Brooke Obie

*Spoilers for Season 1 of  The White Lotus 

The White Lotus is the latest HBO prestige dramedy satire on whiteness. A mix of its predecessors Succession and Search Party, The White Lotus centers rich, messy white people, their children and one acceptably Black friend, Paula, on a vacation at the titular resort in colonized Hawaii. The title is a reference to the Greek myth of the Lotus-eaters who indulge in luxury, pleasure and forgetfulness rather than deal with the concerns of the world around them.

Non-rich college student Paula (Brittany O’Grady) and her motivations for being friends with — let alone traveling with — her rich classmate’s family are underdeveloped because the series is most interested in exploring intraracial classism. The white, gay hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett) is the most prominent character among the hotel staff of Hawaiians and one Black staff member, the spa director Belinda (Natasha Rothwell). Armond and his epic battle to the death with the spoiled, rich honeymooner Shane (Jake Lacy) make clear the frustrations of the white middle class. White supremacy promises supremacy  — the kind that the generationally wealthy elite like Shane get to experience. Instead, Armond is stuck in middle management, serving the Shanes of the world, stunted and cannibalized by homophobia, capitalism and mediocrity.

Excellent performances (and performers) like Rothwell as Belinda are wasted as the Black and Hawaiian characters — the ones actually best suited to critique their white oppressors through the lenses of race, class and gender — are sidelined to focus on The Real Story: the humanity of rich and powerful white people. In the characters’ fight for power, the rich white people emerge victorious as ever, the exploited white hotel manager winds up dead, and the Black and Hawaiian characters barely even get to play. This is, after all, a six-episode story about white people for white people, created, written and directed by one white man, (pun inherent) Mike White.