Six Feet Under: “Better Living Through Death”

Abstract

This paper aims at analysing the way in which the American society understands death. For this purpose, I will use the television series Six Feet Under by Allan Ball (2000-2005) as an excellent portrait of the funeral industry that sees death as a business and as a spectacle. However, the series also presents other important issues, for instance, that before death, laughing is the best medicine, something that the viewer may find in several episodes. Furthermore, it shows that the Fisher’s funeral home seems to be different from the rest of the industry, since they try to find meaning in life through death. This is something that can be seen in the way they treat the living, as well as the dead. The Fisher Funeral Home is the place of understanding between the living and the dead, and a metaphor for the path that looks for the equilibrium between past and present, in order to improve the future.