As a film lover, I was surprised to find myself fully immersed in the Apple TV+ series Severance, even hyperventilating and experiencing a gnawing pain in my stomach while watching the season one finale. Severance is an ingenious show that creates a futuristic dystopia in which a “severance” procedure exists—workers at the company Lumon split their memories into work and personal life, effectively producing another version of themselves that is only dedicated to work (innies) and enslaved to their outside persona (outies). I hope to demonstrate the similarities between the Severance workplace and the prevalent workplace culture, and how the ramifications of late-stage capitalism are already embedded in our everyday lives.
Hell is just the product of a morbid human imagination. The bad news is whatever humans can imagine, they can usually create.
Lumon presents a seemingly appealing procedure, in which our work selves are separated from our social selves, meaning a work-life balance becomes more than just a slogan. This fictional procedure underlies a social commentary on our late-capitalist world. In an era where medical help, therapy, and education are continuously commodified, we are not so far from the Severance world, where individuals are essentially compartmentalised and sold to private companies. We are already actively presenting ourselves as products to capitalist corporations, whether that be by categorising ourselves in restricted terms of race and gender to increase our employment chances, or by refusing to pay for YouTube Premium and thereby reinforcing the commercial value of our attention spans. Severance materialises our present practices of selling bits of ourselves just for abstract ideals of a stable income or peace of mind—ideals often shaped by the very same corporations that capitalise on our insecurities and deficiencies (much like Lumon, which *spoiler alert* is implied to have something to do with the death of Mark S.’s wife, driving him towards Lumon and the severance procedure).
Please try to enjoy each fact equally, and not show preference for any over the others. That’s ten points off.
Lumon is the perfect setting for a self-sustained prison. From the omnipresent manager, who always appears at crucial moments, and the lack of any wall decorations and non-monochrome interiors, to the identical, never-ending, and laboratory-like hallways, Lumon actively curates a workplace with minimal distractions and successfully strips characters of their individualities. Workers like Irving become disciples of Lumon’s philosophies and police their colleagues for their lack of dedication and respect for Kier, the most influential CEO of Lumon thus far (and whose statue looks eerily similar to Jesus). Much like the protagonists working at MicroData Refinement, we have all worn school and work uniforms, had families and peers disciplining our behaviour, or internally compared our accomplishments to others. Severance magnifies our paradoxical need to conform socially while also presenting ourselves uniquely, sometimes willingly adopting identical markers, ironically, to be seen as more professional or superior. Our tastes, attitudes, and judgements are intertwined with and shaped by work, to an alarming extent where we cannot separate our individualities from capitalist products.
The work is mysterious and important.
Lumon essentially creates work-altars out of the different characters and succeeds in not just creating subjectivities solely based on work and Lumon philosophies, but also self-monitoring individuals who develop their identities based on arbitrary rewards, like a waffle party or the music dance experience. Although substituted with different elements, the individualities and identities of the innies are not dissimilar to ours. Work is often seen as an essential life process that represents more than a means to an end in this late-capitalist climate. It has taken on additional implications—of unleashing one’s potential, utilising one’s creativity, and enhancing one’s life experience—and it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine an alternative, in which one’s individuality is not partially based on the mundane process of typing in front of a screen. Our individualities have become inseparable from work, dominating our personal and public lives, yet they merely contribute to an abstract and capitalist notion of success, if not perpetuating and reinforcing these ideals based on a structure of exploitation.
Anytime you find yourself back here, it’s because you chose to come back.
Severance presents much more than just an evil and powerful corporation enslaving its “innie” staff and actively “torturing” them. It also envisions a dystopian future that is already overlapping with ours. Following the advocacy of “professional” work performance, the terrifying environmental and social ramifications of big corporations, and whatever the Trump era has to bring, the gaps between the Severance workplace and reality are slowly fizzling into one.
Illustration by Meira Bradley