Anger, Rage, and Connection: Beef
Image: Netflix
Spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen Beef, what are you waiting for - go watch, and read right after!
Lee Sung Jin’s Beef has garnered lots of recognition this awards season — and for good reason. The Netflix & A24 series, starring Ali Wong and Stephen Yeun, is full of moments horrific, hilarious, and moving, that cause us to feel a complex roller coaster of emotions for the main characters, and — if we dare! — reflect inwards too. There are many reasons to watch: the angsty, nostalgic soundtrack; Wong and Yeun’s incredible, nuanced acting; the artistic depth characteristic of A24 productions. But also tune in to witness the power of anger and rage, and the journey that leads to healing. There is so much to say about this stunning series that I’ve broken up this post into a few sections: anger, shame, and connection; current therapeutic paradigms regarding anger; and who is ‘allowed’ to experience rage.
Anger, Shame, and Connection
So what exactly are anger and rage, and what makes them different? Anger and rage are often misunderstood and seen as ‘bad’ emotions we should quickly shut down — but this is a missed opportunity. Anger can happen when our goals are thwarted, or when we feel we have been wronged. This means — just like with other emotions — anger can be instructive, and gives us important information about how to go about our goals differently, seek corrective action, or fight against injustices. Rage occurs when our anger intensifies; as with anger, the intensity of rage is often warranted and instructive. But if we don’t give adequate attention to our rage, to learn where it’s coming from and what it’s telling us, it can spin out of control and become destructive, with consequences beyond our control. And this is what we see in Beef, in Episode 1 — where a run of the mill, parking lot dustup quickly escalates into a dangerous road rage incident between main characters Amy (Wong) and Danny (Yeun).
As the episodes progress, we witness Amy and Danny going to great lengths to outdo one another in their rage battles. Identities are discovered, and vandalism, theft, adultery, assault, kidnapping, and worse follow. Danny and Amy entangle themselves not only with each other, but with the other’s families and careers. At times, it’s hard to feel sympathetic for these two; they seem so intent on destroying one another, no matter the cost, that it’s easy to judge them only as selfish, disturbed people.
But as the episodes progress, we learn more about Danny and Amy, which gives us insight into other powerful emotions they can’t seem to dismiss: deep sadness and shame. The series opens with viewers learning about Danny’s failed suicide attempts, and Amy’s anxiety about a precarious multimillion dollar business deal. In Episode 3 we see Danny let go and break down in church, and watch Amy try to repair her relationship with her husband, George. Later, in Episode 7, we observe Amy and Danny needling each other as they’ve learned the other’s deepest insecurities and feelings of worthlessness, with Danny telling Amy she’s a bad person who’s alienated her husband and daughter, and Amy telling Danny he’s a failure that’s held back his family. As Episode 8 unfolds, we learn about moments from their childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood that help us better understand the reasons for their shame and depression. We realize they have both long felt a sense of profound loneliness, unhappiness, and disconnection from themselves and others around them.
It’s important to note that shame and grief almost always underly anger. For many, anger is an ‘easier’ emotion to experience — we can access it quickly; the way it overtakes us is impossible to ignore. Shame and grief build up over time, across multiple experiences, and cause us to internalize feelings of failure and worthlessness that drive disconnection. We certainly see this arc with Danny and Amy, and over the course of the series, we also see anger and despair unfold in other characters: Amy’s husband,George; Danny’s rival, Edwin; and Amy’s frenemy, Naomi.
What, then, cures this seemingly unending chain of despair, given how destructive anger and rage can become? For Danny and Amy, it’s a moment of true, honest vulnerability, which happens in the final episode of the series. We watch them continue their harmful sparring, until fatigue and desperation cause them to ingest psychedelic berries, eventually leading to ego death. They begin to share their deepest fears and pains, the parts of themselves that disgust them the most. Amy says, “When nowhere feels like home, you begin to retreat into yourself.” Indeed, in these moments of retreat, lashing out can be the only type of connection that feels accessible; it also becomes a compelling distraction from deeper pain. Amy and Danny share all their attempts to become whole, only to remain in the hamster wheel of loneliness. They connect on the void, the “Catch-22”, of life they both know so well. And as the series ends, despite continued chaos by others caught in their rage fueled chain reaction, there are glimmers of hope for forgiving not just one another, but also themselves.
Therapy and Anger
This type of empathy and deep understanding is what drives out the darkness of shame, replacing it with an ability to connect with authenticity. Vulnerability and connection conquer shame, every time. So how to achieve this? Interestingly enough, psychedelic therapies, including ketamine, psilocybin, and MDMA, are becoming a powerful treatment for depression and trauma (when done safely, and in the presence of trained providers). Trauma informed therapy is another powerful approach, as well as animal assisted therapies. Beyond therapy, connecting authentically with communities and individuals that understand your struggles, or practices focusing inwards, strengthening the relationship with the self, are also impactful.
But in order to achieve success in therapy, a person needs to be willing to tread into the murkiness of shame and grief — which can be difficult for those accustomed to retreating, like Amy and Danny. We hear about Amy’s failed experience with antidepressants and watch her flounder in therapy. While her therapist, Dr. Lin, praises her insight, she seems to recognize that Amy is not able to go any deeper; Amy deflects more probing questions about her parents and childhood, and true healing remains out of reach. In one episode, Danny simply states, “Western therapy doesn’t work on Eastern minds”; his attempts at connection through his church community seem promising at first, given his initial moment of vulnerability referenced earlier in this post, but he later retreats again, using the church as a front for his financial scams.
And yet, I can’t completely blame Amy or Danny: unfortunately, my field does not always get it right when it comes to anger. I’ve had therapy clients share that past therapists have responded to anger and rage in punitive ways, especially in higher levels of care; and I know all too well the approaches that teach the need to ‘manage’ or ‘control’ negative emotions without first understanding their roots and how to honor those feelings. Therapy can focus too much on quieting emotions, rather than fully understanding and embodying them. And, to Danny’s point, therapy that isn’t culturally informed often pathologizes emotions without recognizing their source, or their power. In fact, Asian Americans are one of the least likely groups to use therapy, despite also having one of the highest suicide rates. Therapists and the institutions that train them must do better to address the systemic causes for these inequities, including our own biases, and recognize the harm that’s done when we fail to acknowledge these shortcomings.
Who Gets to Experience Rage?
Although Beef is a universal story, it is developed by and stars Asian-Americans. Creator Lee shares that the series was sparked by his own experience of road rage. However, ‘angry Asians’ are usually not depicted on screen, despite anger being a layered and nuanced emotion in many Asian cultures, such as the Korean concept of hwabyeong. Asian Americans are considered a ‘model minority’ — a racist concept developed in the 1960s to continue dividing minorities and further oppression against Black Americans — which flattens Asians to a monolith, disallowing the fullness of experience allowed to non-marginalized people. So, it’s refreshing in Beef to see Asian Americans — Danny’s origins are Korean and Amy’s are Chinese and Vietnamese — unabashedly feeling and expressing rage.
The intersectionality with gender and class is fascinating too. Amy makes assumptions Danny is sexist and hates seeing women succeed, while also contending with microaggressions from the condescending uber-rich white woman poised to purchase her business; Danny copes with cultural and familial pressures as the eldest son, and always feels like an underdog so further resents Amy’s wealth. There’s that Catch 22 feeling mentioned earlier, of constriction and ceaseless tension: Amy feels constantly shut down and unable to embody rage, in part due to her toxic positivity husband George, and also to messages emphasizing she should be grateful instead; and Danny’s rage is forcibly restrained, held back by duty and anxiety, tempered in the face of his swaggering ex convict cousin, Isaac, or the shame of lowly status.
And yet despite the commentary on race, class, and gender — Beef emphasizes the universality of rage, and the power of connection to truly bring peace to those struggling not just with anger, but also with entrenched feelings of grief and shame. It’s powerful to feel so many intense emotions towards Amy and Danny, to both despise them and root for them. And isn’t this the true meaning of humanity? To see each other in our full spectrum of emotions, behaviors, flaws, and strengths, and love one another in spite of — or maybe even because of — all our messiness.
**A few notes: But not really. I have no notes. This series, including the therapy scenes, complex emotions, and layered characters are all perfect. I’m blown away by the richness of these characters’ stories.
More resources:
If you were mesmerized by the opening titles and intriguing episode names, learn more here. The series was also embroiled in some controversy because the creator of the opening sequence paintings, who is also the actor playing Isaac (David Choe), has engaged in quote unquote rapey behavior, and the creators / actors have been called out for supporting him. Read more here.
I can’t write about anger, rage, and grief in this moment without acknowledging the horrific consequences of these very emotions all over our world right now, especially in Palestine and Israel. Trauma and fear are easily taken advantage of by sociopathic leaders / groups, and this is one reason horrible atrocities — including genocide — occur. To learn more about the impact of trauma on this conflict, follow Gabor Mate: a Jewish Holocaust survivor, physician, and trauma expert. To learn more about the power of narratives — through art, poetry, film — and its impact on psychology in moving through this conflict, follow Hala Alyan: a Palestinian-American poet, professor, and clinical psychologist. As this horror illustrates, while rage can be necessary in fighting for something better, it’s only effective when it leads to more connection and justice, not to more hate and trauma.
