The ultrarich and their total depravity
The White Lotus is part of a growing subgenre that probes extreme wealth as moral deformity.
“You have to treat these people like sensitive children,” Armond (Murray Bartlett) tells Lani (Jolene Purdy), the resort trainee, explaining her new job catering to the whims and emotional wounds of the ultrarich guests at the White Lotus resort in the first episode of the HBO drama by the same name. “It’s not even about the room,” he goes on. “They just need to feel seen. They want to be the only child, the special chosen baby child of the hotel.” Lani’s face blanches as she tries to hide the fact that she is listening to Armond while going into labor with an actual baby.
The fact that Lani’s birthing labor has to be hidden from the guests for fear of popping their narcissistic bubbles is the foundational metaphor for the whole series: the largely invisible labor of mostly brown-skinned employees that is required for the mostly lighter-skinned guests to enjoy their rest and relaxation. This is a recurring theme for the show’s creator Mike White (Beatriz at Dinner and Enlightened are favorite variations on the theme). By choosing a small, Hawaiian island, he can probe the longer colonial histories tangled up in this racialized division of labor: local dancers perform “an authentic indigenous dance” for the guests over dinner, the resort is built on land acquired unfairly from local residents, and it has so decimated the local economy that Lani feels grateful to work through her contractions.
But these stories are intentionally kept on the margins. The center of attention is the ultrawealthy guests themselves, who arrive trapped in personal hells of unhappiness wrapped in the swaddling clothes of luxury.
