A Tale of Two Phoebes

In anticipation of the Grammy's next week, a re-post

In Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, when entreated to do so for a lover, Fleabag’s sister says to her “The only person I would run through an airport for is you.” One of the best things I found when Googling around thinking about this piece is an article for a chain of airport blow-dry bars that was attempting to sell its services by reminding us of all the movies where people run through airports to find each other. Just in case he might hop the security line and take you in his arms, you better be coiffed.

The joke of that line in Fleabag is that no one can run through an airport anymore, if they indeed ever did. Any running at all is frowned upon and you’d have to invest in a ticket to get through security, not to mention have memorized the details of your beloved’s flight in the first place so you don’t accidentally end up at Gatwick instead of Heathrow. Why not just text?

I think we liked those stories because they’re about the hand on the doorknob — the love almost lost, almost relinquished, but pulled back in close at the last possible moment. They’re also uncynical, never pretending to be cool about it all. You can’t ironically run through an airport for someone.

The day the networks officially called the election for Joe Biden, someone on Twitter said “Today is the Purge for earnestness.” I live in D.C. and I ran outside in my pajamas and people were bursting onto their porches and roofs and every couple walking dogs was crying and I think if we’d all been able to we would have held each other in the street. In all the poisonous hubbub that’s followed that day, I always remember how much I love seeing people like that.

Now, our theme here is earnestness (sincerity, cringe, uncoolness) and in that vein, I feel it incumbent upon myself to transition to our second Phoebe. I came to Phoebe Bridgers late and ignorant and have basically allowed her music to swallow me whole. I’ve listened to Punisher so many times that at night I find myself leaning back, closing my eyes, whispering along to all the words, breathing when she breathes. Her lyrics can cut you to pieces, but it’s entirely uncynical music. I think I would run through an airport if I could listen to Savior Complex during the act.

Of course Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Phoebe Bridgers are friends. Waller-Bridge recently directed the music video for Savior Complex, which is dreamy and weird and prominently features a dog. I violently hope that, as Bridgers said, people confuse their names and end up mushing the two together and finding both their work in the process. The two Phoebes are both romantics, both uncynical, both willing to show us how much they feel.

This year, I miss earnestness. I miss too much sincerity. I miss when we gave 12 Oscars to Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, the capstone to possibly the most earnest movie franchise ever made. Now everyone has their hot takes about the unrealistic nature of Love Actually, focusing on how that little kid never could have run through an airport in post-9/11 London, as if a strict adherence to realism is what that movie is meant to be serving us. I know why we’ve drifted to our ironic posturing and catch myself at it constantly. I blame no one for putting that kind of distance between themselves and the world. In 2020 cynicism probably counts as self-care.

But it’s almost Christmas, that most uncynical of holidays. Phoebe Bridgers has recorded a cover of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. She sings:

Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow

So who would you run through an airport for?