'Bronca': we hate beyond our capabilities

All the characters portrayed in Line, the five-time Emmy Award-winning black comedy, belongs to the Asian community in the United States, which is gaining more and more prominence in the audiovisual industry. But they could come from any other source and not much would change. Don’t expect to delve into the sociology of what some call a model minority (they say this to criminalize other minorities).

The two characters who swear eternal hatred to each other Linea Netflix production of 10 half-hour chapters, belong to different social classes: one lives poorly by tinkering and lives with her brother in a small apartment, the other is a businesswoman who moves in high society and tries to close a million dollar deal… It doesn’t matter: here there is no satire of competitive capitalism nor denunciation of inequality as in this case Parasites OR The squid game. This struggle is not class.

Best of Anger, beef In English, it appeals to the universal emotions of the human being, which do not depend on time or place, not even on the social and cultural context, even if it has one. A very small road accident between two vehicles, hundreds every day in Los Angeles and in any city, intersects the lives of two beings who should not have intersected. They will become obsessed with resentment and enter a spiral of revenge. And they won’t realize that their lives were already complicated before, that they were already falling apart in some way. That they didn’t need any more problems. But nothing can stop them.

We will also see that the personalities of these unfortunates were not all that different. Who hate each other because they look alike. Yes, there is a reflection on loneliness in the contemporary world, on dysfunctional relationships, that of two humble brothers and that of a wealthy couple. There’s a lot more talk through characters (about Instagram, about cryptocurrencies, about the art market, about life in urbanization), but nothing is as central here as incorrigible human imperfection.

Very credible, within the nonsense, is the interpretation of the protagonists: Ali Wong (known for her humorous monologues, Californian daughter of a Vietnamese and Chinese father) and Steven Yeun (seen in Minari or inside Walking Dead, born in Seoul). And the secondary ones work: the brother, the husband, the mother-in-law, the friend, a very arrogant investor. The creator and director is a newcomer: Lee Sung Jin, also of Korean origin, from the screenwriting team of Canceled or Silicon Valley, and who has already signed with Netflix several years after this display of talent. This story has a beginning and an end, a shocking ending, but the director does not rule out continuity Line in the form of an anthology, that is, with new plots and characters in each season.

We all know peaceful people who get angry at the wheel of someone who doesn’t yield when they should. It doesn’t just happen behind the wheel. There are those who take care of themselves and are kind to strangers, but get angry with people they only know from TV. Or, worse yet, those who hate entire groups, dehumanized without respecting their individuality. Hate today is good business: tell it to social networks, which earn you more if they manage to make you angry, which is what they have trained their algorithms to do. Let’s leave that to the demagogue political leaders who profit from social anger. Too much anger induced.

Don’t expect it Line a moral, nor a self-help message, nor a social portrait, nor a political position. Yes, there is a desire to delve into the darkest part of the human mind. In a way, these two lost souls hate each other because that’s how alive they feel.

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