Let me introduce you to Maniac, a Netflix miniseries starring Emma Stone and Jonah Hill
about a series of drugs that aim to cure every mental illness.
The show does a fantastic job of what it sets out to do; portray how broken people can be
and what steps should be taken to acknowledge and live with their issues.
It does this in a very overzealous science-fiction-y, almost comic book-y way; there’s an artificial
intelligence becoming self-aware, a shady organization dealing in even shadier medical
practices, and, of course, the supposed ‘superdrug’ that’ll fix all your problems!
Maniac also utilizes the time-honored storytelling technique of weaving a deeper meaning into
its plot, this being a clear stance on coping with mental illnesses.
The biggest hurdle to overcome with this form of storytelling is not making the message
too obvious.
You don’t want your audience to feel like they’re being preached to, you’re making
a narrative storyline, not a PSA.
It takes a lot of subtlety and care to correctly utilize this technique, which is what Maniac
accomplishes.
When we meet its two main characters, they are at pivotal times in their lives.
Annie Landsberg has hit rock-bottom during a years-long bout of depression culminating
in running out of a drug that gave her just a bit of happiness.
Owen Milgrim is conflicted with his decision to lie in a court of law for the betterment
of a family who has only ever ostracized him due to his schizophrenia.
Just a couple a healthy boys, here!
These are both tortured characters who are about to start on a path of self-discovery.
As expected, when you watch this story come together, when you see Annie and Owen struggle
to deal with their emotions that inevitably guide them toward the drug trial, you feel
uneasy.
This isn’t only because of the characters’ seemingly tragic pasts or the somber tone
the show’s direction holds, though, it’s because of the world Maniac is set in.
Character origin and tone are very important for making your audience feel a certain way,
yes, but what really drives that home is the world they live in.
You’ll usually see this in weather; when a director wants you to be sad, it’s raining.
When they want you to be happy, it’s bright and sunny out, yay!
These work, but most of the time it just stops there, it’s not often more attention is
directed in the tone of the world than simple things like weather or time of day.
Maniac is set in an alternate reality, not unlike our own.
Like It Follows and certain episodes of Black Mirror before it, Maniac focuses on the unimportant
details of its world to distinguish it from our own and then immediately throws them out
the window because they don’t matter.
Why do they have clamshell-looking phone-things in It Follows?
Who cares?!
You stopped to ask and now there’s a humanoid sexually-transmitted demon on its way to kill
you!
Two of my favorite cases of theses ‘seemingly unimportant’ details in Maniac are two services
called ‘AdBuddy’ and ‘Friend Proxy.’
AdBuddy allows you to purchase anything where applicable for the small price of having an
‘ad buddy’ read advertisements to you aloud for a certain period of time, depending
on the purchase.
Friend Proxy lets you, at any time, hire and meet up with someone who will act like your
friend, seemingly after being given a backstory and list of traits.
These two ‘apps’ are given little-to-no direct exposition in the show.
There’s no character that’s like, “AdBuddy??
Golly gee, what’s that, mister?!”
We learn about these services through the direct uses of them or their presence in the
background.
The reason these details, and many more throughout the show like them, nail that ‘uneasiness’
is because of their reflection in our world.
This is something that Black Mirror is constantly commended for doing; having a world that’s
just like ours and yet, not at all.
Take “Nosedive,” an episode from Series 3 which presents an alternate future where
every job, service, and purchase, is gated behind a universal rating system.
If you’re not highly rated in your community, you’re practically worthless in the eyes
of this version of our world.
Maniac is much more vague about it all.
The timeline is uncertain, its technology is varied, societal issues are irrelevant.
It’s a world with an animatronic, chess-playing Koala in an otherwise normal park.
A world where if you need a friend, you just hire a new one using an app on your phone.
A world where mental illness continues to be one of the toughest challenges humanity
will face.
Small details between our world and this one are different, but what matters to the real
story, to the message of the show, is unchanged.
At the end of the day, Maniac is a show dedicated to driving home the message that mental illnesses
are not inherently a bad thing and we shouldn’t hope for some ‘magic pill’ that will make
them go away.
We should be comfortable learning to cope with them and our peers should be patient
with us as we do.
Our problems are personal and they’re different for everyone.
There’s no perfect way to show someone they need help.
There’s no perfect way to make someone wake up and realize something about themselves.
That’s why there isn’t and never will be an instant cure for insecurities or depression
or any other mental issue under the sun.
Maniac delivers this message spectacularly through its use of worldbuilding and the time
it spends on the minutiae.
If you haven’t seen it, go watch it!
I didn’t spoil too much.
Hey guys, thanks for watching that video!
I hope you enjoyed it!
It’s sort of a taste of what’s to come with Auram’s Corner, but also, not at all.
That was technically an episode of The Show With Issues, so if you wanna see more of that
there’s more of that over here, I imagine.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this!
It wasn’t about a comic book, I hope that doesn’t anger you.
I’m — I’m gonna go now.