Circling The Drain: Mike White, THE WHITE LOTUS & The White Existential Fish Hook (Patreon)

Note #1: If you have no interest in watching The White Lotus and don't care about spoilers you can probably still read this column. At least, I think? I think.

Note #2: Everything I have written here might be (and probably is) wrong in some way because it’s tackling a reflexive subject and I want to learn why I’m wrong.

Note #3: I can’t remember the last time I got this exhausted from an essay while writing it. Normally when I start feeling this way I just stop. I know it’s not worth it because my disinterest will usually be reflected in the reader's disinterest, too. But my tiredness with this subject isn’t due to disinterest or even lack of coherent thoughts. It’s more… existential. Because, like I said, the subject at hand is super reflexive. Because “the thing that needs to be said about all this!” is actually being said in the art itself - but it’s also being embodied by the art itself - and in turn, it is further embodied by my writing about it.

The whole problem is that is the crappy, crappy point.

* * *

1. ALMOST ONLY COUNTS IN HORSESHOE AND HOOK THEORIES

When I was in high school I was directly taught “The Horseshoe Theory” as if it was an unassailable truth. If you are unfamiliar, it speaks to the belief that going down either end of the political spectrum leads you down a path where those beliefs become “the same” in terms of extremist ideology / controlling attitudes / violence, etc. To be clear, this conclusion was largely drawn as a reaction to the totalitarian regimes of two famous American enemies in the early-mid 20th century, that would be Hitler’s Germany and the worst eras of the Soviet Union. But this idea, like most things born of “conventional wisdom,” does little else but place the centrist instinct as the ideal way to go through life, quite literally putting it above the fray of extremist thought if you look at a diagram). But this ignores many, many important things and there’s two that I want to single out specifically.

The first is how it ignores the litany of developed countries (like Scandinavia or New Zealand, etc) that provide “socialized” services and yet lead nowhere totalitarian whatsoever. Heck, most civilized countries operate with comprehensive health care and that would be considered “far left” practices here and thus dangerous! No. All that happens from this is that they make really nice places to live where the government genuinely seems to do a better job at taking care of its citizens. That’s it. They don’t lead to the problematic zones of extremism. Instead, they lead to the kinds of stability that prevent people from reaching toward extremist action at all. This leads the second thing, which is how the horseshoe model completely ignores the reality of how extremes actually happen.

Which brings us to The Fish Hook Theory. Like The Horseshoe Theory, I admit that it is a simplification, but absolutely gets at something we’ve all seen in action. Weirdly, the best definition I could find was on Urban Dictionary. The Fish Hook is, “the theory that centrists and the far-right on the political spectrum are in-fact very close. Created in response to the Horseshoe theory equating the far-left to the far-right due to similar tactics (despite having fundamentally opposing beliefs), the theory states that centrists allowing the far-right to preach their beliefs will allow the far-right to grow greater and lead to the rise of fascism again; it suggests that centrists pave the way for fascism and so the two parties are part of the same problem. Whilst there have been cases made for this theory, it is mainly used to satirise and discredit the Horseshoe Theory.” Basically, if you always try to be in the middle you’re just going to get dragged by the far right movements because the definition of “the middle” keeps shifting right along with it.

Anyone who reads that is instantly going to recognize what’s been happening with the fascist rise for the last ten years on social media. Or exactly to the theory’s point, they will think this concern is overblown, stick with the status quo, not understand the role this very ignorance played in the rise of the far right, and help the problem get much, much worse. But this is not a recent phenomenon. If you look at a timeline of the last 20 years and you can see this in the Neocon movement and the way Fox News similarly dragged the center to the right. Honestly, the same can be said for the last 40 years, ever since Reagan began rolling back tax policies and regulation to roll out the red carpet for Wall Street. The arc of all this is achingly real. If you look at mid-century Republicans like f Eisenhower warning about the military industrial complex and then look at Trump and DON’T see a radical shift, then I can only claim this is the height of ignorance. As we speak, we’re going right back to The Gilded Age.

Which is the EXACT set of conditions that create society-breaking conditions and the various totalitarian movements that come in their wake. Again, that’s the whole thing. People on the right love to claim the fish hook theory in reverse, but sound social policy does not beget extremism. Radical inequality is what creates the conditions for that extremism. It is the fish hook curling tighter and tighter and tighter until the whole system can’t help but break. I know this is a simplification, but it’s a much more accurate simplification than what the horseshoe offers.  Besides, it doesn’t really matter because my entire interest here has very little to do with a grand political debate. I just want to highlight what the fish hook theory is and how it works.

Because it has a weird amount to do with The White Lotus.

Specifically, the whiteness of it.

2. CHUCK AND BUCK AND WHITE AND HULK

Mike White is a writer who had a big impact on me. Most of you probably know him from classics like School of Rock, or his collaborative work on Freaks & Geeks. Others of you might know him from his cult hit Enlightened. But for me it was 2000’s Chuck & Buck; an early foray into digital filmmaking directed by Miguel Arteta and written by White himself. It’s a film that gave us a devastatingly awkward and painful story about queer sexuality, repression, and the brutal circumstances of dealing with those things within the death rattle of 90’s Gen X culture. It’s honestly a hard film to watch, mostly because it fully establishes White’s knack for dramatizing the cringiest aspects of human interaction. But the notions at the center of it still strike deep. At least for me. Because it was having a conversation that I didn’t know I was already having in my head.

Chuck & Buck is about an awkward, young gay man and budding playwright named Buck (played by White himself) and his tacit reconnection with Chuck, his best friend from youth. Even though Chuck’s now married and goes by Charlie, Buck can’t help but fixate on their old relationship, specifically because they once sexually experimented with each other when they were very young. For Buck, it was such a formative experience and now he is effectively trying to rekindle that moment / their love by inserting himself into their new life. But as awkward as it is, I know so many men who identified with the Buck character. For it speaks to that pain and isolation of being gay in that time, along with that desperate wanting to reach out and connect. But for me… it was Charlie. The film doesn’t really delve into how to label his character in terms of being closeted / bisexual / or to what degree, mostly because those questions were less pertinent at the time. We just know that Charlie spends so much time avoiding his reality, trying to go inward and not really reckoning with that part of his sexuality (until he has to).

This landed HARD with me because it was exactly where I was at the time. I wasn’t talking about it with anyone, but I was confused, unsure what I was, or what to make of my drives and “experiments,” nor even really understanding my connections with my gay friends. This film hit both like a gut punch and a wave of blinding light at once, stirring something so viscerally inside me that it zapped into actual consciousness. It was the first time I had really seen that feeling that I was having on screen. And for that, I will always be deeply, impossibly thankful for it. It helped put me in a place where I could finally start talking about it. And if we define “the importance of art” as it being of some use to people? Well, for my personal experience…

I can think of nothing that was more useful.

What may or may not be relevant is how much of this came from a personal place for Mike White, too, because he has a fairly interesting life story. For one, his father was a closeted gay man who eventually came out in 1994. But it was complicated. He was actually a Reverend and speech writer for deeply conservative  public figures / hate-mongers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Now, I don’t exactly have to give you the diagram of self-hate and fear that leads figures to engage in such hypocrisy, but it’s safe to say these were dominant forces in both Mike’s life and his fathers (a moment alluding to this even shows up in The White Lotus). But it was also a huge part of White contextualizing his own selfhood. He came out as gay at a time a lot of writers really weren’t doing that, explored the subject frequently in work, all while exploring lot of other complex subjects, too. And for whatever it’s worth, nowadays he technically identifies as bisexual even with periods of being gay, because he wants to honor the fullness of that. But honestly he’s not too hung up on the difference. And perhaps that’s part of the apt way he engages his work. For so much of it is about acknowledging the messy cores of people’s behavior, the way they sometimes need labels, but also defy them, or can even wield them like cudgels. White’s always been interested in the mess. And over the years, it hasn’t really gotten any more clean.

Which is part of why his work over the last 10 years has been so interesting to watch. Coming out of the other side of “success” it’s clear how plainly he looks at the world of wealth and status around him (though it’s worth noting his mother was a fundraising executive sooooo). But you can see the way he’s constantly been exploring the callousness, the envy, and the self-help brands of selfishness that define that insular world. He keeps doing smaller projects that focus on this like Beatriz at Dinner or Brad’s Status, but he’s also been utterly happy to help on big Hollywood projects of varying quality, from The Emoji Movie to Pitch Perfect 3. And he does this all while engaging in fits of beloved reality show dalliance, from literally starring on The Amazing Race (teamed with his father no less) to actually competing on Survivor. I honestly can’t think of a career like it. Because it all feels so weird and undefinable. Singular. Reflexive. Contradictory. And yet utterly straight-forward at the same time. I’m not really sure how to define it.

That’s probably the point.

3. SATIRICAL NON PERSONS

I’ve seen people calling The White Lotus a satire, but satire requires willful exaggeration.

And there’s nothing exaggerated about a single behavior in this show. Ugly? Callous? Scathingly funny at times? Sure. But it’s all so devastatingly real and plain faced. These are real things being said by real people all the time. To claim otherwise is to willfully ignore behavior happening around you. But I say that with the understanding that a lot of times it takes being the “outside” person to really see the inside behavior for what it is. I mean, if you’re around white people all the time - then you’re suddenly around someone who isn’t and you see some heinous shit happen to them, this becomes shocking. You never saw it before and thus it’s a freak occurrence. But it’s likely something they live every day.

To wit, there’s a scene where Steve Zahn’s character is drunk and finds out that Armond is gay and immediately can’t help but quickly ask“what’s it like being fucked up the ass?” Did this moment seem a little forward or heightened to you? But I’m telling you, when I strike up any kind of bar conversation where I’m actually comfortable getting into the topic of being bisexual, this is the question guys ask first. There often isn’t any malice, it’s just that they can’t WAIT to ask it. Really. It happens all the time. But if you don’t have sex with men, you probably get asked this question zero times. It’s a simple portrait of living in two different realities. And thus, to see the characters of The White Lotus as exaggerations is not to be faced with the brunt of what’s actually happening in the reality of this space. Meaning there’s an entire myopia of personhood and worlds at play. One where I can’t help but think about that hauntingly stark moment where Olivia tells Paula that “something bad could have happened” because of her meddling. And Paula can’t help but respond, “something bad did happen.” Because this boy she just involved in this whole caper has now had his life ruined. But to Olivia? He doesn’t even count. He’s not just a persona non grata…

He’s not even a person.

Which is really what the show is about. From the opening monologue, it’s about the people who count and the people who have to blend into the background, all in the name of service. But I’ll be honest, watching The White Lotus was extra hard because I can’t watch that specific brand of inhumanity where people are mean to service staff. It’s probably my single biggest pet peeve on the planet? I dunno. It makes my skin crawl. And watching this show got so bad that I often couldn’t even look right at the screen and kept having to hit pause to regain my composure. Maybe it’s the way I was raised? Maybe it was from having done service jobs? But it’s probably just the horror of inhumanity itself.

To be clear, I get the impulse to kick and scream when it comes to big disruptive life situations. We’ve all had moments of frustration when having to deal with the labyrinthian bureaucracies of modern corporate life. Getting fucked over by an overbooked plane or hotel totally sucks. And there’s those horrible moments of powerlessness when the internet goes out and you have something due, but now you’re sitting there talking to an equally powerless customer service rep on the phone - one who literally has to follow company policy with no other choice because helping you literally gets them in trouble. But even in that frustration, the thing that always, always, always works best in these situations is being understanding of where they are at, knowing that you’re both struggling in this system, and being forthright in finding the most realistic solution, whatever it may be. More flies with honey and all that.

But the problem is that some people are incredibly sensitive to anything that even comes CLOSE to this kind of bureaucratic scenario. And there’s a reason their response usually skews aggressive. We’re talking about people whose control issues are so pronounced that even the most minor thing being wrong is a total affront to their sense of control over the world - and what they think their money is supposed to buy them (enter, the many characters in this show). This is how they still frame themselves as the victim. And because these people often have actual power, they get to wield that anger like a weapon, ready to indulge it at a moment’s notice. Where powerless people are mostly just fucking used it and have to push a lot of their despair inward, it’s powerful people get to go full horrible. Even worse, their emotions get conjoined together because of it: the mere use of anger makes them feel like they’re gaining more control in the process. And any form of giving in is not reconciliation, but losing that control. Which is exactly why a character like Shane can turn “not getting the right room” into a war of attrition.

But at the heart of these interactions you are always, always, always making the same choice of engagement, which comes with the same set of questions. How much of the other person do you see as a person? Are they even capable of helping you? Are you painting them needlessly as an adversary? Do you turn off a person's humanity when convenient? And where all of those questions may be clear in the nightmare scenarios described above, there’s still smaller ways that (mostly white) people do it every day.

4. FUN PROBLEMS

When it comes to pure craft, The White Lotus is full of everything that makes Mike White such a damn good storyteller. It’s not just his prescient ear for everyday assholery, it extolls every virtue of quality writing. For a show that’s a bunch of people hanging around a hotel for a week, it’s actually chock full of cause-and-effect-based plotting, clear character interiority, emotions building into compelling conflicts with others, careful set-ups, and sharp surprises, all of which all work toward pointed themes. You see the arc of the story completely, with the set-up of the interchangeable nature of the staff truly becoming realized as they’re decimated by these guests, with nary a few survivors on the other side. Within the dramatic moments, you feel the gut-twisting way it wrenches the sense of doom over a mere business proposal or the way one character pays attention to another’s request. You see the sharp lines that are full of biting irony, like when Jennifer Coolidge laughs and says “I know a lot of rich white fucked up people, they could really use you!” and not realizing her key word here is use. You even see White work that sense of keen observation into the little production details, like the fact Shane is reading Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” while both of them are utterly failing the blink test (specifically the one that determines whether long term couples will stay together and are just currently ignoring their deeper problems).

Also within his direction, White gets killer performances from everyone. Not just perennial all stars like Coolidge or Connie Britton, we also get the delight of bringing Steve Zahn back into the limelight. We get to see Jake Lacy play a spectacular asshole. We get really empathetic and affecting stuff from Alexandra Daddario, which clashes so brilliantly against the monotone, disaffected deviousness of Sydney Sweeney. And then there’s basically everything about Armond (Holy hell do I have to go down the Murray Bartlett rabbit hole). But there’s a certain thing at the heart of this “killer performances from everyone” observation that also reminds me of something really, really important. Because years ago I was having a conversation with a writer / actress / person of color and they were talking about what they wrote / looked for in roles / or really anything they consumed. The question they asked themselves was so pointed because it uses a phrasing that I think many don’t…

“Are the non-white actors getting to have fun, too?”

It’s a question I haven’t stopped thinking about because it highlights the biggest gap in how white-centric media often treats the white and non-white characters on screen. To wit, there is no doubting that The White Lotus is so pointed in its criticism of the way whiteness attempts to overpower people of color, demands subservience, their coddling, and control. And it dramatizes these things, along with the way it negatively affects those characters, with aplomb. We get to see the way Natasha Rothwell plays Belinda’s interiority, pain, and desperate wanting as she struggles to get financial support for her new business. But what do we get to see outside of that? Her having one conversation with her kid who encourages her? Being exhausted in conversations with Armond? Shaking her head and laughing as he showers? I mean, is she getting to show off the fun side of how she deals with any of this massive bullshit?

Because there’s a fun side to the way everyone deals with everything. Similarly, Kekoa Kekumano plays Kai and gets to be hot, but he’s also saddled with expressing the pain and explanation of his life’s circumstances, both within the island and his family. And even with Paula’s character, we first get to see the funny, disaffected way she teams up with Olivia, and she even gets to point funny observations at certain dinner table scenes, but as complex and well-realized as her downward spiral is, she too gets completely trapped under the weight of being “the oppressed figure” within the narrative. We lose what’s outside of it.

To the point of all of this, do you think it’s an accident Murray Bartlett is the only one who gets to have fun in the way that he deals with the rich people bullshit? Believe me, Belinda and Kai would be having just as much fun (the big difference is probably that they would have to be way more careful). But in making thematic points about white cruelty, white authors always seem to be afraid to show anything “undignified” in the face of that oppression because 1) we still view this entirely through that MLK lens where we turn complex and justifiably angry figures into passive, doe-eyed victims in order to make oppression narrative cleaner, which 2) just removes more spectrum of their humanity and 3) still makes it more about “how it’s viewed” instead of reflecting people as they are. This is the brutal fulcrum of whiteness.

And look, I get it, folks. The show is about the way that white people push people of color out of their narrative. Literally so in the case of The White Lotus where we effectively see the non-white characters leave the resort and therefore no longer exist. I utterly get the point of it. But through the lens of everything I’m saying here, isn’t that just embodying the thing it’s criticizing?

To wit, when we come out of the show with accolades for people’s performances, who is going to get them? The people who got to be fucked up and zany in their entertaining oppression? Or those who had to have doe-eyed, crying reactions to their oppression? All because their pain was so tied into obligatory thematic points that had to be served? In other words, “who got to have fun?” And why do we think that is? When it comes to the characters getting pushed out of the narrative, I know it’s easy to try and make excuses about the limitations of shooting in Covid and being at the hotel, but are we saying there wasn’t some location work around within those circumstances? I mean, they got to film the airport for a day, so what is it that really matters? And on the grander scale, is the thematic point about interchanging people more important than the feeling of what it’s like to be interchanged? What does this show look like if it goes from 60 / 40 focus on the families to 60 / 40 focus on the staff? What gets lost? What gets gained?

To whatever credit you can offer, Mike White gives an interview that seems to understand some of this and is making no excuses - Moreover, these ideas are just one of the many that would probably get folded into the story’s hyper awareness - because there are about 90 other thematic complexes dealing with power, race, and humanity that get dramatized succinctly. But some of those complexes reveal the bigger existential question. it’s not just behind who gets to have “fun problems,” but really, who is…

5. THE HERO OF THE STORY

Once again, I’m not bringing in some outside idea to the thematic proceedings. They outright talk about this on the show. Steve Zahn expresses the white male worry about no longer being the hero of the story and now is just being happy “not to be the villain.” While of course, highlights the hypocrisy of him not recognizing the villainess ways of his behavior (whether they be mild or severe). Likewise, we see virtually every ignorance get dramatized as Connie Britton expresses personal beliefs about how “good things happen to good people,” and there’s a justified reason they’re so successful. But as every attempt is made to get them to empathetically budge or evolve in any way shape or form, they just end up “re-centering” (which is literally the name of the fourth episode) on themselves and their own status quo. I could talk for so long about the various ways they execute this, but it would belabor the point. Because it’s not really even about being the hero of the story (though it can be), but on the broader level, how you have to come to grips with your own existence.

Beyond the privilege, wealth, and power, the thing that really bonds the whiteness of the characters is that they are facing the death of seeing themselves as “normal.” Which is really the greatest privilege of them all. Because you get to be afforded the ability to pretend “whiteness” isn’t a thing at all. You’re just a person. Which means everything about your life is decided by merit or personality or behavior or whatever else you may think. Meanwhile there’s millions of non-white people in this country who are just trying to be people, too. But they HAVE to carry the burdens of race, color, and creed, because the overwhelming whiteness of society forces them to. For them, there is no way to opt out. But now as American society keeps changing it is thus trying to force the understanding that “whiteness” not only exists, but carries great blame and responsibility, then white society starts to freak out. Not just because of the discernible ways they are trying to hold onto power, but because they want the ultimate privilege of automatically seeing themselves as normal. They have no idea how to be otherwise. They don’t know how to carry around whiteness. And reaction to this skews from the disgusting toxic embrace of it (turning into whiteness as identity / nationalism), to the evasive (various forms of bargaining and denial), to approval seeking (“validate me, I’m saying all the right things!”), to the earnestly confused and trying, but still messing up the response (a lot of us).

All of this plays out in a dominantly white media world. We know what the bad faith operators are doing in the face of it, as they all but cast a rebellion and play themselves as the victims of cancel culture or whatever else. But even for the most well-meaning, it’s like there’s this pressing need to show awareness and understanding, to say and do the right things (read: this essay), but so much of the real solution requires shutting up, putting others in power, and getting the fuck out of the way… But then there’s the things that stop people from actually doing that.

There’s this telling moment of Bo Burnham’s INSIDE that I think about a lot. Early on, he’s singing this incredibly reflexive song about the dire problems of the world and whether he should be the one to talk about any of them, let alone even attempt comedy in this place and time. And right when he contemplates shutting up and getting the fuck out the way - the music cuts, he sits there in silence for a moment, and then he comedically says “I’m bored” and moves on with the special. It’s a comedic treatment of the idea of how hard it is to “stop” and the reasons so many people don’t. For some, it can be a deeply unhealthy fixation with guilt, the constant need to center oneself, and / or the need to try to speak for others. For others, art is simply part of processing the world. For others still, it's the basic logistics of having to KEEP THAT CONTENT GRIND GOING, BABY. For others it's the sunk cost of how many hours you’ve put into a thing. There’s many reasons we keep talking. All of which I’m guilty of when trying to even write this fucking essay.

Hence, the note at the very top. I bring all of that shit in with me automatically. I’m coming from the same incredible whiteness. I’m a white guy writing about a white guy named White who made a show called The White Lotus about whiteness. Everything about this is utterly puke-worthy. No really, I genuinely feel like I’m gonna puke over it. Here I am extolling whatever lessons as if I haven’t been guilty of the same exact bullshit. But there’s a way you learn those lessons and rarely is it the easy way. And more importantly, this feeling? This is the roadblock that is actually the crux of things. Because all of these concerns are meant to establish critical self-examination, but when talking about them - either you keep going inward with it and keep disappearing up your own butthole forever, fixating more and more and your own existential malaise, just obsessing over it and taking up more and more space… Or you can move on. You can go outward and genuinely try to offer something of fucking use to people.

To that, Bo Burnham could have just kept fixating on that inward shit, but instead he moves forward. Whether it was to genuinely comedic-yet-innocuous bits about Facetiming with his mom, or to radically different forms of opening up. Ones that aren’t about the preoccupation of how he’s being perceived, but instead the simple human difficulties of navigating the online world, dealing with isolation, chronic dissociation, and how to cope with feelings of abject hopelessness. Which I for one, found fucking useful.

And the question for The White Lotus is ultimately the same…

Is Mike White going inward or outward with it?

6. INWARD

So White made a film in 2017 called Brad’s Status. I don’t think many people saw it, but hey, it’s hard to get eyeballs these days and I don’t think the film really works anyway. But true the frequent subject matter of his last decade, it’s a film about envy and jealousy of various levels of success. More specifically to its title, there’s a loooooot of Ben Stiller worrying about his status. Like, it just indulges those worries for over an hour, all before getting to see other folks’ problems and learning those age old lessons about the green eyed monster (you know, the ones that you supposedly learn in kindergarten). But the real problem is that as opposed to satire, this is a thematic area where White’s brand of scathing-but-more-normalized realism just… hits really bad. Such that the entire film feels just as myopic as the myopia it’s exploring. Brad’s fixations feel so obligatory. The lessons are so crushingly obvious that you just sit there and wait. And by spending that kind of time with all that can’t help but make it all feel way too weirdly empathetic to the very culture it’s supposedly criticizing. Is this empathizing with Brad or indicting him? It doesn’t feel like a humane portrayal that splits the difference. It’s a film that goes so inward that it just feels… stuck.

And I worry that Mike White keeps writing from this stuck space more and more. You really feel it in some parts of The White Lotus, mostly because characters keep exhibiting that inward focus while being stuck in the same fashion. Steve Zahn shouts “I just need someone in my life to respect me” before eventually barking orders about how the world is and how “nobody cedes their privilege.” All while other characters keep telling people that “I don’t want to be the center of the narrative” while they very much do. The pointed ironies of these selfish behaviors are everywhere. And they are contextualized in terms of their glaring wrongness. But they also take up all the narrative space along with it. And as I said in the “fun problems” section above, these characters are also the ones who get to run the full gamut of their emotional experiences with these particular issues. The story has the same coiling inward fixation on the same questions, investigations, bargains, and hypocrisies. Just like Brad’s Status it indulges this gravitational pull of how much time is spent on this. And there’s a crucial difference between exploring something and being hung up on something. So as the characters keep “re-centering” as if to get unstuck, it keeps the focus on exactly what is endlessly stuck, and the narrative gets stuck the same.

Which means it’s The Fish Hook Theory incarnate.

Make no mistake, The White Lotus is ultimately “inward” television. And the more it keeps investigating inward, the more it just keeps discovering the same status quo; as if it was all part of the same whiteness industrial complex. At it’s best you could say “that’s the point” and dust your hands off and move on without digging deeper into whether this is actually harmful. And at its worst, this could all be a part of some inescapable victim framing and looking for solace and empathy while putting your foot on someone’s neck. But again, I go back to that same Mike White interview where he outright says, “I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me; I don’t feel sorry for myself. But I still want to think about things, and I still want to create stuff. And my hope is that it’s useful for somebody besides myself.”  Once again it comes back to that question of being useful. But can people still get something out of watching inward media?

Well, that depends on how people actually watch the show.

And why.

7. OUTWARD

You may have noticed some chatter about the ending of The White Lotus being “uncomfortable” for people (it’s also discussed in the same interview above). But that’s because it taps into the age-old question of what we want from our media, specifically the need for characters to be punished. Granted, we’ve been conditioned to see most movies this way, largely because The Hays Code required it. Now there’s so many stories where we indulge some characters' bad behavior (whether for a laugh or thrill or fright or whatever) and the very thing that makes people feel better about it is that the bad characters get punished. It is the most on-the- nose way for art to say “yes, I condemn this person’s behavior” and signify to the audience that they get it in turn. But in many ways, it lets the audience off the hook. Because they want the media to do this punishing so they don’t have to in real life.

And that’s the rub: when movies always condemn behavior and portray the world as just, it doesn’t reflect how the world often actually works. Because it doesn’t reflect the way power corrupts or that privilege keeps winning, or any other number of ugly realities. We recognize that dramatizing this stuff would often deny the simple joy of cinematic catharsis, but hey, sometimes there’s a pointed use for showing the ugly reality. One that can feel just as cathartic because the art recognizes the complicated ways we feel about living in a complicated, unjust world. It makes us feel seen and less alone. So in the end, we have incredible media that both punishes and doesn’t punish alike. But sometimes the way we feel about these cinema punishments belie a more complicated relationship to the material.

When it comes to The White Lotus, the show punishes no one deserving. In fact, it mostly rewards those in power. Olivia will get to continue manipulating Paula and not just hold power over her, but now has horrible leverage, too (P.S. I haven’t even mentioned it, but there’s possible subtext cues about Olivia being in love with her too). Zahn and Britton’s characters get to feel “healed” by the mildly violent interaction, one which completely destroys Kai’s life, while ultimately upholding their traditional gender role bullshit. Heartbreakingly, Rachel, who was perhaps struggling with isolation and the daunting prospects of loans and her career, comes back to Shane and painfully promises that she will try to be happy. Maybe it’s just sunk cost and all that, but we don’t even see her make the decision before that. Hell, even the gay character is the one who dies in this narrative and it plays right into the “bury your gays” trope (though it should be said that White is not an outsider and likely extremely cognizant of this trope, so he’s probably playing into it for a reason… it’s just that reason may be worth very little). And finally Belinda is denied her escape and now has to hold up the brunt of the whole horrible cycle once yet again. So yes, it is the ending that holds up every horrible status quo of whiteness, toxic masculinity, and the terrible world we currently live in.

On one level, this is the kind of hopeless depiction can certainly provoke. But who? To be fair, it’s only a casual scan of twitter reactions over the last four days, but such things can give you a decent impression of trends. And I’ve found the small number people getting upset are the ones who are white and have what is perhaps a very naive sense of the way justice exists in the world. The kinds who perhaps echo the sentiments of liberal centerism and say things like “this is NOT my America!” and thus have never meaningfully engaged our actual history. For those people, I am glad the show confronts whatever delicate sense of America / whiteness / whatever that they possess. But let’s put the counter-point like this: I haven’t seen any people of color having problems with the way white people were not getting punished (in fact pretty much just noticing the criticism of how the narrative ultimately stayed centered on whiteness). Which gives way to another realization entirely: if both these groups are a small minority of the show’s (mostly white) audience, then who is The White Lotus and its criticisms ostensibly for?

I realize this is a question for the people who unabashedly loved it. I wonder what this show makes them feel. I wonder if many of them see it as a satire when it’s rather plain faced? I wonder if they separate themselves from the rich, white characters on screen and see themselves as somehow different? Or if it feels like an all too familiar world for them? Does the status quo ending work because it reflects a kind of overall jadedness that they also possess? Or is it because it upholds the same status quo that allows us to just keep going in perpetuity with it? For a show that is this awkward and uncomfortable to watch, is it ultimately just making us feel more comfortable in it? Does it let us slide into our propagation of this fatalistic reality like a warm bath? Does it feel biting to us? What is the point of having teeth in art anyway if you are not going to feel it? And who is really getting bitten here?

What is perhaps a telling point of comparison is another HBO show Succession, which deals with the same scathing world of the uber-rich. But we’re talking TRULY the worst people as they are basically stand-ins for Rupert Murdoch and his family’s media empire. Which is not just creating a bigger gulf in difference between those who watch and those on screen, but there’s tonal separation, too. The show’s fucketity fuck verbal gymnastic read more easily as satire, especially is it trots us around to these amazing locations. And unlike White’s work, the drama isn’t observational and normalized, but more playing into this King Lear-y grandiosity. But perhaps most critical to all of it, the show’s treatment of the character’s inner dynamics are not focused on their shreds of decency, nor even glimpses of humanity, but just their pathos. This is a radically important difference because it shows the characters only real roundness exists only in the things that make them meek and vulnerable. Their inner misery takes center stage. But their humanity? Lord no. Those qualities disappeared long ago in these folks and the show reflects that accordingly. It would be like trying to humanize Trump. And such way lies madness.

The point of all of Succession’s creative choices is that I get what we get from watching this. As an audience, we’re watching these kings in ivory towers fuck the world to hell and back with horrendously amusive fervor. And this tact might even be familiar to you because Jesse Armstrong is one of the writers responsible for the tonally similar projects of The Thick of It and In The Loop (he’s part of the Chris Morris / Armando Iannucci camp). There’s the savagery being understood, but also mocked. And sure, we’re technically spending even more time with these awful people, but there is never a single moment where we’re meant to feel included in it (and if you do feel that way ever, GOODNIGHT). This allows for this sporting separation that is necessary to make the cutthroat nature of the satirization hit the people who deserve, while allowing you to indulge in schadenfreude over THEIR schadenfreude. Which doesn’t make it any easier to watch, mind you. Because you know you’re still the ones being stepped on. But there’s catharsis in it. And if you somehow end up feeling close to the monsters, you are torn apart accordingly.

But while more functional as a viewing experience, is this really productive? Does it not make the viewer feel less responsible or complicit? Well, that’s sort of a bigger question on whether satire even works (and it may not), but instead unraveling that whole ball of wax, I just want those questions to inform how we compare this to The White Lotus.

Because the characters of this show are no less monsters, but so much closer to our orbit. It may still be extravagant wealth, but you see some form of these folks in restaurants, universities, hotels, and really any city or town across this terrible county. These forms of white privilege exist in various manager-calling behaviors that pop up everywhere. So unlike Succession, this lack of separation is the point of the show. But is it on the inside or outside of it? I mean, if you’re going to get in close and try to say “this is you!” then you have to really get in there with both the kind of teeth that can leave a wound - and at the same time also display the kind of dramatic empathy that can crawl up into your heart and help unmake that very bias. To go all Tarkovsky, you have “to plough and harrow the soul, rendering it capable of turning good.”

But instead The White Lotus, as well-written, well-observed, and well-executed as it is, splits that existential difference in a way I can’t seem to shake. It’s a radically compelling narrative, but it can’t help but be caught at the exact point between satire and naked dramatization. And going by the same interview, I get the sense that White doesn’t necessarily know how to split the difference of what he wants either. It somehow both labels every conceivable problem and calls out multitudes of white behavior, and yet - outside of the surface level awkwardness and a few justice seeking viewers - somehow doesn’t make us feel that uncomfortable at all? We are left to acknowledge that “yes, this is what it all looks like.” And as we just circle the drain along with its fatalistic conclusions, we are getting caught in the same fish hook that’s draining us all into the void. And perhaps I’m just feeling more concerned about this than normal for a very simple reason.

I feel like we’re running out of time.

EPILOGUE - DIRE STRAITS

There’s a moment when one of the two girls is wearing a “No Hope” shirt that’s done in the style of the Obama font (I didn’t write which character in my notes and rewinding proved impossible with HBO Max’s dogshit app functionality). But this is, quite obviously, reflective of the sense that many young people have with regards to the way liberal centrist policy has (you guessed it) fallen victim to the fish hook theory and let us get dragged to the right. Now there’s an entire young generation saddled with unconscionable debt practices, a non-existent job market, the literal inability to buy a house as they get bought by hedge funds, emblematic of utter corporate domination, a true fascist uprising, climate change horrors exploding, billionaires wasting their workers money by throwing themselves into space, a series of cyclical forever wars (even as I write this, the 20 year military / colonial mishandling of Afghanistan has exploded in horror) and oh yeah, a global pandemic that may never end. Put simply, things are dire. To the point that even disaffected wealthy white kids don’t see hope in a world that’s literally circling the drain. And despite them wearing this shirt or giving it the occasional bit of lip service…

This reality doesn’t really exist in The White Lotus.

I also get that that’s the point. It exists off screen as our characters gaze inward. So there’s so much I could conclude in some kind of meta way. But it’s way too easy to not care about dramatizations that do that. Because the knives are out. Things are dire. And rather than watch wealthy people chew the fat as they struggle with their own role in the dire world, most people want catharsis right now. And it needn’t be pretty, nor distracting. Hell, a show like The Wire engages the horrifying status quo of modern institutions by turning into dramatic challenges of The Greek Fates. And a show like Succession outright shows you the people piloting the boat into the proverbial iceberg, while letting us feast on their misery. And while I understand that The White Lotus is a show that goes for smaller microcosms of these same ideas, I still feel at a loss of what to do with it... I’m struggling with its usefulness.

Over twenty years ago I watched Chuck & Buck and my soul was ploughed and harrowed, for I felt something jar and shake me loose with impossible fervor and edge. I do not think Mike White has lost either of these qualities. It’s evident in moments throughout all his work. But I worry about the way these inward hang ups and depictions of the status quo just crash up against the rocks of the world’s current viewpoint; one that’s feeling really, truly hopeless. So who is this for, really? What is White really giving “Belinda” in a larger sense? A gift or more burden? Because the whole thing about being at the center of the fish hook is you can't actually tell where these things start and things end. You just keep trying to maintain the center. So it just all becomes ouroboros; a naval-gazing way to spiral down into the void. Or perhaps it becomes a noose we crafted ourselves; an endpoint for a completely unsustainable system. And as that all happens, there’s the question so few people ever seem to ask…

“What’s outside of this?”

Everything about the narrative of The White Lotus is positioned as being empathetic to the plight of those being stepped on by the horrors of white tourism (which is just modern version colonialism), but it’s never *really* exploring what’s outside of it. Moreover, it spends all that time dramatizing how white people don’t see others as people - so those viewing are just not gonna end up feeling like people in turn (especially if they don’t get to have fun). And who is it informing? The people who are victims in this show know they’re the victims. Just as they know we are responsible for it. So I can’t help, but feel like we ultimately have time for things that are not offering real solutions, nor going for the jugular. There’s too much at stake. In art, it’s okay to be messy and complex, but it also has to transcend something. And I feel like this show only gives us a brief glimpse into what that “outside” could possibly be. But unsurprisingly…

The last shot of The White Lotus can be read two different ways.

Reading it at its most kind, Quinn is the only one who really qualifies as “a good guest,” which I mean more than literally. He starts quiet, lonely, and often pigeonholed by conversations that happen around him. He’s even the frequent butt of a joke. But as frustrating as it can feel, he’s one of the only ones in the family not really displacing huge amounts of aggression. And as the vacation evolves, he’s the only one who genuinely seems happy to be there. The one who wakes up in the mornings and remembers that he’s alive on the earth - getting to see whales' surface as the water crashes against the shore. He even gets included into some outrigging canoe sessions with a few locals, but notice that he didn’t butt in. He was invited along when one person didn’t show. And when accepting, he had a sense of his place and didn’t try to impress, just participate. Even when he falls in love with canoeing and reveals to his family that the guys asked him to join permanently for their big trek to the other island (because he’s willing to show up for them), Quinn doesn’t talk about it with that air of possessive tourist bullshit. It doesn’t seem like it's about “being one with the island” nor him trying to literally be a local. It just feels nice, active, and connected. Which is a stark contrast to the horrible disconnection with his family and the toxic white world he comes from. Of all the people there, Quinn is the one character who actually wants out of that system. He wants to be a part of something gentle - something that doesn’t hurt people or the earth itself... He wants to be a good guest.

But if you read this scene at its most cynical, none of that really matters. The truth is that Quinn’s likely still going to get called back home - or even if he stays there he’ll probably be funded by his parent’s money. And he’s still placing himself into that local culture as an outsider, taking up space that could be another, and doing so much of what transplants who “fall in love” with Hawaii ultimately do. And the show, steeped in its own whiteness, perhaps isn’t qualifying that inescapable irony clearly enough (which is hard given how good it is at pointing out other ironies). Moreover, this discussion is being framed like Quinn is a real person who is being honored by real locals. He’s not. This is just a scenario purely created by a white writer. Which is why his attempt to “opt out” can be read just as much as a deluded fantasy, appropriately styled with a sun-drenched filter of light.

Both of these interpretations are true at once. And maybe White is aware of all of it and maybe he isn’t. But leaning one way or the other with either can radically impact your idea of whether or not the show can get outside of its own inward streak. And maybe the inward and outward difference doesn’t matter at all to you. Maybe you have good reasons for that and maybe you don’t. And maybe saying whether any of this makes the show “good or bad” is completely irrelevant. The only things that matter are whatever we take away from it. Some of those things could be of great use to you. Sometimes not. And sometimes they are little more than random thoughts, firing in all directions, looking for a coherent home. But after all of that investigation, the only real pressing question I’m left with is this...

What does it really mean to be a good guest?

Because we are guests of society, whether it’s the obvious cases of hotels and restaurants, but also guests of each other’s spaces. And how much we think of ourselves as a guest in these spaces, as opposed to their “owning patrons,” radically affects how we participate in them. Writ large, we are guests of humanity. And we are also guests of this earth. Which means we have to think so much more desperately about - and accept - our impermanence. Because we keep placating ourselves to the status quo of destructive systems to avoid that. We just keep circling the drain. And I know it’s easier to stay in that place - to think that drain circling is going to be how it is forever - that it will somehow keep surfing it and finding peace within the rippling eddy. But that’s the thing about fish hook theory. It curls inward. More. And more. And more…

Until it breaks.

<3HULK