Introduction: Masculinity Before the Manosphere

Before the Manosphere, before Incels came to the fore as representations of the masculine crisis or male ideal, there was a situation comedy that unravelled the idea of masculinity across 54 episodes.

This psychoanalytic treat, exploring the Animus or masculine principle, was Peep Show.

It is all in your head.

I originally watched this series many years ago, later on a lockdown rewatch did it occur to me that this series was a cunning trick, a clever synecdoche of epic psychoanalytic proportions.

No one gets out of here without a mind warp. Seriously.

This essay argues that Peep Show works because it stages a divided male psyche: Mark and Jeremy embody opposing psychic forces, the supporting characters externalise what those forces repress or desire, and the audience is drawn into the role of Ego, holding the chaos together.

The Psyche Model

Taken from the top, Peep Show looks low budget: a serial comedy that relies on the antics of its fictional characters. On the surface, it is innocuous British comedy.

As I went deeper, I began to recognise a map of the psyche, played out like a psychodrama session in parts. The show has a combination of psychoanalytic tropes and leans heavily into them.

In watching it we are exposed to the complexities of Psyche.

Character Roles in the Divided Self

The main characters can therefore be introduced less as a cast list and more as functions within this psychic map: Mark as overbearing Superego, Jeremy as unrestrained Id, Super Hans as shadow, Alan as repressed masculine alter ego, and Sophie and Dobbie as complex figures who disrupt the simplicity of the male gaze.

In Toto here I can see the map of psyche being replayed over, not unlike the compulsion to repeat noticed by Freudians.

If I delve deeper then these characters begin to play out the map of psyche, interacting in complex ways and dragging the cast through their own existential hell.

Each character represents a part of the divided self, interacting in a very convoluted way, predictable to the audience but invisible to the participants.

Mark and Jeremy: Superego and Id

Mark stands out immediately as an over wrought Superego, lost in the world of oughts shoulds and maybes. He is so busy tormenting himself with shame and guilt that the self-sabotage becomes an inevitability. This does not change.

Jeremy is the unbridled Id, an annoying drive for pleasure and needs and desires, nothing holds him back from his narcissism and self-belief.

Together they form the nexus of the plot each designed to compliment the other in their extremes.

The Audience as Ego

Here is the trick, whilst we the viewer can recognise these traits; to hold it all together and make viewing comfortable, we are asked to perform the balancing task of the Ego. Without this nothing works, and here is the pull, the involvement. The audience has to Ego balance the diametrically opposed protagonists.

Projections into the Outer World

This trinity of the basic Psyche needs to have experience of itself and the outer world.

The Psyche here projects onto others whatever it needs to remain unchanged, without noticing the confirmation bias implicit in their interior life.

The Men: Shadow and Alter Ego

Super Hans is the shadow, here Jeremy’s shadow. Hans will go to risky places that Jeremy is unable to go. He represents the parts the Id hides from itself. The extremes of unbridled desire where we can become afraid of ourselves, or in passim the death wish incarnate.

Hans will moderate during the series.

Next Alan is Mark’s Alter Ego, strong, representing the repressed masculinity that the Superego will not permit for Mark. He is slightly one dimensional, not a nuanced persona, again standing as the diametric opposite of the wimp that Mark is becoming.

The Women: Complexity Beyond the Male Gaze

Most of the Women characters in Peep Show often have just a simple journey with the Id of Mark, functioning as love objects for a while before he finds some on better or a challenge.

However, that would do a disservice to the two main female characters, namely Sophie and Dobbie.

The foil to Mark’s rule based order, the world of shoulds and maybes, Sophie and Dobbie were perfectly placed to induce a chaotic element to the show.

They were different, nuanced, importantly in control of their lives and came with a creative positive force that undermined the simplicity of the ‘male gaze’.

The counterbalance to the overwhelming male Psyche  that overrides the conventional sit – com narrative.

There are 3 male writers, not uncommon however given free range they dissected the divided male psyche (unconsciously?) with a deft precision.

Conclusion: What Are We Peeping At?

The original peep show, in the back streets of Soho, London, allowed a sleazy glimpse at someone stripped bare through an obstructed viewer (on a pay per view basis).

Here the same applies except the view is of a bare singular male Psyche, played out with all the dividedness of the self.

I, We, the viewer can only create the Ego self as we have become complicit in the construction of a self. To not see this as a whole invites a catastrophe.

Reference

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Peep_Show_(British_TV_series)

Peep Show (British TV series) – Wikipedia