I have a confession: I love Grey’s Anatomy. By love, I mean LOVE. I have watched through all 17 seasons multiple times. My friends like to joke about how I base my personality off of Grey’s Anatomy. One thing about the show is that the seasons reflect a lot of what is going on in the world at the time it is filmed. The most recent season came out after the COVID-19 pandemic, and that season had a lot about COVID-19 in it. I’m going to stop right here and say if you’re a huge Grey’s Anatomy fan and have not seen the most recent season, spoiler alert. The main character, Meredith Grey, goes into a coma due to COVID-19. While she is in a coma, she is seeing herself on a beach and a bunch of past characters who died come back and talk to her. This beach represents Meredith’s paradise, her happy place. However, for the characters who are still alive, this beach is a terrible place because Meredith staying on the beach means that she has died. 

While season 17 is packed full of symbols, the most prevalent one is the beach. One theory that can describe what the writers were trying to display through the beach is symbolic interactionism. According to Griffin, this term refers to  the language and gestures a person uses in anticipation of the way others will respond” (53). Each person interprets words, actions, and symbols differently. How they interpret it is contingent on a lot of different factors. Griffin describes the core principles of symbolic interactionism as “meaning, language, and thinking” (53). Each one of these principles directly affects how the person or people interpret the communication being exchanged. Finally, Griffin states that “humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things” (54). Every interaction is subjective depending on the person. Symbolic interaction theorizes about social behavior based on the subjective interpretation of communication. 

There were multiple levels to the beach. The main point of the beach was Derek talking to Meredith. He kept telling her that “the sand isn’t real” and she could not figure out why he was saying this. From Meredith’s point of view, she was talking to her dead husband and he kept repeating the same phrase, so it must be something very important. To Derek, he was talking to his wife who is still alive and with their kids, so what else is there to do than pull a prank? The beach meant something to Meredith, it was her paradise. To Derek, it was just a place for Meredith to be until she woke up from her coma. So, not only the interpretation of the beach different for each of them, but also their interaction. This is a great example of symbolic interaction. Derek’s phrase “the sand isn’t real” is the linguistic communication between the two characters. Meredith’s interpretation of this phrase meaning something important is one part of the subjectivity of their communication. Derek’s interpretation of the statement being a joke is the other part of the subjectivity. In a whole, the interaction between the two characters was subjective based on their interpretation and circumstance. 

Video on the beach:

Works Cited:

Griffin, E. A., Ledbetter, A., & Sparks, G. G. (2019). A first look at communication theory. McGraw-Hill Education.