Laughter, anger, and a whole lot of unsettlement. These were just a few of my reactions whilst watching Mike White’s newest show, “The White Lotus.” I didn’t know quite what to expect from the six-episode mini-series, but what I found in it was a dark and sometimes brilliant satire exploring systems like colonialism and whiteness through hilarious yet painful character acting.
The shining light of this show was the performances and way-too-familiar characters. The show begins with a collection of absurdly wealthy vacationers who arrive at a 5-star Hawaiian resort to be greeted by an over-exploited staff. All we know from the beginning of the show is that by the end of their week at the resort, someone will end up dead. The set-up itself is clever, as it rests on the juxtaposition between the prosperous paradise-on-earth and the tragedy the characters are destined to experience. In this juxtaposition is a clever exploration of the violence that lurks behind whiteness and wealth.
But this is not supposed to be a show about their development as people. As the layers of the show reveal themselves, what we see is that their entire existence at this resort is built on theft and privilege. This is a hotel, after all, on stolen land. For example, in one scene we watch as the guests bicker shallowly about politics while indigenous Hawaiians are forced to perform for them in the periphery just to get by. Thus, the physical environment of the show forces the dynamic of colonizers and colonized to the surface. As the vacationers go on a six-episode journey for enlightenment and self-worth, the hotel staff and indigenous residents of the island experience addiction, exploitation, and abuse just to attend to their clients’ every need.
Among the hotel arrivals is a young beautiful couple on their honeymoon destined to a life of philanthropy and shallowness (Jake Lacy and Alexandra Daddario), a mourning and emotionally-wrecked woman there to sprinkle her mother’s ashes (Jennifer Coolidge), two quasi-intellectual college friends reading Nietzsche and Freud by the pool (Sydney Sweeney and Brittany O’Grady), a sixteen year old dependent on technology (Fred Hechinger), and a girlboss-esque CEO mother who feels just so bad for the straight white men of the next generation (Connie Britton). The character acting is so spot-on that each of these people is the extreme of someone we know in our own lives, allowing us to see the truly sinister nature of, well, rich white people. Each of them is on their own quest for identity, purpose, etc. But there is a hint of evilness to each of them, something plaguing them to inescapable shallowness no matter how much they try to shroud themselves in progressive jargon. I thought this was most incredibly portrayed through Olivia (Sydney Sweeney), a college student never seen without a book of leftist theory who can so articulately explain the downfalls of capitalism yet could not care less about the people around her.
Nowhere was this more explicit or painful to watch than the relationship between Belinda, the hotel’s spa manager (Natasha Rothwell) and Tanya, a guest seeking companionship and emotional assurance (Jennifer Coolidge.) Belinda offered Tanya more kindness than she had likely ever received in her life, and at the end of the series, was left with nothing but an envelope of cash by Tanya. Tanya’s treatment of Belinda as nothing more than a transaction was sickening and quite frankly evil. At the end of six episodes, none of the vacationers were exempt from spiritual hollowness and materialism. Though perhaps they had learned more about themselves and each other, in one way or another they all went back to their old ways of complacency, emptiness, and mediocrity.
All in all, the White Lotus is not just well-written and hilarious, but also an urgent political commentary at the intersection of so many issues. Behind each vacationer’s search for self and purpose is something much more sinister: the environmental disregard of indigenous land, white entitlement and violence, labor exploitation, and more. The White Lotus is, in other words, exactly what this hell-hole of a year (or decade? century??) requires. Be prepared for lots of laughter, and even more discomfort.