I have been a Fleabag defender since I first watched it in 2016. It’s one of the most singular, unique pieces of media ever made for television. It’s moving, it’s hilarious, and it ended on a perfectly bittersweet note. Phoebe Waller-Bridge has had a special place in my heart since then, especially after she went on to executive produce the very good Killing Eve. What I don’t understand is why, after these successes, she’s gone on to work on such mediocre, unexciting projects.
Waller-Bridge just starred in the newly released Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. So far, reviews have been okay, with much higher scores from audiences than critics. I haven’t seen the movie yet, and I’m sure she was fine in it, but it’s striking how unoriginal it is. It’san extraordinarily expensive moviebased on existing IP, a blatant studio cash grab that’s loaded with nostalgia bait. It was made to make an obscene amount of money that the series has never come close to, and while this is something I hate desperately about the current media landscape, I’m more disappointed that Waller-Bridge is in it. With the amount of cultural cache Fleabag gave her, the praise and awards that she won, I’d hoped she’d be creating more unique art, more emotionally impactful television. But she’s starring in Indiana Jones movies, voicing His Dark Materials and Star Wars characters, helming a Tomb Raider show for Amazon, and writing James Bond films.
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I know that awards don’t pay the bills, and neither does clout. We can laud her as a genius all we want, but she has to take jobs to make money, even if shewasborn into the English landed gentry with a Baronet for a grandfather. Writers typically don’t make much, which is the entire reason the Writers Guild of America started striking and is, as of today, still on strike. Many award-winning writers and showrunners are still financially precarious, with some struggling to make rent. Not Waller-Bridge, to be clear – she’s very secure considering the position she was born into, but I’m sure she still has to work. Still, I can’t help but feel that her talent is being squandered on intellectual property bullshit.
Waller-Bridge’s deal with Amazon to create shows exclusively for them didmake her a multi-millionaire. She’sworking on the upcoming Tomb Raider television series, whichI’m still mad exists– it’s colonialist, white-savioury, and has always set my teeth on edge. It’s mind-boggling to me that the creator of one of the most astonishingly original television shows of all time has decided she wants to make money by working nonstop on the most soul-crushing IP projects Hollywood has to offer.
I hate to use the word sell-out when it comes to artists, as the majority of us have to labour under capitalism, but why these projects? She’s not even doing it Greta Gerwig-style, using irony to subvert expectations, and it’s painful to see. Fleabag was tongue-in-cheek, self-aware, brilliantly funny, and her latest work has been anything but. I guess that’s what happens when people wave fat cheques at you – some artists would rather make money than take the risk of making something new and have it flop. I can’t begrudge her that, really, but I can be sad about it. I wish she’d turn back to making original work, but 20 million Amazon dollars is a hell of a lot of money.
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