Netflix's Beef Was Born Out Of A Real Life Road Rage Incident
Road rage can be terrifying. Depending on where you live in America, a flipped bird can land you a honk in return, or something much more intense, and sometimes even violent. I grew up in a gun-toting rural area and heard road rage horror stories as a kid, so to this day I don't so much as let my passenger mean mug the drivers around me.
But what happens when you do end up entangled in a road rage incident and a moment of anger spirals far beyond a quick exchange? That's the premise for "Beef," the fantastic new Netflix series starring Ali Wong and Steven Yeun. It's also the thought that led series creator Lee Sung Jin to come up with the show in the first place.
Lee spoke with Newsweek about how "Beef" came to be and revealed that the series is rooted in a real-life incident. "The initial idea was unfortunately based on a road rage that happened to me," he told the outlet. "It involved a white SUV, much like the show," he explained, "but it didn't end even remotely close to any of the scenes of the show, thank God." Though Lee doesn't dig into the details of the encounter that made him begin exploring this idea, it sounds like he was the Danny (Yeun) in the situation, as Amy (Wong) drives a white SUV in the series.
'I just felt myself so trapped in my subjective reality'
"Beef" takes Lee's thought exercise and extrapolates outwards to the furthest degree possible, imagining a world where lives and relationships are ruined, floors peed on, and livelihoods damaged by the endless retaliation Danny and Amy engage in. It's not just a "Tom & Jerry" style show about brawling with a life-long enemy, though. Along the way, "Beef" cleverly unpacks the interior lives of its characters, revealing itself to be a story not just about anger, but also about loneliness, belonging, economic anxiety, racism, and the multi-faceted expectations of immigrant families.
It sounds like the incident in question got Lee's creative gears turning. "Going through that it felt interesting cause I just felt myself so trapped in my subjective reality and was projecting so many assumptions onto this other person," Lee told Newsweek. He added, "I assume he was projecting a lot of things onto me, and that was the nugget." The series starts with that simple incident, which is basically the exact opposite of a meet-cute. Construction worker Danny nearly backs into wealthy entrepreneur Amy, who pulls up behind him suddenly. It's not even a collision, but it's enough to ruin both their days — and a whole lot more.
Going beyond the first assumption
If you've ever experienced anything even remotely resembling road rage, you probably know the feeling Lee is describing; each person understands exactly why they're angry and thinks they're justified in their reaction — because we know about all the factors that led us to this moment. But we don't live in other people's heads, so each driver is just as likely to think the other person involved is overreacting or being a jerk. It's hard to humanize the stranger on the other side of the glass.
In this sense, road rage as a concept is a great jumping-off point for a story that's as empathetic and human as "Beef." A24 apparently thought so, too; Lee says the head of A24's TV division, which produced the show that landed on Netflix, told him to explore the idea to see what came of it. The end result is one of the best series of the year, a propulsive, darkly funny, shocking series driven by killer performances from Yeun and Wong. "I don't condone road rage but, you know, sometimes you end up with a show!" Lee told Newsweek.
Season 1 of "Beef" is streaming on Netflix.