Thoughts on a Netflix Show, “Bonding”
I started to watch the Netflix TV series Bonding, and I was very pleasantly surprised by it. My kind of artwork is usually entertainment + illumination. I want to learn something new, small or big, but I want the art form interesting. More than interesting, it should not be boring. My favourite YouTube channels, documentary movies or in general, any art form follow this pattern.
Bonding is a perfect TV show for my taste. It talks about a new world that I am not aware of. It talks about the world of the dominatrix, BDSM and kinky stuff. It is easy to brush off, saying weirdos and specimens do it. But I love the show for its thoughtful nature of combining many themes: psychotherapy, role play, vulnerability, self-worth and loving others without owning them. I learnt that this TV series is like a personal memoir of the director. His experience inspires him to move to NY city and become an assistant to a domme. No wonder the topics discussed are authentic and resonate well with people.
Bonding follows two main protagonists. A girl who wants to be a therapist and trying to complete her grad school. A guy who wants to be a standup comedian. The girl is doing a side gig of being a dominatrix to fund her grad school. The guy joins the girl as an assistant for a dome. We see a rollicking ride of these two into a new world, their challenges and their disappointments and how they find happiness and meaning in their life. We are even introduced to a course they go through called “Domme 101”. It is so fascinating to see that Dominatrix can be viewed as a craft. If used sensibly, it can bring relief and meaning to a lot of people.
I got introduced to the sadomasochism world through Paul Giamatti’s character in the hit TV show, Billions. Through Billions, I understood why people get pleasure through this unknown world of BDSM. A simple explanation for that is, that it is like a different cuisine. If you are a vegetarian, you will never know how delicious seafood is! You can judge non-vegetarians, but you miss out on a huge portion of exploring the taste of seafood. If you don’t want to try, seafood it is totally fine. BDSM is like that. It is a new way to open yourself to a different experience that your psyche demands. That’s it. There is no value judgement needed.
I approached Bonding with this mentality, and I was truly rewarded for watching this. It is so funny and irreverent in its take on feminism, patriarchy, consent, and the gaze of a gay person. One dialogue that really resonated with me was: “The best thing that a male can do in expressing love is to want to marry someone. It is mainly to own me and not enjoy or let me be myself“. It was so poignantly said by the character that shows the wide chasm in the expectations between two people in a relationship. In a world, where we consider marriage a pinnacle of relationship and commitment, some people approach relationships differently.
I am still curious to find out what I like about it. Is it a gay couple’s challenge of coming out to a parent, when the gay couple doesn’t know that, the parent is involved in a BDSM activity? Or the way consent works? Or how we as a human species have so much diversity in expressing our various needs? Or how the concepts of psychology from the likes of Freud and Jung are shining in the acts of role-playing? Can we consider this kind of act to be a part of a new genre of therapists? (In Billions, the key character Maggie Siff is the performance coach of a hedge fund. She is a master psychotherapist, and she and Paul Giamatti’s character do the kinky stuff). Maybe all. Or maybe I now have the vocabulary and lens to appreciate this nuance; I am blown away.
If a person born in the 1800s sees this TV show, they might be repulsed by it and find it odd. Or maybe they will be happy that many things kept under the wraps in that generation are spoken with ease and shared in public. I don’t know the answer, but I am sure that we live in unique times where we as a species are flourishing so much with our modes and means of self-expression.