I wanna talk about the subject of escapism in Inanimate Insanity.
To discuss this I need to do a deep dive into 3 characters that push this subject the most and how they do it differently.
Lightbulb, Fan and Mephone 4.
The three that demonstrate escapism in 3 different ways.
Lightbulb
Throughout season 2 we see Lightbulb as this goofy character, that’s her whole character up until you begin to notice little habits or cracks in the persona she lets others see. Up until episode 12 we don’t exactly know what is going on with her. We see her get sad in spurts of moments, but it’s never dwelled on. Until she faces the loss of working with Paintbrush, this causes her happy facade to begin to unravel and we see a whole new side of her. Now while she does the literal definition of escapism, which involved her leaving to a different realm that’s more like her to hide from the scary reality of Paintbrush not liking or wanting to be friends with her. I want to talk about the reason as to why she does so.
Escapism isn’t solely defined as only wanting to leave your reality in favor of a fantasy. It can also include intensifying more positive emotions to cope with or hide the negative.
Lightbulb demonstrates the latter, We see Lightbulb throughout season 2 use humor and a heightened amount of positivity to hide from her peers. Even beyond episode 12. In episode 13-14 you can very easily tell she has gotten a lot more comfortable with Testtube. But beyond her, you can see Lightbulb continue to hide from the other remaining contestants. When upon getting scared or frustrated she instantly masks it with a silly response or an over the top reaction.
Even in the first half of the II movie she is seen continuing to be silly upon facing literal DELETION to cope with how terrifying it is.
Fan
Fan demonstrates the more literal form of escapism. Which would be, as mentioned before, escaping reality in favor of a fantasy. His entire character arc is centered beyond his incapability and fear of looking beyond the show, his main source of comfort. While Lightbulb hides behind a forced, intensified feeling, Fan hides behind an interest. His intense love and passion for the show cuts him off from the real world. And he’s okay with that, not only is he okay with that, he craves it. The world beyond the show scares him so much that he rather be contain within himself and his interest. This is shown most in episode 14, where he gets taken out of the show. Fan has characterized the feeling in later Livestreams as “the end of the world”. Because, for him, it was. Leaving the show begin to crack Fans shell of bliss and oblivion. It wasn’t about winning to him, it was about staying with the only thing that had a pattern, that gave him comfort.
He is shown time and time again to want to say in a “shell” of Inanimate insanity. That when he got thrown out of that shell it made him spiral. That and met harshness on how it happened, and loosing Test tube and the egg left him destroyed. Everything that gave him comfort was violently stripped from him. His feeling becomes clear when he says “Test Tube, to be honest with you, I don't want him to have to hatch, okay? I mean, wouldn't that be great? He could just... stay calm and secure in his little protective shell, and have... and have his... have his patterns. Right?”
He doesn’t want to leave Inanimate Insanity because it’s his protection.
Mephone 4
Now last but not least
Mephone 4
The epitome of escapism.
Now it’s quite obvious that Mephone definitely “programmed” the latter 2 characters to have these issues because he himself has them too. BUT since I wanna demonstrate the 3 different ways II shows escapism I’m going to talk about the reason he created the characters.
Mephones form if escapism is through creation
He created a whole life and show to escape from Cobs. He created a good majority of the characters to project his feelings and struggles onto. Lightbulb with the struggle with hiding her emotions behind smiles, because he also does that (shown in the later half of season 2 and all of season 3). He created Fan with the obsessive attachment to Inanimate insanity, and the desire to stay in that fantasy rather than reality. Because he himself MADE the show to hide inside of it.
Even season 3 characters: cabby and her memory issues, clover and her seeing her ability as a curse, silver and seeing himself as worthless and balloon and his desire to change.
The character is an extension of himself and THROUGH THEM you see everything about Mephone’s struggles.
Speaking of season 3
The entirety of that season is literally him running away and creating another reality for himself. He consistently is shown to run away and hide from his problems, especially behind his creations.
It’s only when that fantasy is stripped away from him is when he can truly grow and face reality. Face cobs
