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What Is the Political Role of White Lotus and Other ‘Eat the Rich’ Media?
Are entertainments like these seriously acknowledging the deep-seated anxieties—and anger—that Americans are feeling today? Or is the entertainment industry just shamelessly exploiting those anxieties and that anger?
Feb 26, 2025
America’s richest have never been richer. Our over 800 billionaires ended 2024 worth a combined $6.72 trillion. Today, almost two months later, Americans make up 14 of the 15 richest people in the world. Just these 14 alone hold a combined net wealth of over $2.5 trillion.
One predictable consequence of numbers like these: Our world’s “super yacht” sector is doing spectacularly well, as the annual Miami International Boat Show this month convincingly confirmed. The star of this year’s show turned out to be a super yacht nearly the length of a football field.
Drivers on America’s highways and byways, meanwhile, are now needing to make room for the newly released latest luxury super car from Rolls-Royce. The new Black Badge Spectre can “sprint from zero to 60 mph in just 4.1 seconds.” The base price: a mere $490,000.
We need more, let’s all agree, than shows and movies that skewer the rich.
Amid all this excess, the fortunes—and power—of America’s most fortunate just keep mounting ever higher. At the expense of the rest of us. The world’s wealthiest billionaire, Elon Musk, has found an particularly lucrative new hobby: axing the jobs of federal employees working at agencies that protect the health and economic security of average Americans.
Researchers and analysts worldwide are, for their part, continuing to carefully track the ongoing—and historic—concentration of America’s wealth. But Hollywood, these days, may actually be tracking this concentration even closer.
The wealth, privileges, and formidable clout of our richest, Hollywood understands, are outraging average Americans. We’ve become a nation hungry for entertainment that expresses that outrage, and Hollywood has been all too happy to offer up that entertaining.
“The popularity of ‘eat the rich’ media—like Saltburn, White Lotus, Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, The Menu, Infinity Pool, The Fall of the House of Usher, and the Knives Out movies—has reached a fever pitch,” as the culture critic Kelsey Eisen puts it.
This “vilification of the rich,” adds Eisen, regularly includes “rich characters undergoing some terrible event—ranging from marital troubles to shipwrecks to even death—as some sort of comeuppance for being wealthy.”
“We do love watching the 1% get their comeuppance, don’t we?” agrees Adrian Lobb, another widely published and perceptive writer on contemporary culture.
Lobb last year interviewed Jason Isaacs, one of the stars of The White Lotus, an Emmy Award-winning comedy drama created for HBO. Isaacs told Lobb that he also “absolutely” loves the joy of the “comeuppance” moments swirling all around us.
“We watch these people who look like they’ve got everything,” Isaacs explains, “and console ourselves with the fact that they’re miserable as hell.”
The White Lotus features “sun, sea, sex” and super-rich secrets, notes the culture analyst Lobb, “with a side order of slaying.” Each season of the series showcases a set of gastronomically obsessed wealthy out to enjoy life at an exotic luxury resort, with no guest, quips writer and filmmaker Alyssa De Leo, “safe from being skewered—figuratively and literally.”
Another skewering of the “successful” takes place, De Leo observes, in the widely acclaimed film Triangle of Sadness, the story of an ultra-wealthy cruise ship that sinks and leaves the survivors “stranded on a desert island” with “the upper-class guests lacking any resources or knowledge of how to survive.”
Still another popular entry in the “comeuppance” genre, the thriller You’re Next, has a wealthy family celebrating an anniversary in a country mansion that masked assailants suddenly besiege. The assailants turn out to be hired guns that some members of the family had retained to ensure and hasten the inheritances they saw as their due.
And atop the genre’s most-watched list sits Squid Game, “one of Netflix’s most important and impactful television shows ever.” This “too-close-for-comfort dystopian thriller,” the Observer’s Brandon Katz celebrates, “cleverly spins socioeconomic inequality into thriller life-or-death games.”
Are entertainments like these seriously acknowledging the deep-seated anxieties—and anger—that Americans are feeling today? Or is the entertainment industry just shamelessly exploiting those anxieties and that anger? Are “eat the rich” films and series, as the arts critic Kelsey Eisen muses, “moving the political conversation forward” or merely “providing soothing, satisfying, and self-congratulatory entertainment”?
Eisen herself sees the answer to that question through the latter prism. She considers “eat the rich” entertainment as “less of a political statement and more of a soothing concession,” as “basically class-anxiety pornography, pure catharsis without a real message or call to action.”
Even so, Eisen readily confesses that she does indeed enjoy watching many of today’s “eat the rich” shows and movies and does see real value “in using art to encapsulate popular sentiments and anxieties and to normalize progressive sentiments.”
So should you dare enjoy “class anxiety-soothing media”? Sure, Eisen concludes. Just be sure that this media “doesn’t soothe you into being too complacent to ever actually do anything” to end that class anxiety.
Amen. We need more, let’s all agree, than shows and movies that skewer the rich. We need, now more than ever, a political movement powerful enough to break the billionaire lockgrip on our future.
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Filmmaker Jonathan Glazer Speaks Out Against Israel's Hijacking of Holocaust to Justify Gaza War
"Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst," said Jonathan Glazer, director of The Zone of Interest.
Mar 11, 2024
The 96th annual Academy Awards on Sunday evening were marked by a number of statements—some vocal and some sartorial—in favor of Palestinian rights and against Israel's occupation and bombardment of Gaza, with filmmaker Jonathan Glazer directly addressing Zionists who have "hijacked" the Holocaust to justify relentless attacks on civilians.
Glazer accepted the award for Best International Feature Film for The Zone of Interest, his film about a Nazi commander who lives with his family just outside the walls of Auschwitz concentration camp, where gunshots and other sounds of the extermination of Jewish prisoners are audible from the commander's garden.
Glazer and producer James Wilson were adamant as they accepted the award that The Zone of Interest should not be viewed as a film about past events, but one that was "made to reflect and confront us in the present."
"Not to say, 'Look what they did then,' rather 'Look what we do now,'" said the director. "Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst."
"We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict, for so many innocent people.”
'Zone of Interest' director Jonathan Glazer spoke out about Israel's weaponisation of the Holocaust in his Oscar… pic.twitter.com/SM9JfhxvrO
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) March 11, 2024
Glazer then noted that both he and Wilson are among many Jewish people who object to the Israeli government's perennial claim—supported by Western countries including the U.S.—that Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and subjugation of Palestinian people is necessary to provide Jewish people with safety from the kind of persecution that ultimately led to the Holocaust.
"Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people," continued Glazer. "Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization—how do we resist?"
Glazer's comments were immediately decontextualized by right-wing commentators including Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, who claimed the director displayed "moral rot" by telling the audience he refuted "his Jewishness."
"You're lying about what they said by adding a period in the middle of their sentence,"
said Yonah Lieberman, co-founder of the Jewish-led Palestinian rights group IfNotNow, which has frequently been accused of antisemitism by pro-Israel groups for objecting to Israeli apartheid. "They clearly meant they refute the way their Jewishness has been hijacked. You're supposed to be a journalist."
The Israeli group Breaking the Silence (BtS), run by veterans of the Israel Defense Forces who now object to the occupation, compared the outraged reaction to Glazer's speech to the aftermath of Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham's comments at the Berlin International Film Festival, where he spoke out against the subjugation of Palestinians in the West Bank.
Abraham was immediately denounced as antisemitic by Israeli media and received death threats, while the German government announced it would open an investigation into the filmmaker's comments.
"These 'misunderstandings' aren't new," said BtS regarding the response of Ungar-Sargon and others.
"It's possible to oppose the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza and still care for the safety of Israeli hostages," added the group. "One can worry about Israelis who were evacuated from their homes after October 7 and still be horrified by the conditions in which so many are currently living in Gaza. We refuse to let this harsh reality make us less human, and that we refuse to accept the ease with which the blood and lives of civilians is used as a justification for political ideologies, or as a bargaining chip. Empathy is not a zero-sum game."
Other than Glazer's speech, most commentary about Israel's assault on Gaza—now in its sixth month and having killed at least 31,045 Palestinians as the Israeli government blocks nearly all humanitarian aid from reaching the population—was made through Oscar attendees' clothing choices.
Several actors and filmmakers wore red pins in support of Artists4Ceasefire, which toldThe Hill that members showed "collective support for an immediate and permanent cease-fire, the release of all of the hostages, and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza."
Musician Billie Eilish, director Ava DuVernay, and actors including Ramy Youssef, Mark Ruffalo, Riz Ahmed, and Mahershala Ali were among those who wore the red pins.
Billie Eilish, Ramy Youssef, Ava DuVernay and other celebrities wore red pins at the Oscars in support for a cease-fire in Gaza. The design featured a single hand holding a heart and was organized by the group Artists4Ceasefire. pic.twitter.com/sj6HBzsoYi
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 11, 2024
"We're all calling for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza," Youssef told reporters. "We're calling for the safety of everyone involved, and we really want lasting justice and peace for the Palestinian people... We really want to say, just stop killing children."
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After Four Months on Strike, Actors Reach 'Extraordinary' Tentative Deal With Hollywood Studios
"Workers stood up to Hollywood executives and held their ground to reach this agreement," said the president of the AFL-CIO. "ANYTHING is possible when we organize."
Nov 09, 2023
The union representing actors across the television and film industries announced late Wednesday that it reached a tentative contract deal with major studios, bringing to an end a monthslong strike that—combined with a simultaneous writers strike—shut down much of Hollywood's production.
In a statement, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) said the contract agreement is valued at over $1 billion and has "extraordinary scope," including significant pay increases, "unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI," and a "streaming participation bonus."
The tentative deal also includes pension and healthcare improvements and compensation boosts for background performers, according to SAG-AFTRA.
The union said full details of the tentative agreement—which must be ratified by members—won't be released until it is reviewed by the SAG-AFTRA National Board.
"We also thank our union siblings—the workers that power this industry—for the sacrifices they have made while supporting our strike and that of the Writers Guild of America," SAG-AFTRA added. "We stand together in solidarity and will be there for you when you need us. Thank you all for your dedication, your commitment, and your solidarity throughout this strike. It is because of YOU that these improvements became possible."
The tentative agreement was announced days after SAG-AFTRA rejected what the Hollywood studios described as their "last, best, and final offer" over a so-called "zombie" clause that critics said would allow studios to use the AI likenesses of dead actors without consent. It's unclear exactly how or whether that language was changed in the tentative agreement.
With a contract deal in hand after the longest strike in its history—nearly four months—SAG-AFTRA formally suspended the work stoppage just after midnight on Thursday and announced that "all picket locations are closed."
Dear #SagAftraMembers:
We are thrilled & proud to tell you that today your TV/Theatrical Negotiating Committee voted unanimously to approve a tentative agreement with the AMPTP. As of 12:01 a.m. PT on Nov. 9, our strike is officially suspended & all picket locations are closed. pic.twitter.com/FhvSRJQXFE
— SAG-AFTRA (@sagaftra) November 9, 2023
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents the studios, said in a statement that the tentative agreement "gives SAG-AFTRA the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union, including the largest increase in minimum wages in the last forty years; a brand new residual for streaming programs; extensive consent and compensation protections in the use of artificial intelligence; and sizable contract increases on items across the board."
"The AMPTP is pleased to have reached a tentative agreement and looks forward to the industry resuming the work of telling great stories," the statement added.
The SAG-AFTRA strike came to a close weeks after Hollywood writers reached a deal to end their work stoppage after nearly 150 days. Writers Guild of America members ratified the agreement last month.
Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, applauded SAG-AFTRA's tentative deal, writing on social media that "workers stood up to Hollywood executives and held their ground to reach this agreement."
"The SAG-AFTRA actors and performing artists showed the world the true power of collective action," Shuler wrote. "ANYTHING is possible when we organize."
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