Very often, my enjoyment of a series is different from my annoyance at the reaction to that series by a critical class that is often highly committed to seeing the world through a lens of identity politics.
Case in point: The HBO series “White Lotus” was my favorite show of 2021 but this interpretation of the first season finale by Jen Chaney at Vulture is far off from my world view which acknowledges the problems of homophobia, sexism and racism, but cautions against treating them as defining attributes or of every socio-economic problem that is encountered in fiction or the real world.
In interviews about the show like this New York Times profile, White talks about being influenced by the colonial history of Hawaii and the performative (and what can be seen as degrading) nature of cultural tourism. At the same time, White seems to be emphasizing privilege in a general sense and power dynamics. “A lot of rich people are just used to being catered to. I don’t think they realize how overwhelming their needs are and how they’re so oppressed by their needs,” he says.
From White's words and his own legacy ("Chuck and Buck", "Beatriz at Dinner", "Enlightened"), I’d make the case that the primary interest of the show is classist combined with a desire to balance out self-interest with altruism, whereas color and gender are secondary concerns. In "Enlightened", the “man” consisted of an Asian-American HR head who clearly wanted to exile Amy Jellicoe on her own volition and there was also little text or subtext that the show was interested in exploring the specific obstacles to the person of color on the downstairs level (Jason Matzoukas). At the same time, identity politics was hardly in the national lexicon in 2013 to the degree it is today.
[DANGER: SPOILERS AHEAD!]. In the hands of today’s critics, it’s impossible not to see the Belinda-Tanya dynamic is emblematic of one between a Black employee and a White woman. By this lens, Belinda is the victim: “Poor Belinda, who dared to believe that….,” writes Chaney in what could pass for a Shakespearean soliloquy. Firstly, why no mention of the big fat envelope that Belinda gave Tanya in cash? How do we know she couldn't start a business off that? Secondly, I agree that Tanya should not have jerked Belinda around, but it generally falls on people trying to launch their own business to convince the investors and not the other way around. Do you know how many editors or partners in other business ventures I’ve had bail on me?
Bold projection here: I wonder if the salaried writers at Vulture are themselves too privileged to write from Belinda's perspective? In order to land jobs at Vulture, they probably got liberal arts degrees which indicates a certain family security. My Persian cousins couldn’t afford to get anything but business degrees with their state college educations.
Additionally, how is Belinda any less justified in bailing on Rachel in her moment of need (an event that sends her back into the arms of a far crueler man) than Tanya is to Belinda. Sure, we can debate about how the strain of being a woman in the service industry (and if you want to go that route, a Black woman in the service industry). But the tragedy is unmistakably how a series of bad events beget one another—a combination of screwball comedy and upstairs-downstairs melodramas like Jean Renoir’s “Rules of the Game” or “Parasite” or “Grand Hotel” or other upstairs-downstairs melodramas. These types of stories are about classist satire which don’t necessarily encompass Black-White racial dynamics (which is separate from the commentary on Native Hawaiins, intersectionality be damned).
Instead of tackling that, Chaney writes, “But like so many white women, she’s apparently decided it’s easier to buy into a system in which she’s protected and financially supported than it is to summon the courage to work against it.” The statement is problematic because it treats Rachel as an accessory to some greater racial liberation movement rather like some reverse Magic Negro rather than a woman with very serious problems of her own.
The debate over whether these characters are defined by their white privilege is dramatized in a debate by the Mossbacher family. The parents' points that their daughter is more of an armchair activist can actually be read as somewhat valid.
At the very least, that scene and the show is exemplary precisely because it invites such thought-provoking discussion. Do the book smarts that Olivia and Paula gain equip them to properly fight for their beliefs (encouraging a poorly planned theft might not be the answer)? Is there any way to vacation to Hawaii that doesn’t perpetuate a systematic racist cycle? If there isn’t, should we not take vacations to Hawaii and deprive the state (including the natives), of that income? Does being conscious of problems preclude meaningful action?
The point is that these aren’t easy answers, though I can’t help but feel Chaney predictably sees this as more definitively an indictment of racism than it is meant to be. At the end, she surmises that Quinn didn’t get on the plane. I choose to believe that Quinn was able to bridge the gap between himself and the culture he emulated, but that's ok: We see this world through different lenses.
*Interesting side note: While writing the article, I looked up Jen Chaney on Twitter and invited her to coffee because she's way more successful than I am and apparently lives in the same city as me. No word yet on whether she would accept and the chances might decrease if she knows I'm writing an article that's critical of her take. My hope is that a friendship can be struck between people with differing views and, perhaps, Vulture might even be impressed by a well-argued rebuttal.
