On Severance, a show about stripping identity and forcing labor. So, I have an essay brewing in me. It’s a tv critique thing. I want to watch tv and not have these questions. No I don’t. That’s a lie. I want these questions to be with me always like Dubois and Lorde and Baldwin and my mom and my dad. Black questions. Does Severance (the writers, the producers, etc.) know it is a show built on Black philosophy? Does it know what the theory of double consciousness is? Does it know that its commentary on capitalism and the psychosocial requirements of dismantling it are rooted in Black feminism – master’s house and master’s tools? I don’t think it does but I want it to know.
I want it to know that the project to dismantle capitalism and whether that can be done from the inside is a historically rich one. I see Severance knows that it has to connect capitalism to a variety of other psychosocial issues to really paint a picture of it. So we get gender roles and the biological imperative questions in the severed cabin and the ma and pa statue figures by the fireplace in the birthing cabin. We get class and caste in the Eagans and Cobel’s hometown. Severance definitely knows that the religion of empire is a mainstay of capitalism. Burt and Irving (not Ernie? Aww ok.) are our testaments to capitalism’s obsession with erasing queer identity or making queer identity look more Ma and Pa. We also get culture in the approaches to art, literature and of course, Mr. Milchick’s big finale. But does Severance give characters and setting and plot anything to indicate that the show knows capitalism has a racial framing in its construction.
I want to tell myself Severance is set in a space and time where race and its legacy are not a thing. But then there are clues. The two Black characters looking at the revised paintings with their images featured. Miss Huang’s not quite but for sure notion of model minority roots and aspiration. There’s more. I mean if Helly R. knows that there is a Europe and a Zimbabwe and an equator, then Helena Eagan knows about Palestine and Congo and the Global South. My God, she knows about Haiti. More on all of that when I have more time. But I do need to get to the one question I always enjoy answering and wish I could chat with the writers about. Do the characters who are Black know that they are Black?
For Severance, I would say the answer is yes. Mr. Milchick absolutely knows he’s Black. The way he reacts to the insistence on reducing his linguistic prowess? He knows. And they know too. Which means Dylan knows he’s Black. But also I know he knows because he is looking to reclaim power but won’t do that at the cost of another man’s freedom. Does Reghabi? Is Reghabi? Yes and yes. Asal Reghabi, the highly educated, overworked, presumed incompetent, integrity-laden woman who has marooned herself from Lumon and is now reintegrating minds like Harriet Tubman reintegrated enslaved people with their freedom, definitely is and knows she is Black. So now that I have that out of the way I have to answer these last questions.
Does Severance know some of the characters are Black? Or did these brilliant actors and actresses bring that extra element and depth to work all on their own? Does Severance know that it is built on Black philosophy with Black characters living out some very Black experiences in a world that is literally the hellscape of a Black and white binary? Does Severance know that after all the snow and ice after all the hallways and elevators, after all the cabins and cozy homes, she is still going to have to go back to the plantation to find what she is looking for. Kier. Meaning a large vat where items are bleached or dyed. And Kier, meaning the dark one or the b/Black one. Finding Kier – the void where Lumon, where this brand of capitalism – was birthed means going South to America. It means How the Word is Passed. It means Stamped from the Beginning. It means What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker. It means double consciousness moves from the margin of the pages on which the script is codified and into the plot.
Helly and Mark can meet at the equator, sure. But when they do, they will have to greet the ancestors of the Atlantic deep and understand that Lumon is the legacy of The Clotilda, Sweet Home, The White Lion. Severance has to deal with race.