Kevin Can Fuck Himself: Lighting as Disruption

I have never truly questioned how lighting frames my perspective. How the difference between the fluorescent overhead light and an orange glow in the corner changes my dorm from a prison of academia and undergraduate woes, to a space of reflection and warmth. I never questioned how The Simpson’s prismatic yet homely colouring reflects a coziness that detracts from Homer’s weaponized incompetence, and glaring abuse. How the most classic sitcoms, a medium that utilizes warmth and homeliness in its set design to depict common, though exaggerated, aspects and feelings of its viewers’ daily lives, naturalizes its viewers to heterosexism. When analyzing visual media, reflectingevery aspect that goes into the curation of how it is experienced, we must question what we will see when we turn on the overhead light.

AMC’s dark comedy, Kevin Can Fuck Himself, answers this question well. The two part series follows Allison, the put-upon wife of Kevin McRoberts, as she tends to the every whim of her husband, while being the butt of every joke he and his circle of followers make. When Allison interacts with Kevin or anyone from his circle, the interaction is governed with a blinding saturated lighting, representative of how under the multicam shot, the intense colouring, and roaring laugh track we are blinded to the calculated behavior of Kevin and the emotional abuse faced by Allison and the people around him. Lighting becomes a disruption, as when Allison is away from Kevin or his friends the light drops. Suddenly, the screen becomes a dull, mundane single cam shot. Removed from the glossy world of Kevin, Allison’s world is grimy – the overhead light has been turned on.

Light becomes a force of disruption, forcing us to reckon with the emotional abuse that Allison faces under Kevin, alongside the unfulfilled life she leads. It forces us to stare directly and come to terms with the truth of Allison and Kevin’s marriage. That it isn’t a cute relationship of a nagging wife and a lazy husband, who deep down love each other, but it is one of abuse. Lighting forces us to disrupt the heteronormative nature of relationships, and reassess what we are taught to want. When I say heteronormative and heterosexism, I am not simply speaking to homophobia, but the larger notion that there is a politicized and constructed way that heterosexuality and heterosexual relationships should be performed. A wife gleefully submitting to her husband’s whim, playing along with every demeaning comment he makes. The husband as the provider, and his family as his property. The house, the two kids, the white picket fence. And while this may not be a reflection of everyone’s life, it is the one we must all aspire to, otherwise we are deemed dysfunctional or deviant.

In Kevin’s sitcom format, characters fulfill this model, operating dysfunctionally while, through Allison, aspiring towards this model of heterosexuality. In episode one, after begging Kevin for the couple to move, Allison later finds out that he has been spending all of their joint savings, and her move will not be possible. These events occur through a dichotomized lens, Kevin’s where he weaponizes his incompetence to force them to stay in their current home, and Allison’s as she finds out through Patty, neighbour and partial friend to Kevin, the truth of their savings. It is in Allison’s lens that the myth of heterosexuality that the couple aspires to is shattered, as Allison begins to understand that the death of this relationship (or Kevin) must occur and be followed by rebirth.

Season Two goes even further to push the way we have begun to think about the perspectives lighting creates. Season Two begins by slightly dimming the saturation of Kevin’s landscape, a subtle way of foreshadowing the eradication of Kevin’s world. This reveals that the alternating perspectives not only serve to critique and disrupt heteronormativity, but distort the acceptance of abuse. This emerges through a number of characters. One being Neil, a close companion of Kevin, who is pulled from Kevin’s perspective into Allison’s reality after overhearing her plan to kill Kevin, marking the first time a man from Kevin’s circle is pulled from his reality. After this Neil is never the same, and comes to realize the exploitative nature of his relationship with Kevin. Viewers can no longer find comfort in seeing Neil as the dimwitted neighbour, and must confront the cruel actions of Neil, and the cruel actions done to him. Another way this emerges is with Allison’s mom, presenting her with a similar sitcom world as she beats Allison down for wanting more in her life. This use of the sitcom background reflects complicity in not questioning abuse and states that by accepting the cruel ways others like Kevin treat people, you have accepted their world view. This is exemplified when Sam, a friend of Allison’s, discusses how disgusted a conversation with Kevin had made him feel, urging him to reflect on his own behavior towards women. Another scene for a brief second even shows Allison in the sitcom format, without Kevin present, as she contemplates for a moment doing a cruel decision that could potentially ruin someone’s life.

There are so many more aspects that add to the beautiful, unique concepts of the show. I have yet to talk about Patty and her relationship with Allison, or the use of time and space to construct this story, as it is set in the opioids epidemic, and what that may mean as a metaphor for abuse, or its relationship to the sitcom ‘Kevin Can Wait’. Kevin Can F Himself is a reminder to question and challenge the comfort we find in tropes and media, because there is always a larger purpose.