I wrote the last blog having watched the first five or six episodes of series 2 of The Bear. I commented that Carmen was likely drawn into his work as somebody who was unable to self-regulate his nervous system. At this point in the show we knew a little of Carmen's upbringing but not entirely what his childhood involved. What the character presented up to this point, particularly in Jeremy Allen White's performance, was a laconic, almost dissociated mien that also revealed moments of intensity and resolute determination. In this masterful, contradictory performance I recognised trauma beyond Carmen's acknowledged grief (for Mikey, his older brother). I work in very stressful environments, some times in the family home where I am at the centre of the maelstrom. I'm comfortable here because my childhood wired me for it. I am far better skilled at regulating my nervous system now, however I feel I am completely at home within these tense environs, and this I recognised in Carmen's choice of work. He is accustomed to this level of stress, and in a way, the kitchen provides an arena for his ever-flowing cortisol to find its relief. By the way, this writing will likely involve spoilers. Donna's children, Mikey, Carmen and Sugar congregate outside in a team huddle, trying to establish a game plan for how they deal with their mother. As the episode continues Donna becomes more and more emotionally unstable and drunk on wine. There are several key moments where the writers show us the history of trauma that Carmy has endured within the family, including his paranoia regarding his older brother ribbing him (cruelly) for liking a local girl and the way he readily steps in to help (rescue) his mother. Carmy has evidently adapted adeptly within his relationship to his mother, leaping to her rescue when the overwhelm of the seven fish she is cooking starts to eviscerate her emotional wellbeing. Carmy also throws himself in front of the bullets of his mother's inner turmoil by providing assurances and soothing to her, clearly parenting the parent. Donna turns on her doting son and reveals that this is what happening when she snipes 'Why are you treating me like a baby?' Donna reveals her Game playing (in the true Bernian sense) when she repeatedly bemoans how hard she is and has been working on preparing this meal and yet nobody is helping her. Clearly, Carmen is helping her. Clearly (and to her detriment) Sugar is trying to help. However, the Game is such that Donna must achieve her payoff, and that cannot be done by acknowledging the reality around her. Which Game is she playing? I think first and foremost she is playing a Game of 'They'll Be Glad They Knew Me'.
This is something I have worked with in my clinical work with adults many times. It's a Game and a general standpoint I have indulged in myself, for many years. Clients have come to me, incredulous to the repeated sense that they give, give give but get nothing in return. How is it that people could be so cold?
It took me many years to truly learn that nobody owes you a thing for whatever it is you feel you've done, especially if the thing you've done was unsolicited. On some level I think we all know this (and that The Golden Rule is bullshit) but the reason we do play this Game is for the payoff - we get to exercise our spite. I was overflowing with spite as a younger man, so any opportunity to give it free reign was sought constantly, conscious or no. So when Donna takes pains to cook this feast, she enters into a martyrdom with herself wherein she can express her deep-seated spite and bile towards her family (which ignores all of their actual support - they repeat to her how much they love her and how thankful they are) in order to luxuriate in her anger, resentment and grief. Whatever her past what we know is that her husband died. She is in deep, deep pain, clearly. She breaks down numerous times and allows herself the fragility to confess how inconsequential she feels. When she plays her Game she is able to put all of that pain onto others, setting herself above her family and casting her in the role of the unappreciated caregiver. When the reality is she is constantly being parented by her own children, chiefly Carmy.
In the previous post I mentioned the metaphorical value of food and the serving of food, and the maternal/feminine principle of fecundity/nourishment. Fishes quite literally shows this in the ritual of an Italian Christmas meal, explicated on by the ancillary character, Stevie. In the following episode, Forks Richie goes on a rapid arc of development, learning the value he feels in serving others. His mentor mentions, not without a knowing sense of grandiosity, that hospitals and restaurants share the word 'hospitality'.
I know all too well what it is like to grow up in a house with an emotionally volatile, alcoholic mother with whom you feel you have to constantly please and appease, for your own safety as much as anything else. It is very little wonder that Carmy chose to work in the service industry, just as I was drawn to helping others in healthcare. This is a show about taking care of others. The meaning and purpose derived from it. It is as much the teleological and epistemological sense of taking care of others. It is the Wounded Healer that Jung spoke of. The alchemical means of taking the crude pain of having to take care of others and transmutation of this into gold.
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