What if design is what we see in Beef on Netflix?

George Nakai (Joseph Lee) is an American artist of Japanese descent. Without ever achieving success, he has been working on a series of not-so-imaginative sculptures for years. Zoomorphic resin sculptures dotted with colors that resemble a non-flashy evolution of Jeff Koons’ dogs, with something of Kapoor and a touch of Kusama. His greatest talent is not art, but being the son of a great dead Japanese artist. An artist, or perhaps it would be better to say designer. His chairs light the desire of the ultra-rich Los Angeles inhabitants in an exhibition of posthumous works, especially the Tamago chair – a one-piece chair modeled on the shapes of George’s mother’s backside, Fumi Nakai (Patty Yasutake). She is very much alive, intrusive, and quite spendthrift.  

The other woman in George’s life is his wife Amy (Aly Wong), who of the two is the one who has had some success in life, a success that would have been impossible without the Nakai inheritance. The real creative of the two, however, is her: she personally redesigned the beautiful home in Calabasas, a city in the southwestern region of the San Fernando Valley, about thirty miles from downtown Los Angeles (all inherited, of course). Her store, Kōyōhaus – an unpretentious name that comes from the word ‘house’ spelled in the German manner merging with ‘koyo’ which in Japanese is the ‘colorful leaves’ of autumn – is a plant store set with oriental minimalism. This business she has created is a cult and is about to be acquired by a major housewares chain. In the rise of post-Covid fetishism for home green, it seems just the right thing at the right time of the re-decor of the homes of people living in Los Angeles. So far probably a snobby, middle-class clientele with that slathering of typically L.A. flashy clientele, those who go to George’s dad’s exhibitions to be clear, one day for everyone.

Right, everyone. Because there are not only the ultra-rich with perfect homes and feng shui-inspired decor, not even in California. Especially not in this TV series, which presents a real story up to this point; a lump of clichés like you hear so many especially if you frequent that golden intersection of collectible design and art collecting in your life. Beef immediately recalls the famous beefs of rappers who have often gone beyond mere lip service. It is the new TV series for Netflix from A24, the trendiest production company of the last decade – a few titles: Ex Machina, Uncut Gems, and the last Oscars’ breaker Everything Everywhere All at Once. With a good slice of the Asian-American leads, the TV series is written by Korean Lee Sung Jin. And as in the highly acclaimed Korean film Parasite, the line between poverty and wealth in Beef is actually a chasm.

So here comes Danny Cho (Steven Yeun – famous for his role in The Walking Dead). He is a character who moves among little money in his pocket, failed businesses, small-time dealers, a few criminal dreams, and bad romances. He is what we would have once called a proletarian. He is a contractor, that is, the one who actually builds things (and houses) and fixes them, knows how to fix them even without needing to rack his brain behind a thousand YouTube tutorials on the iPhone 13 Pro. He realizes essential, minimal and necessary things to live in. Unlike his cousin Isaac – half a criminal and totally a loser – or his brother Paul who spends his energies on crypto investments and online video games, Danny Cho is a practical man. And quite angry at the world.

However, in Beef, angry, or disappointed, or tired, is basically everyone. Even Amy Lau, who reacts to her own super fancy but totally disappointing marriage by amusing herself with autoerotic marathons with the gun she has in her safe at home and by throwing herself into unlikely clandestine relationships. In fact, it all begins in the parking lot of the big Forsters shopping mall. Danny – the contractor – is there to buy things for his job, and Amy – the career woman who wants to sell her business in Forsters itself – have a violent confrontation that stems from nothing and ends in a wild car chase that devastates a poor man’s backyard. This clash between the rich and the poor will affect their lives forever.

From that point on, their every wit, their every resource, will be turned to a plan of revenge. A war to overpower the other that is fought along the trenches of a world increasingly divided between high and low, between riches and few means. On the one hand, there are those who have made of design and art an instrument of power and recognition of their social, financial, cultural status. On the other, there are those who build out of necessity, living almost parasitically off the surplus assets of the wealthiest, waiting for a pipe to break or there to be a small renovation to get into the fantastic houses of the 1% of the population. 

Thus, whether it is through the divisive power of money or the organization of violence, between the rebound of sudden decisions made in anger and more or less well-thought-out plans, between unlikely sculptures and plant stores that look like jewelry stores and houses that evolve around their protagonists, the idea of design that emerges meandering along Beef seems precisely that of an instrument of domination and subversion at the same time. Where beauty or utility are only a screen, and design is a manifestation that can also be violent of the roles of life in which we more or less happen to be. Are we sure that this vision is so far from reality?