Review
Culture
Film & TV
6 min read

Wealth is worth? Questioning the immigrant experience

Garnering yet more awards, TV series Beef expertly explores identities. Krish Kandiah revisits the K-wave drama.

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

in a dim room a couple stand off against each other.
Steven Yeun and Ali Wong play Daniel and Amy.

Not since the ground-breaking series Breaking Bad can I remember such a captivating opening sequence.  A road rage incident escalates. And escalates. And escalates. Just when you think things can’t get any worse in this dark Netflix comedy, the vicious consequences of the feud unravels further. I couldn’t stop watching, and soon Beef had me firmly dragged into the world of two protagonists, who may have had very different experiences of the Korean American dream but were more alike than they would ever dare to admit.  

I am a huge fan of the global Korean cultural renaissance known as the K-wave. For me it started with Psy, the breakout Korean singing superstar hitting number one in the UK charts with Gangnam Style in 2012. Then there was BTS, the Korean Take That equivalent, who duetted with Coldplay and became the best-selling band in the world. Parasite was a remarkable movie, that grabbed multiple awards at the Academy Awards of 2020.  Squid Game took the concepts of battle royale and Hunger Games to a whole new level and became a Netflix number one global download hit in 2021. Throughout the K-wave decade I have also been an ardent devotee of Samsung, the biggest brand in mobile phone innovation.  

Something important is happening with the global recognition of Korean culture. Beef represents another step forward showcasing the Korean diaspora cultural ascendence. At this year’s Emmy Awards it is the third most nominations.  It follows on from the Canadian comedy series Mr Kim, which offered an affectionate and amusing exploration of the experience of a second-generation Korean family coming to terms with life in Toronto. Beef similarly presents the US-Korean cultural experience without explanation or apology. It is powerfully assumed that this is legitimate and normal. There is no embarrassment, no exposition: just a cultural and narrative world that the viewer has to catch up with as soon as possible before they miss something.  

Beef is Korean and American. It is a comedy and a tragedy. It is also, ultimately, a morality and immorality play. It explores three main issues: anger, identity and aspiration and how they interact with one another – for good and for evil.  

But the rage runs deep. It is toxic to everyone it touches. What can break its power? 

The instigating event in the show is a road rage incident between Daniel, a second-generation Korean immigrant to the US whose family faced financial ruin when a relative used their motel for illegal activity, and Amy, also a second-generation Korean immigrant, who is on the cusp of banking a multi-million dollar deal. Everything Daniel attempts he fails at. He can’t even manage to successfully end his own life, or even return the faulty suicide equipment to the hardware store he bought it from.  Amy, despite outward appearances is also struggling. She is estranged from her parents, stuck in a superficial relationship with her husband, and dealing with a demanding and dismissive mother-in-law and a daughter she hardly sees. The near miss in the car park comes at a pivotal moment for both of these strangers and flips a switch in them that they cannot let go.  

The feud escalates between Amy and Daniel with increasingly high stakes and terrible consequences. The more we get to know about our two protagonists the more we understand why they have reacted in the extreme ways they have and how much they both have to lose. I found myself watching through my fingers as I was invested in the characters and was longing for some kind of forgiveness, repentance or reconciliation. At some points faith seemed tantalisingly close to providing an antidote to the beef, holding out hope even in the very last episode.  At other points it seemed that love would find a way to stop the tide of anger and revenge. But the rage runs deep. It is toxic to everyone it touches. What can break its power?  

If the church were to face up to its own identity issues, perhaps it could be of more help to individuals who brush shoulders with it. 

The more we are drawn into the lives of Amy and Daniel, the more we realise that they are both wrestling with major issues of identity. Daniel is seemingly willing to go to any lengths to win the approval of his parents while also clinging so tightly to his brother that he stifles him. Amy too wrestles with a series of strained relationships. Both are lonely, feel unseen and misunderstood. They both carry dark secrets. They both are crippled by feelings of worthlessness and guilt. Amy’s sexual intimacy is inhibited by the sense of betrayal that was caused by her father’s infidelity. Daniel’s work quality is compromised because of the weight of despair and shame. While they both present to the world as successful and strong, inside they experience anxiety, purposelessness and anger. 

Beef therefore provides a powerful exploration of identity issues. Male and female, rich and poor, married and single - no-one is exempt from the struggles of knowing who we are and where we fit in. There are moments in the series where the church looks like it has the answer. Going to church is normalised in the show as part of the Korean experience, which appears to be a culturally confident move. But the church is shown to be struggling with its own identity crisis. It accurately portrays the experience of ethnic-specific churches in the West. Yet despite being made up of diaspora communities, more often than not their liturgies, governance structures and forms and language of worship, are based on white western norms. The Korean cultural renaissance has not worked its way into our expression of faith yet. If the church were to face up to its own identity issues, perhaps it could be of more help to individuals who brush shoulders with it.  

Beef offers a challenge to the prevailing aspirational culture often normalised by immigrant communities – if you work hard enough you can succeed. 

What Dan and Amy have in common is their belief that value or worth in the world comes through the amount of money they have access to. They both graft and strive and lie and steal in order to gain the economic success their parents failed to achieve. Their competitiveness at work spills over into a drive to win at all costs. Riches is righteousness. Financial security is salvation. Wealth is worth. Annihilating the competition is victory. Yet the wealthy people in the show all come to realise the truth of what Jesus taught: “what good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”  

Daniel is clearly faced with this choice right at the beginning of the series. He is at church when the words of a song seem to move him:  

“Have you come to the end of yourself?

Jesus is calling. 

Come to the Altar…” 

This opportunity for a new start is juxtaposed with another. Daniel notices a possibility of ripping the church off financially, luring an ex-girlfriend back and replacing the worship leader. The church becomes the place where he can renounce or receive money, sex and power. He chooses the latter – to his own ultimate downfall.  

As a second-generation immigrant, I was told that if I did well at school and set my sights on becoming a doctor or lawyer, then I could earn my place in the world. Qualifications could silence the xenophobes, money could buy me relationships and success could secure my future.  Beef offers a challenge to this prevailing aspirational culture so often normalised by immigrant communities – if you work hard enough you can succeed. My Christian faith has changed that perspective for me. It showed me that financial gain was mono-dimensional, that chasing fool’s gold was a fool’s errand. Beef comes to the same conclusion, albeit with stronger language and adult themes. It takes a swipe at the hard- and cold-hearted calculus of personal aspiration, challenges consumptive materialism on its hollowed-out version of life and leaves it in the middle of nowhere to die.   

Article
Character
Culture
Film & TV
Music
4 min read

We want to feel the main character energy of each of the Beatles

But is love all we need?

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

Four actors dressed in black stand together
The new cast.
Neal Street Productions.

One of the joys of moving into central London is the nostalgia. You can 'remember' anything in London, but for a Beatles fan like me (one year I was in the top one per cent of listeners globally on Spotify - impressive, I know - and it was before I had kids), the aesthetic of central London is deeply connected to the fab four. I'm aware it's not Liverpool but look what London has to offer fans of the fab four.  Abbey Road’s crossing, the rooftop performance in Savile Row, or the amount of time the fab four spent just here for the famous launch of Sgt Pepper. Walking around these streets with my headphones in, it's impossible not to smile at music that is faultlessly happy-making. 

Sir Sam Mendes, however, is taking the immersive Beatles experience to a whole new level. Four coordinated films will be released in 2028 in a stunning act of ambition and delayed gratification. Mendes' production company says it will be the first 'bingeable theatrical experience.' 

Now that the cast have been revealed, lots of questions remain: How long will the films be? Will they all be released at exactly the same time? Will there be Lord of the Rings viewing marathons? By the way - did you hear about the failed pitch for a Lord of the Rings film starring John as Gollum, Paul as Frodo, George as Gandalf and Ringo as Sam? We've missed that particular masterpiece, as Tolkien turned it down, as did Stanley Kubrick for that matter. The man it did fall to, Peter Jackson, recently also released a Beatles television experience in Get Back. Even for Beatles diehards like me I've not made it through all 468 minutes. But I saw enough to see Shakespeare being written. 

Screenwriter Peter Straughan (Wolf Hall, Conclave) said that the different script writers for the not-so-imminent upcoming four films were "firewalled off from each other", so we receive four takes truly inhabiting the shoes of each protagonist. Band members wanting their own 'main character energy'? Surely not! 

Only Mendes knows how the films will tie together. "Each one is told from the particular perspective of just one of the guys," Sir Sam told CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Monday. "They intersect in different ways - sometimes overlapping, sometimes not." 

"They're four very different human beings. Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply. But together, all four films will tell the story of the greatest band in history." 

An omnipresent director still has infinite attention for each one us within a grander narrative arc. 

Lennon and McCartney are undeniably geniuses. But with the Beatles, they were always greater than the sum of their parts. Even the songs that were solos were credited to Lennon/McCartney. Their solo works, no disrespect, never quite reached the dizzying heights of their collective efforts. 

But a biopic for each bandmember is a terribly 2020s take. We want to feel that main character energy pulsing through our veins. While we want to feel part of something bigger, we want to feel that our lives are unique and distinct, not derivative (the latter not being a problem for The Beatles). 

But a quartet of films, "challenging the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies", harmonising in new ways (remind you of anything as subversive and groundbreaking?) provides an utterly lovely step-change in cinema. There's been no shortage of Beatles biographies and films, but this new concept comes closer to art imitating life. Our lives have to be lived independently, but are somehow made more meaningful and rich in connection and collaboration with others.  

The philosopher Tom Morris wrote: "There are two striking human passions, the passion for uniqueness and the passion for union. Each of us wants to be recognised as a unique member of the human race. We want to stand apart from the crowd in some way. We want our own dignity and value. But at the same time, we have a passion for union, for belonging, even for merging our identities into a greater unity in which we can have a place, a role, a value.” 

Can those passions be held in tension? The Christian faith, while commending us to be outward-focused, does more than polyphonic films. It says that each of us are worthy of our own 'cinematic events'. Yes, we mightn't have started living until we have broken free from our own confines to the concerns of broader humanity, as Martin Luther King said, but an omnipresent director still has infinite attention for each one us within a grander narrative arc. 

All you need is love, they sang. But that love needs the perfect perspective of someone else. 

Celebrate our 2nd birthday!

Since March 2023, our readers have enjoyed over 1,000 articles. All for free. This is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.
If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?
Do so by joining Behind The Seen. Alongside other benefits, you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing my reading and reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.
Graham Tomlin
Editor-in-Chief