painfully awkward and screwed up in more ways than you can count, these characters do everything that we do. They pick out universities and programs, try on different personas, adjust to the unpredictability of adulthood, struggle with mental health, reevaluate their relationships, battle with familial pressures—in other words, they lead the lives that we were supposed to and were expecting to. They are us; we are them, with the added pressures of a global cataclysm and without the benefit of a cohesive narrative that will eventually bring everything to its natural conclusion. The show allows us to look at our lives through a different perspective, one that often shows the lasting consequences of a seemingly mundane decision and makes us reevaluate and question our paths, seeing that every choice or near miss could be potentially life-altering.
An especially poignant episode for me (except for the finale, but let’s not get too sad too soon) was the couple’s Italy trip. Seeing the picture of a seemingly perfect summer play out, their lives full of wonder, possibility, and mirth, made me wonder just how much of our own lives we are missing and will miss as a consequence of the turmoil that we are undergoing—and if it’s at all possible to allow ourselves the luxury of youthful lightheartedness again.
We see ourselves because they are us, except with more polished dialogue, cleaned-up storylines that give a sense of purpose, and more interesting love lives. The most comforting message that shines through is that this moment is not who we are, not who we are supposed to be, not who we are going to become—that if we hold on a little longer, then perhaps we too can fit all of this into a comprehensible story.
Of course, quarantine is not just going to be remembered for the toilet paper apocalypse or the bread baking or the longer-than-usual Netflix binges. What is most likely to stand out when we look back through the haze of time is far more serious and consequential—the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing civil unrest that followed, exposing centuries of racial injustice and government brutality. It’s becomeclear that certain things simply can’t be ignored any longer. This is where my biggest critique of Normal People arises. The truth is that not only is the TV series not as diverse or adept at dealing with racial issues as Skins, the show I found myself most comparing it to—it disregards them altogether. While not every show should or is meant to be an in-depth exploration of entrenched social issues and inequalities, it is nonetheless glaring to see no screen time allotted to the subject whatsoever, even in passing. The uniformity of the cast is, well, manifest and a little questionable given both the time period we are occupying and the locale of the story. All of this, while not ruining the show, leaves a slightly bad aftertaste and confuses the watcher, given the frankness with which other issues such as suicide, abuse, and mental health are approached. This gives the narrative a feeling of good people dealing with hard but understandable problems, uncomplicated by the injustices of the world around them.
Above all, it is comforting to believe, especially now, that our lives fit into a narrative, that there is a method to the madness, a purpose for all the pain. And aside from fueling our escapism and revisionist fantasies, Normal People offers just that. A comforting blanket that lets us know that despite the uncertainties of our twenties, the unpredictability of our lives, and the unfairness of the world—all of which have been thrown into sharp relief by the pandemic—we will come out the other end alright. Maybe not how we thought we would or how we wanted (yes, I AM talking again about the heart-wrenching finale, GOD can’t we ever get any happy endings?), but the way that we should, and perhaps even the way we were meant to. It is hard to tell if the show would’ve been such a success if we weren’t all cooped up indoors and wasting our youth, not by choice but by forced circumstance. But one thing can be said for sure: it is a satisfying piece of projection and escapism—that is, if you don’t look too closely.
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