The White Lotus: A Glance at the Unspoken Anxiety and Resentment Among Us

If you're tired of watching TV dramas full of dramatic conflicts and twists, but worried that a story that's too plain might be boring, you might want to try watching The White Lotus.

On the surface, this story seems like an Agatha Christie-style mystery: a group of people come to a resort, spend a week together, and conflicts between characters slowly emerge. Eventually, someone dies, and the killer and victim are revealed in the final episode.

However, this is not a suspenseful TV drama in the style of an Agatha Christie novel. There is no murder, complex interweaving of character relationships, or conspiracy that sustains suspense throughout the film. By the end, you might even realize that nothing really happened, and everything was quite ordinary.However, even so, it still makes people unable to resist continuing to watch, and after finishing it, savoring various details.

Because beneath the seemingly normal interactions, one can discern each person's inner stance, desires, biases, or distorted or repressed emotions. What is called normal is merely a habit people adopt after being alienated from what is abnormal.

Next, I would like to talk about why this drama is worth watching from two aspects - the portrayal of class contradictions and the celebration of the spirit of Bacchus.

The biggest conflict in this drama is not between one person and another, but between classes. In this luxurious resort, the hotel staff and the guests naturally belong to two different classes. On the surface, everything seems harmonious and peaceful. But in reality, there is a natural rift between the two sides. The rich look down on and are arrogant towards the service staff, while the service staff harbor animosity and disappointment towards the rich. All of these are hidden in the details of their interactions.

The two most obvious conflicts came from the rich man Shane and the hotel manager. Armond Due to a problem with the hotel room reservation, Shane gradually became dissatisfied with the hotel manager, who was also retaliating in their own way. The end result was that Armond defecated in Shane’s room, but was dramatically stabbed by Shane to bring the conflict to an end.

What's interesting is that Shane didn't intend to kill him. He just turned around lightly, and the hotel manager was stabbed to death. The hotel manager's way of seeking revenge against the rich was nothing more than leaving a piece of poop in his room. This gap in the harm caused to each other is also a reflection of the reality of class contradictions. People in the upper class have enough power to punish unsatisfactory service personnel, such as making a phone call that could cause the other person to lose their job. Service personnel try their best to retaliate, which in the eyes of the wealthy is nothing more than a prank that is enough to make them angry but has no substantial harm.

The conflict between the manager and Shane is still tangible. In reality, class contradictions often manifest in a non-subjective manner. This is more evident in Tanya and Spa staff.

Tanya looks like a crazy rich woman. Lonely, crazy, lacking in love, and deeply saddened by her mother's death. So when she first met Belinda at the SPA, she sincerely hoped to be understood and cared for, and Belinda's massage and service gave her the kind of care she had been looking forward to.

But the problem is that this kind of understanding and care is procedural for Belinda, it's a part of the service she provides. Her job dictates that she cannot devote her whole being to empathizing and understanding every single customer.

After the first massage session ended, Tanya was very excited and praised Belinda, but Belinda was only busy answering the next client's booking call. It could be heard from the call that other massage therapists were available during the time slot Tanya wanted to schedule. Belinda pretended to be unavailable just to have the opportunity to personally serve and meet with Tanya.

When Tanya showed support for Belinda's entrepreneurship, it ignited a long-lost hope in Belinda. She prepared her business plan carefully and wanted to talk to Tanya several times. However, the unequal nature of their relationship meant that Belinda could only wait for Tanya's mercy or be abandoned. Soon, Tanya's emptiness was filled by a new man, and she no longer needed Belinda. A word of a rich person can ignite a person's dream, but it can also extinguish the passion of a dream in an instant. For Tanya, all of this was natural, and she did not even care about the impact she had on Belinda. The disappointment she brought to Belinda was completely unintentional.

Similar contradictions between the wealthy and the poor are also evident in other relationships. Rachel summoned the courage to leave her rich second-generation partner, but eventually returned to the marriage that treated her like a trophy wife due to insufficient support and self-confidence.

Paula couldn't tolerate the colonial mindset of the wealthy white people and urged Kai to steal jewels. However, in the end, they not only failed to cause any significant harm to the wealthy family but also got caught as thieves and unexpectedly helped the troubled white couple reconcile and become closer. Similarly, Kai's revenge, ultimately became a minor incident for the wealthy family.

In my opinion, The White Lotus as a microcosm of the United States, which was founded due to the ruthless invasion of the white civilization on the homeland of the Native Americans, and ultimately has no legitimacy. Even Hawaii was built into a luxurious resort for the wealthy by the white people who snatched land from the indigenous people. The hypocrisy of burning capital and consuming the beauty of nature.

The contradictions presented in the drama are a concentrated reflection of the highly complex contradictions in American society. Perhaps compared to the class contradictions in East Asian society presented in "Parasite", they are not as sharp, and there is a hint of harmony on the surface. The rich and the service staff still occupy the same space, and they can even greet each other friendly and sit down at the same table to eat. However, fundamentally, the reduction of circulation possibilities between classes and the lack of understanding and contempt for each other have always existed. Surface politeness and warmth only cover a layer of hazy veil over these imperceptible contradictions.

For a long time, the dissemination of the "American Dream" has been a medium in the popular culture of the United States, with various inspiring stories of the American Dream filling movies and television. In the golden age of high social mobility and seemingly fair distribution of wealth, class conflicts often do not become the core issues of popular culture attention. Or perhaps, class conflicts are often diluted and forgotten in discussions and criticisms of racism.

However, as the golden age brought by globalization comes to an end, the problem of class contradiction is gradually becoming prominent. Therefore, movies like "Parasite," which won the Oscar for Best Picture, also reflect the public's concern about the issue of class to some extent.

With the widening gap between rich and poor, the channels for social mobility have become narrow. After the passion of the American Dream fades away, people look around and find that ideals and beliefs cannot resolve the unsolvable contradictions in life. As a result, television creation has shifted its focus from guiding people to rational creation and construction of the external world to internal irrational chaos and contradictions.

This drama is a reinterpretation and celebration of Nietzsche's Dionysian spirit. Nietzsche celebrated mankind's most primitive instinctive impulses and the ability of humans to break free from all constraints and return to the mother nature. In the drama, the book each character reads represents their philosophical views.

The first time we see two girls reading, the rich girl is reading Nietzsche and her friend is reading Freud. Nietzsche is the representative figure who celebrates the Dionysian spirit, and Freud's philosophical ideas also inherit it. At this point, both of them can be seen as supporters of the rebellious and free-spirited Dionysian spirit. So they mock all those around them, showing disdain for the controlling mother and Rachel, who is still trying to achieve social climbing. However, this kind of rebellion and nonchalance is not the result of their real experience, but rather a form of self-promotion and disguise.

From their behavior, it can be seen that Olivia did not practice the Dionysian spirit that Nietzsche celebrated. She is indifferent to the people around her, and her life is very empty. Therefore, she shows a vague state of being, only finding her own existence through contempt for others.Olivia is just consuming and experiencing philosophy as a commodity. Her behavior and consciousness consistently show the arrogance and emptiness of the white middle-class. Because she doesn't believe in anything, everything can be used as a pastime. And because everything can be used as a pastime, life lacks the enthusiasm and spirituality brought by seriousness and earnestness.

In contrast to Olivia, her brother is the one who truly practices the Dionysian spirit. He explores inwardly, faces every choice in a perceptual manner, and immerses himself in and experiences the magnificent nature. However, as an observer, I find it difficult to view his choices without class bias. We can imagine that with a wealthy middle-class family as a safety net, his acting on his impulses does not require too much cost. Even if one day he gets tired of living with nature on the island and returns to rational order, he can still find a place in society. Isn't this also a kind of satire on reality?

White wealthy families are familiar with various ideologies and are aware of their advantageous positions. Sometimes they also feel disgusted with the hypocrisy and emptiness of their own class, but they will not truly give up their advantages and truly sympathize with and help those who are in a disadvantaged position.

Professor Michael Sandel of Harvard University sharply summarizes in his book The Tyranny of Merit that the more we think of ourselves as self-made and self-sufficient, the less we are likely to care about the fate of those less fortunate than us. If our success is achieved through our own efforts, then their failure must be their own fault. This logic shows that the principle of meritocracy erodes the commonality between people.

The idea that we are personally responsible for our fate makes it difficult for us to think from the perspective of others. In a society where all values are measured in terms of market value, even the welfare system can only distribute money, not dignity. Such a society "produces hubris and anxiety among the winners and humiliation and resentment among the losers."

Just like in the drama, Shane's arrogance and contempt for his wife's feelings and emotions show a lack of empathy and compassion. Indeed, as an observer, Rachel may not be smart enough, and even without the constraints of marriage, she may find it difficult to achieve the success she expects in her career. But in daily life, the arrogance and contempt displayed by the rich husband towards his wife have dealt a bigger blow to her self-esteem. Perhaps as a Trophy Wife, she can achieve some kind of social climbing in terms of wealth, but as someone who reads "My Brilliant Friend" during vacations, her existing life destined her to suppress her dignity and continue to live in marriage with a hidden sense of shame and anxiety.

Anxiety is one of the spiritual symptoms of our era that is sweeping the world, because we can no longer affirm with confidence that if we work hard enough, we can go out into the world and achieve success. When we can no longer construct and grasp the external world rationally, we can only seek answers and satisfaction from within.

The White Lotus flower offers a fleeting insight into class contradictions and misunderstandings in complex human relationships. Its cure is to rise above oneself with the spirit of Dionysus. Only those who are willing to confront their inner world and embrace their tragic destiny with passion and eagerness can withstand the onslaught of emptiness and anxiety in this chaotic era and attain self-transcendence.