A non-woke take on the White Lotus finale

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 o every socio-economic problem that is encountered in fiction or the real world.

Created by Mike White, the series follows three intertwining groups of vacationers to a classy Hawaiin resort with varying levels of hollowness in their lives.

In previous movies and TV shows like “Beatriz at Dinner” and “Enlightened”, White has shown an astuteness into human nature and uncomfortable dynamics of power that few other writer-directors can match (perhaps Alexander Payne?).

In interviews about the show like this New York Times profile, White talks about being influenced by the colonial history of Hawii 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.”