This was helpful as I’ve been arguing with my gf about (not) watching this show. She finds it gritty and probative; I find it boring when not repulsive. We can agree it’s well produced, but what am I missing? What could be worse than conniving rich tourists whingeing poolside about how empty they feel. I’d rather sit alone in a dive bar, writing dissident poetry and sipping my DIPA; feeling absolutely fulfilled and morally superior to everyone except the barmaid.
Even if I’m right about the show, which clearly I am, she still makes me watch it with her lol. But at least I can feel morally superior to her as well and maybe that’s the point of the show after all: feeling better than people in it and all the people who like it.
TV will always be about entertainment first and foremost, and I think you're right to essentially say the side conversations about cultural meaning are blather serving the function of press releases for each episode of what is essentially a soap opera.
Great point about how this faux-conversation serves to entrench the status quo. What's wrong with the world? Someone else somewhere else! If there's meaningful commentary here I don't see it either, and I'm inclined to watch this as pure entertainment and not for any issues-related reasons, as I watched Succession.
TV can mean something, but if it's not fun on some level it's not good TV, so it's limited in what it can ask of an audience. Movies ask more of an audience, books more than movies.
Yeah good comparison. Fairly cliche depiction of rich people being bad in a non-complex way. A funny take on fine dining and the auteur chef mentality as well.
The poor wage earner hotel staff are just as awful as the rich people guests. I don’t really see the show as being about just making fun of rich westerners.
This was quite good. Me and the wife have been watching White Lotus. It is entertaining. I think it is a multilevel show. While I have never 100% agreed with the adage that if you are watching it, it is for you, I do believe that many things are.
We are not part of the elite. We are not part of the elite in waiting. On many levels I see exactly what you are saying. But I think there is another level. Part of it is an attempt to show the middle and lower class that the elites are normal people and that they have problems too. To humanize them.
As for Adolescence, I think it is more or less exactly what the right wing says it is: an attempt to put any male who doesn’t like what neoliberalism wants him to be down. Down and out.
The issue is that these people are bad at their jobs. Their desire to tell themselves what they want to hear and what they think overtakes any ability to actually change social conditions or perceptions.
Being that me and my wife have to be around elites from time to time, we already know. Being that we live in a world with young men being destroyed all around us, we don’t easily accept ham handed narratives about young white men lashing out because of toxic masculinity or whatever.
The truth is that we have a degenerate elite in every since of the word who live in the clouds so high above everyone else they really have a problem even understanding anyone else. At this point I do not think they even understand themselves anymore
Only the elites in Protestant countries seem to have this fetish for self flagellation (and criticizing the economic players but also kinda concealing how the game is played).
Notice how even South Korea has this trend in entertainment.
I don’t know that it does nothing, though, because narrative propaganda has worked to erode trust, trust in policing, institutions, the concept of meritocracy. But other than making people mad, it’s only solutions are purges of individuals, because in narrative framework, problems are a result of individual agency.
This was helpful as I’ve been arguing with my gf about (not) watching this show. She finds it gritty and probative; I find it boring when not repulsive. We can agree it’s well produced, but what am I missing? What could be worse than conniving rich tourists whingeing poolside about how empty they feel. I’d rather sit alone in a dive bar, writing dissident poetry and sipping my DIPA; feeling absolutely fulfilled and morally superior to everyone except the barmaid.
Haha I aim to help all readers in arguments with their partners
Even if I’m right about the show, which clearly I am, she still makes me watch it with her lol. But at least I can feel morally superior to her as well and maybe that’s the point of the show after all: feeling better than people in it and all the people who like it.
Yes I will accept the "What is 'What is the White Lotus for' for" take
TV will always be about entertainment first and foremost, and I think you're right to essentially say the side conversations about cultural meaning are blather serving the function of press releases for each episode of what is essentially a soap opera.
Great point about how this faux-conversation serves to entrench the status quo. What's wrong with the world? Someone else somewhere else! If there's meaningful commentary here I don't see it either, and I'm inclined to watch this as pure entertainment and not for any issues-related reasons, as I watched Succession.
TV can mean something, but if it's not fun on some level it's not good TV, so it's limited in what it can ask of an audience. Movies ask more of an audience, books more than movies.
I very rarely watch movies. I guess The Menu is somewhat comparable? That was fun to watch
Yeah good comparison. Fairly cliche depiction of rich people being bad in a non-complex way. A funny take on fine dining and the auteur chef mentality as well.
Glad I don't watch telly.
Re: the real life Saxons, anyone who’s been to midtown Manhattan knows the finance bro depiction is spot on
The poor wage earner hotel staff are just as awful as the rich people guests. I don’t really see the show as being about just making fun of rich westerners.
I ain't watching the gaitok show spinoff
This was quite good. Me and the wife have been watching White Lotus. It is entertaining. I think it is a multilevel show. While I have never 100% agreed with the adage that if you are watching it, it is for you, I do believe that many things are.
We are not part of the elite. We are not part of the elite in waiting. On many levels I see exactly what you are saying. But I think there is another level. Part of it is an attempt to show the middle and lower class that the elites are normal people and that they have problems too. To humanize them.
As for Adolescence, I think it is more or less exactly what the right wing says it is: an attempt to put any male who doesn’t like what neoliberalism wants him to be down. Down and out.
The issue is that these people are bad at their jobs. Their desire to tell themselves what they want to hear and what they think overtakes any ability to actually change social conditions or perceptions.
Being that me and my wife have to be around elites from time to time, we already know. Being that we live in a world with young men being destroyed all around us, we don’t easily accept ham handed narratives about young white men lashing out because of toxic masculinity or whatever.
The truth is that we have a degenerate elite in every since of the word who live in the clouds so high above everyone else they really have a problem even understanding anyone else. At this point I do not think they even understand themselves anymore
Only the elites in Protestant countries seem to have this fetish for self flagellation (and criticizing the economic players but also kinda concealing how the game is played).
Notice how even South Korea has this trend in entertainment.
I don’t know that it does nothing, though, because narrative propaganda has worked to erode trust, trust in policing, institutions, the concept of meritocracy. But other than making people mad, it’s only solutions are purges of individuals, because in narrative framework, problems are a result of individual agency.