All The Beauty and the Bloodshed film explores Sackler scandal

Publishe

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

Nan Goldin has protested around the world at various art galleries.

By Emma Jones

BBC Talking Movies

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, directed by Laura Poitras, caused a stir earlier this year when it became only the second documentary to win the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival.

It's a film that combines art and politics, explaining how a campaign led by photographer Nan Goldin prompted the world's leading museums and galleries to drop financial ties with the Sackler family, because of their link with the opioid drug OxyContin.

Poitras, who won a best documentary Oscar in 2014 for Citizenfour, about ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden, thanked the Venice Film Festival jury at the time for "recognising that documentary is cinema".

Speaking more generally about her work, Poitras has said: "I do make films about political issues that I care about, but I want them to work as films. I'm passionate about cinema and every time a documentary is successful, it's successful for all of us who make them."

IMAGE SOURCE,VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Image caption,

Laura Poitras celebrates winning the Golden Lion in Venice

The movie is now on the longlist for best documentary at the Oscars and it's also being tipped to possibly become the first ever non-fiction film to get an Academy Award best picture nomination.

• Sacklers win immunity from further opioid litigation
• The US opioid crisis in numbers
• New York’s Met museum to remove Sackler name

It tells the story of how New York-based Goldin and the advocacy organisation Pain (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) took direct action at the world's most famous art galleries in protest at their ties with the Sacklers. Museums including the V&A, the Tate in London and the Louvre in Paris have dropped their connections.

The Sackler-owned company, Purdue Pharma, which manufactures OxyContin, reached a settlement this year with several US states for its role in the US opioid crisis. Millions of people in the US have become addicted to opiate-based painkillers such as fentanyl and OxyContin, while nearly half a million deaths there were attributed to painkiller overdoses between 1999 and 2019.

The story was also made into an Emmy award-winning drama series, Dopesick, starring Michael Keaton.

But what has led publications including The Hollywood Reporter and Variety, to call the Poitras film both "exquisite" and "lacerating," is the director's weaving of Goldin's own history through the narrative.

The 68-year-old photographer was addicted to OxyContin herself at one point, but she is best known for her ground-breaking artistic career, including being the first to curate a group exhibition about the Aids epidemic, called Witnesses: Against Our Vanishing in 1989.

IMAGE SOURCE,ALTITUDE

Image caption,

Goldin (left), pictured in the 1970s, has always put politics at the forefront of her work

"I started doing these interviews with Nan for the documentary and I was so moved by them, her work and her life that I knew it had to be the heart of the film," Poitras explains.

"I knew I wanted to interweave these portraits and also show some parallels between what drives her as an artist and the relationship between art and politics. Her work is so close to the heart, but also so political.

"She created a national controversy in the US with that exhibition in 1989, she was losing her community and generation to the Aids crisis. There's something about Nan, that she ends up being on the right side of history again and again. She stands up for truth and rejects this notion of the status quo."

While documentaries such as Asif Kapadia's portrait of musician Amy Winehouse, Amy, and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, an investigation into the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have done well at the box office, it's still very rare for a non-fiction film to beat a feature movie in awards categories.

In 2004, Fahrenheit 9/11 was only the second documentary ever to win the Cannes Palme D'Or prize - but it didn't go on to be nominated in the Oscar best picture or even documentary categories.

"To me though, it makes sense that All the Beauty and the Bloodshed won the Golden Lion at Venice and is being mentioned as a potential best picture nominee," says film critic and festival programmer Kaleem Aftab.

"It felt like an American story, there's an important message as well as an exploration of who Nan Goldin is, and in the US, this news story is big, so I can see why it might strike a chord with Julianne Moore, who led the Venice Film Festival jury this year, and just resonate with audiences in the US generally. I agree having an American subject matter helps push you into the awards conversation - but then the Oscars are the American Academy Awards."

• Sackler Trust suspends new UK donations
• Tate art galleries shun more Sackler money
• National Portrait Gallery drops £1m donor

Aftab adds, however, that even in the documentary category, the film could face stiff competition from other non-fiction films including Navalny by Daniel Roher, another politically-charged documentary about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and All That Breathes by Shaunak Sen, a cinematic exploration of two brothers' attempts to protect black kites dropping from the sky in Delhi's polluted air. Both are also on the Oscar longlist for best documentary.

"This year has been incredibly strong for documentaries, and their winning speaks to me of how they're becoming increasingly validated and watched in exactly the same ways feature films are being watched," Aftab explains.

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption,

A woman grieving for her daughter at an event calling for the prosecution of the Sacklers in 2021

Poitras says that her job as a filmmaker is to "hold people to account - we need to celebrate independent adversarial reporting, and documentary-making is one of those ways of doing it".

Reflecting on the story of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed though, Poitras thinks the success of Nan Goldin and Pain's campaign against the Sackler family name was "limited."

"In some ways the film is about impunity - no-one is facing jail time, or being indicted, or had to file for bankruptcy, but the family name has been shamed in cultural spaces, and that's some kind of success, but it's limited.

"The Sackler name does remain publicly in some spaces, but in fewer and fewer of them every day. The Louvre was the first to take the Sackler name down, the V&A did too, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and they're successes Nan should celebrate. It was a long overdue debate and only brought to the fore by people who were willing to take risks."

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on 27 January 2023.

China’s Shifting Persian Gulf Policy: Is It Favoring The GCC Over Iran? – Analysis


Saudi Arabia’s King Salman receives China’s President Xi Jinping in Riyadh. (SPA)

January 5, 2023

Observer Research Foundation
By Vali Golmohammadi

Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Saudi Arabia on 7 December 2022 has marked a turning point in Beijing’s foreign policy towards the Persian Gulf states. This three-day trip included three summits: One with President Xi and the Saudi Crown Prince on behalf of King Salman; a second between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states; and a third among China and the Arab League—a regional organisation with 22 member states. As expected, Xi’s trip to Riyadh was motivated primarily by energy interest amidst the ongoing fluctuation in global energy markets after the Russia-Ukraine war.

Saudi Arabia has been the largest crude oil supplier to China since 2020, and Beijing plans to increase the import of oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the region. Apart from 34 agreements worth US $30 billion signed in the infrastructure, information technology, and green energy sectors, Beijing and Riyadh are set to expand their strategic partnership at a time when the two states’ relations with the United States (US) are increasingly frayed. During his summit with the GCC states, President Xi noted his trip heralded a “new era” in China-Arab partnership. In the first China-GCC summit, all sides also agreed to adopt a five-year joint action plan for strategic dialogue and to develop their partnership in various security and economic issues, including the Iran nuclear programme and regional issues.

What made the China-GCC summit unexpected for Tehran is the anti-Iran statementthat Xi signed with the GCC states. The joint statements released during the first China-GCC summit have left statesmen in Tehran wondering if there is a shift in Beijing’s strategy towards the Gulf region, especially in a situation where the US is stepping away from its security commitments there. This unexpected statement referred to Iran as a ‘supporter of regional terrorist groups’, ‘proliferator of drones and ballistic missiles’, and ‘destabiliser of regional security’. It further called on Iran to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), adhere to the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons treaty, not interfere in the internal affairs of neighboring countries, and reach a solution with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the issue of the three Iranian islands through bilateral negotiations. In response, Tehran immediately summoned China’s envoy over a joint statement with the GCC, reaffirming that the three islands of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tunbs located in the Persian Gulf are inseparable and eternal parts of Iran.
Shift in China’s policy towards the Persian Gulf

It seems that China’s long-standing neutral stance towards the Persian Gulf region is shifting. Taking the GCC’s side against Iran would increasingly challenge China’s balancing act in the Persian Gulf. Although it is not an easy task to argue whether China is favouring the GCC over Iran in the Persian Gulf, there are multi-level and multidimensional drivers that unfold the incentives behind China’s recent move in switching allegiance to the GCC Arab monarchies.

First, the GCC’s stance towards China has shifted significantly. The China-GCC states partnership is evolving within the shifting global and regional context. The GCC leaders have long manifested their rising concerns over the security consequences of the US disengagement from the region. The GCC expects China to support its security initiatives in pushing back Iran’s regional influence and deterring its military activities. For China, the most difficult part of deepening strategic ties with the GCC is managing its relations with Iran. However, As Iran’s levers in the regional balance of power weaken and its tension with the West intensifies, China moves less cautiously towards strengthening its partnership with Tehran’s rivals in the region.

Moreover, the young Arab monarchies find themselves in an unprecedented position to assert their strategic autonomy. By deepening strategic partnership with China, the Arab monarchies aim to send a message to Washington that they have alternative great power options. One of Riyadh’s motivations in expanding military relations with China has been to provide more options for itself in response to the Western pressures and arms embargos against Saudi Arabia in the Yemen war. Although China’s increasing engagement in the Persian Gulf is not intended to replace the US, at least in the mid-term, the Arab states have growing tendencies to involve China in regional affairs.

Second, increasing levels of engagement in the Persian Gulf demonstrate that China seeks to play a larger role in shaping the prospect of regional arrangements. Although ordering the chaotic Middle East is not a Chinese priority, Beijing came to the conclusion that China’s supposedly active role in this region could provide effective levers to balance the US’s pivot to Asia policy. Accordingly, in recent years, China’s Persian Gulf policy appears to rest on bringing America’s strategic partners closer to itself, and avoiding entanglements in the regional disputes where the US engaged, more specifically the Iran case. Moreover, the more influence China can exert on the GCC’s economic sectors, the more power it will gain to balance US supremacy in the wider Middle East.

Third, for China, the GCC states are more reliable economic and energy partners than sanctioned Iran. China prefers certain, stable, and high-return investments. China’s engagement in the Gulf is motivated primarily by maintaining access to energy resources. China imports around 32 percent of its crude oil from the GCC states. Iran, meanwhile, is losing its share in Chinese energy imports and investment. Iran’s oil exports have dropped significantly due to the US sanctions imposed in May 2019, and Chinese buyers are always worried about the prospect of continued energy relations with sanctioned Iran. While Tehran expects China to invest around US $400 billion in Iran’s economy, according to a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement signed in March 2021, Chinese businesses remain entangled over the risks of their investment in Iran. Unlike Iran’s expectation, China also signed a massive 27-year gas deal with Qatar, providing China with 4 million tons of liquefied natural gas per year. The emerging trend in the Persian Gulf is that China is deepening its multidimensional ties with Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar while leaving Iran out in the cold.

Forth, given the deadlock in reviving of Iran nuclear deal and anti-government protests over the recent months, for Beijing, the prospect of a partnership with Tehran is a strategic waiting game. Due to the lack of a promising prospect of revitalising the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the continuation of US sanctions, the Chinese are reluctant to invest in Iran’s battered economy. Amidst the rising uncertainty about the prospect of political and economic stability inside Iran, China prefers to pursue a “wait-and-see” policy towards Iran. The bitter fact for Iranian policymakers is that China does not see Iran as a strategic partner against the US. Chinese leaders are also confident that Iran has not any alternative other than China in balancing the US hostility and, therefore, they came to the calculation that China’s siding with the GCC against Iran would not result in Tehran’s harsh reaction. Now there are rising concerns in Tehran that the “Look to East Policy” with China centrality cannot provide Iran’s national interests.

A new regional security arrangement?

In the bigger picture, it seems China started to revise its traditional policy of a balancing act in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of the Ukraine war. However, Beijing’s increasing engagement in the Persian Gulf does not necessarily mean that China aims to replace the US and finance a new security system. China is increasingly preparing itself to face the US, and, as a result, partners like Iran, which has not reached a clear vision about the type of partnership it wants with China, are left out of the Chinese priority in the Persian Gulf. But it is still too early to conclude that China has turned its back on Iran because China’s grand strategy rests on working with all countries in the region.

In the short term, despite the GCC’s increasing willingness to involve China in the region geopolitically, Beijing will still give more weight to geoeconomics considerations. For the time being, China is reluctant in challenging the US-led regional security arrangement in the Gulf region, but rather is confident to oppose any destabilising factors including Iran. In the foreseeable future, maintaining stability and security in the Persian Gulf to ensure energy flows will remain one of the few areas of convergence between the US and China.

Observer Research Foundation

ORF was established on 5 September 1990 as a private, not for profit, ’think tank’ to influence public policy formulation. The Foundation brought together, for the first time, leading Indian economists and policymakers to present An Agenda for Economic Reforms in India. The idea was to help develop a consensus in favour of economic reforms.

Vietnam arrests a man who made critical Facebook comments about his employer

The country has a history of coming down hard on people who speak out.

POST MODERN STALINISM

By RFA Vietnamese
2023.01.04

Vietnam Facebooker Hoang Van Vuong in an undated photo. Hoang Van Vuong/Facebook

Vietnamese authorities arrested a man on Tuesday on unknown charges after he posted two short messages on his Facebook page that appeared to criticize his former employer, a water purification company.

The first post on Hoang Van Vuong’s page said, “Whoever has party membership should establish clean water companies to sell dirty water but receive payments for clean water. Easy earn!” 

The second post said, “Clean water companies provide dirty water. Who is held responsible?”

Vietnam has come down hard in recent years on activists and individuals who make critical comments on Facebook, which is widely used in the Southeast Asian nation, arresting them on vague charges of “abusing the rights of freedom and democracy” or “spreading anti-state propaganda.”

Last year, authorities convicted and imprisoned at least 31 such people, handing out prison terms ranging from one to eight years.

Vuong’s younger brother, Hoang Van Quoc, told Radio Free Asia that on Tuesday, Vuong received a call from his former employer asking him to come to the office to pick up a New Year’s gift. Police at the scene then arrested him. 

Then the police went with him to his house, asked that the electricity be cut off and read out a house search warrant. They confiscated a camera, a cell phone and a broken laptop. said Hoang Van Long, his older brother.

After that, they made a record of the house search, made six copies, and had Vuong sign one before taking him away, Long said. The police didn’t tell the family what he was arrested for. 

Tuyen said he was surprised by the arrest because Vuong was not an influential political dissident and he did not post messages often on Facebook.

Vuong, 44, began voicing critical viewpoints in 2011 and as a result was detained and beaten by authorities that year and in 2012, Tuyen said.  

“He is an ordinary person and does not belong to any organization,” Tuyen said. “He spoke up whenever he saw injustice. He only talked about what he witnessed. He sometimes took part in a demonstration together with me or other groups.” 

Thong Nhat district police told RFA that they did not have the authority to respond to inquiries about the arrest and suggested contacting Dong Nai provincial police. But someone there said provincial police had not conducted the arrest, and referred RFA back to district authorities. 

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

The Somali gold rush endangering frankincense and myrrh

By Mary Harper
BBC News, Daallo Mountain

The three kings of the biblical nativity carried three precious gifts to mark the birth of Jesus - but a modern-day gold rush in Somaliland is putting the ancient perfume trade in frankincense and myrrh at risk.

"The gold, frankincense and myrrh brought by the three wise men to baby Jesus definitely came from here," said the old man sitting in the dust under a tree.

I met Aden Hassan Salah on Daallo Mountain, part of the Golis range that straddles the self-declared republic of Somaliland and Puntland State in Somalia. Both territories claim the area.

"The routes of the camel caravans that for centuries transported them from here to the Middle East can be seen from space," he said.

The Bible refers to how these animals carried the gifts to Bethlehem where it is believed that Jesus was born.

A younger man, dressed in a sarong and Manchester United football top, sprang up from the ground. His name was Mohamed Said Awid Arale.


Many of the gold-diggers who started arriving in Daallo Mountain in 2017 are former nomads

"As I'm sure you know, 'Puntland' means the 'land of exquisite aromas,'" he said.

"One thousand, five hundred years before Jesus was born, Egypt's most powerful female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, made a famous expedition here. She ordered the construction of five boats for the journey, filled them with the three precious substances, and sailed back home.

"Gold was used to adorn Hatshepsut's body, frankincense was burned in her temples and myrrh was used to mummify her after she died."

Gold, frankincense and myrrh have been exported from the region for thousands of years. Much of the world's frankincense comes from the Horn of Africa.

Today, one of the gifts brought to baby Jesus, gold, is sowing the seeds of destruction of the other two.

The men on Daallo Mountain are part of the problem.


The famous trees of this region of the Horn of Africa are depicted on the walls of the Temple of Hatshepsut

They spearheaded a gold rush which began around five years ago and has led to the uprooting of frankincense and myrrh trees, some centuries old.

"Gold-miners have swarmed into the mountains," says Hassan Ali Dirie who works for the Candlelight environmental organisation.

"They cut down all the plants when they clear areas for mining. They damage the roots of the trees when they dig for gold. They block crucial waterways with their plastic bottles and other rubbish," he said.

"Day by day, they are ensuring the slow death of these ancient trees. The first to go are the myrrh trees, which are uprooted when the diggers clear the land for surface mining.

"Frankincense trees last a bit longer as they grow on rocks and are destroyed once the miners dig deep into the earth."

Woody perfume

A little further up the hill is a frankincense village where the trees have been passed down from generation to generation.

A woman sat on a turquoise plastic chair in her porch surrounded by children, their mothers and baby goats.

We burn frankincense to chase away flies and mosquitoes. We inhale it to clear colds and we consume it to cure inflammation"Racwi Mohamed Mahamud
Owner of frankincense trees


"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Racwi Mohamed Mahamud when I asked her about the story of the Magi bearing gifts.

"All I know is that my family has owned these trees for hundreds of years. They are passed from great-great-grandfather to great-grandfather to grandfather to father to son."

She ordered a young man to fetch some frankincense recently tapped from a tree. He came out carrying a cloth bundle, set it on the ground and opened it. The air was filled with a delicious woody perfume.

We sifted through the sticky substance to find nuggets of frankincense. These are cleaned, dried and graded before being sold to middlemen who export them across the world to burn in churches, mosques and synagogues and to create medicine, essential oils, expensive cosmetics and fine perfumes, including Chanel No 5.

Ms Mahamud looked at me blankly when I asked her what she thought about her frankincense eventually ending up in fancy department stores promising miracle anti-ageing properties and mysterious, seductive aromas.

"That sounds like nonsense to me," she said.

"We burn frankincense to chase away flies and mosquitoes. We inhale it to clear colds and we consume it to cure inflammation. That's it."


This frankincense tree has been over-harvested

The tappers and graders get very little of the money made from frankincense, with a kilogram selling for between $5 (£4.15) and $9. There have been scandals involving ruthless middlemen and greedy foreign companies.

They get slightly more for myrrh which currently sells for $10/kg. Like frankincense, it is a resin tapped from small, thorny trees. It is used to embalm dead bodies and to make perfume, incense and medicine.

It is believed to have antiseptic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory qualities and is used in toothpaste, mouthwash and skin salves.

The villagers explain how the goldminers came to their area with their shovels and pickaxes.

"We stood firm against them," says Ms Mahamud shaking her fist.

"We said: 'You have come here for your crude, yellow gold. We have our green gold and nobody can take it away from us.'"


Frankincense resin, used in perfumes like Chanel No 5, fetches between $5 and $9 pr kg

The miners ran away and never came back.

The atmosphere in the frankincense village was completely different from that in the goldminers' settlement.

It was basic, but there was a sense of community.

People young and old strolled about, chatting, drinking tea and complaining about how low frankincense prices made it difficult to make ends meet, especially during this time of high inflation and severe drought.

Drugs and jihadist taxes

It took a while to work out what was so strange about the goldminers' place.

Eventually I realised there were no women or children there.

 Golis range, that borders disputed territory between Somaliland and Puntland, has long been a source of riches

"We don't really know what has happened to our families," said Mr Salah, the old man I met sitting under the tree.

"We used to be nomads but endless failed rainy seasons and droughts meant we had to give up our traditional way of life."

He explained how they came to the mountains in 2017 to look for gold.

"There was nothng here when we arrived. It was just a dry river bed. This was the first place where gold was found. We have built it up into a kind of village," he said pointing at some shacks built from sticks.

I asked Mr Salah and the few dozen other men sitting with him whether they preferred the gold-digger's life to that of a nomad. They shook their heads and shouted out in rage.

"As nomads we had dignity. We depended on nobody. We lived with our families, our camels, goats and sheep. We lacked for nothing," he said.

"The camels carried our shelters and cooking pots. The livestock provided our food and milk. We cannot eat or drink the gold we find. It cannot carry our shelters and belongings."

The area around the mines is bare of vegetation - and targeted by khat dealers and jihadist tax collectors

The miners explained how they sold the mineral to traders who smuggled it by sea to Dubai.

Gold-mining is not only destroying the environment. It is wrecking their lives.

"We have become drug addicts," said Mr Arale, the man in the red Manchester United shirt

"We are hostages to khat dealers," he said, referring to a narcotic leaf chewed by many Somalis.

"They control our lives. We spend all our money on khat instead of our families, which are lost to us."

As they spoke, a land cruiser drove into the village. Two well-dressed men emerged from the vehicle. The miners said they were the khat dealers.

"Gold has ruined our lives in other ways too," said Mr Salah. "It has driven some of us mad, like our friend who found $50,000 worth of gold and lost his mind."

Candlelight's Mr Dirie explained how gold was destroying the local community.

"Some schools have closed because all the teachers have left to join the gold rush. Students are leaving too."

He said Somalis from other regions were coming into the mountains leading to deadly clan clashes.

"Many of the miners are armed," he said. "We must turn around and leave now. It is not safe to stay here for a long time."

The Islamist groups, al-Shabab and the Somali branch of Islamic State, have started to demand taxes from the gold-diggers.

As we drove out of the mountains on the long dusty road, I wondered if those who buy expensive perfumes, cosmetics and jewellery have any idea where the substances used to make them come from, how many hands they pass through and how much destruction they have caused.

The White Lotus Seasons 1 and 2: Satirizing the wealthy and privileged

James Martin

WSWS.ORG

Mike White’s mini-series The White Lotus recently concluded its second season on HBO.

The first season, set in Hawaii, was a sharply drawn, satirical picture of the conflicts that erupt when a group of wealthy guests arrive at a luxury resort and set into motion a tragicomic series of events. The second season, set in Italy, ends on a much weaker note, but also takes on elements of social status and privilege.

Jolene Purdy, Murray Bartlett, Alexandra Daddario and Jake Lacy in The White Lotus

White is a perceptive observer of American social relations, and he treats his characters with a degree of depth and complexity. He previously directed Beatriz at Dinner (2017), in which a Mexican American immigrant massage therapist unwittingly ends up at her affluent client’s dinner party (where things go wrong), and Brad’s Status (2017), a comedy about an upper middle class man’s career crisis as he compares his life to that of his even more successful friend. White’s Enlightened (2011-12), another HBO series, canceled after two seasons, also has intelligent moments as it examines the frustrations and self-delusions of certain white-collar professionals in their corporate environments.

The first season of The White Lotus offered a refreshing and amusing social critique. It effectively portrayed the clash between the psychologically miserable, monied visitors and the hotel staff, as the lovely resort turns into a living hell for the workers. The show received a number of Emmy nominations and also won an award for outstanding limited series.

Season 1: “It’s all about the money”

The first season opens at a Hawaiian airport as a departing Shane Patton (Jake Lacey) looks out the window to see a corpse being loaded onto his plane. We learn from a visibly perturbed and irritated Shane that this was a honeymoon vacation but that his wife is not with him.

In a flashback, we see a boatload of insufferable, rich American guests—including newlyweds Shane and Rachel (Alexandra Daddario)—arrive at the lavish resort, the White Lotus. The mood is lighter, with Louis Armstrong’s “On Coconut Island” playing in the background.

Also on the boat are the affluent Mossbachers—the emasculated Mark (Steve Zahn), his careerist wife Nicole (Connie Britton), their sharp-tongued college sophomore daughter Olivia (Sydney Sweeney) and their alienated teenage son Quinn (Fred Hechinger). We learn later Nicole is the CEO of a Google-like search engine company, but that she only got the position by utilizing the reactionary atmosphere of the #MeToo campaign to her advantage.

Olivia is with the equally insufferable, but less privileged Paula (Brittany O’Grady), who has been brought along to entertain and accompany her wealthier friend. The last passenger on the boat is Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge), a lonely alcoholic and an emotionally troubled heiress who ends up later starting a fling with hotel guest Greg (Jon Gries).

On shore are the hotel workers, along with manager Armond (Murray Bartlett), who urge the staff “to disappear behind our masks” as a form of “tropical kabuki” where the goal is to ensure the wealthy guests get everything they want. Conflicts ensue—among the guests and between the guests and the staff.

The cinematography is alluring, and the music in the opening credit sequence is striking, as is the soundtrack overall. The cast is generally exceptional, including Bartlett (with shades of John Cleese’s Basil in Fawlty Towers), Coolidge, Britton, Daddario, Sweeney, and Zahn. Lacey as Shane effectively captures the spoiled, born-with-a-silver-spoon type, with all the emotional vapidity and arrogance. Molly Shannon as Shane’s mother Kitty, in a scathing depiction of “old money,” is exceptional throughout.

A number of scenes and interactions stand out in the first season that highlight how individuals, no matter how well-intentioned, are ultimately shaped by social relations. And the rich in the first season of The White Lotus live up to Fitzgerald’s apt characterization: they smash up things and people and retreat into their money or vast carelessness.

The most intense conflict occurs between the entitled Shane and Armond the hotel manager. A former alcoholic, Armond is driven back into substance abuse while on the job, losing his equilibrium and cheerful exterior. At his lowest point, Armond tells Dillon (Lukas Gage), a staffer with whom he begins sexual relations in a drug-fueled night, “You make shit money. They exploit me. I exploit you.”

Connie Britton in The White Lotus

White effectively captures the hypocrisy of upper middle class politics as well in a number of interactions, including between Olivia and her mother Nicole. The latter declares that “Hillary Clinton was one of the most influential women of the last 30 years.” Olivia scoffs, “She was a neolib and a neocon.” Nicole responds to the taunts, pointing out that “most of these activists” and armchair critics like her daughter, “don’t really want to dismantle the systems of economic exploitation, not the ones that benefit them, which are all global by the way. They just want a better seat at the table…. What’s your system of belief, Olivia? Not capitalism? Not socialism? So just cynicism?”

We also see the cutthroat politics of “corporate feminism” and #MeToo efforts at work. Seeking to flatter Nicole, the search engine CEO, Rachel explains that she had written a profile about the other woman, “Not just you. It was ‘Ten Power Women in the Tech World.’” Nicole is angered, “That was a hatchet job….You made it out that I got my promotion because of my optics. ‘She rode the #MeToo wave.’ … You didn’t have to make me come across like some kind of Machiavellian gorgon using the victimization of other women in my company just to further my own craven ambitions.” White has taken the true measure of the toxic and careerist politics of the #MeToo movement here.

Later, Rachel, who accepts that she only does “clickbait journalism” for online publications, tells Shane and his mother at dinner, “I wanna do something meaningful,” such as working for a non-profit. Shane’s mother, Kitty, who’s never had money concerns, dismisses Rachel: “Oh, but those jobs are so awful, honey. They make no money.” Shane concurs, “But what’s even the point? Those jobs are just asking wealthy people for their money. Your job would literally be to ask yourself for money. It’s all about the money!”  Kitty chimes in grotesquely, “Money, money, money, money, money! And if you have money, then that’s what you bring to the table.” 

Season 2: Sex and money

The second season of The White Lotus reprises some of the same general concerns. However, White said he wanted to focus much more on the relationships between the sexes in this season, and as a result the second loses much of the coherence and sharpness of the first.

The new set of episodes begins again with a dead body washing up on the beaches, a far less-satisfying plot device this time around. Wealthy guests arrive at another White Lotus resort, in Taormina, Sicily. Tanya turns up with Greg, to whom she’s now married, along with her aide Portia (Haley Lu Richardson). Tanya and Greg’s relationship has now frayed considerably.

Also arriving are two married couples, Daphne (Meghann Fahy) and Cameron Sullivan (Theo James) and Harper (Aubrey Plaza) and Ethan Spiller (Will Sharpe). Ethan is a newly affluent tech entrepreneur being pursued by the cocky, womanizing Cameron, a wealth portfolio manager and Ethan’s former college roommate. Their unlikely friendship is largely rekindled thanks to Ethan’s rise in social status and the opportunities this now provides Cameron, who previously looked down on the other man as his inferior.

The third set of guests are the DiGrassos, including the patriarch-grandfather, the boorish and lusty Bert (F. Murray Abraham), his sex-addicted Hollywood producer son Dominic (Michael Imperioli) and Dominic’s sweet but awkward son Albie (Adam DiMario). Albie is constantly embarrassed by his father and grandfather’s sexual peccadilloes.

The White Lotus, Season 2

The dynamics among the trio, and with various women, produce numerous amusing moments. White, perhaps somewhat critical of the puritanical #MeToo atmosphere, which treats men as sexual predators, points to a deeper complexity when Bert says, “Women aren’t all saints, Albie. They’re just like us.” Abraham and Imperioli are excellent in their roles.

The hotel staff include the sexually frustrated and testy manager Valentina (Sabrina Impaccioatore) and a number of hotel workers. Interlopers in the hotel include Lucia (Simona Tabasco), a sex worker seeking out wealthy clients, and Mia (Beatrice Granno), an aspiring singer. At one point, Mia sings a lovely rendition of “The Best Things in Life are Free,” which of course they are not.

The second season has many standout moments and scenes, but the show unfortunately veers into hackneyed territory by the end.

The relationship dynamics and power struggles between Cameron, Ethan and their wives generate some of the best lines of the series. Cameron with his alpha male sex drive and Daphne live in social circles far above the troubles of the world, disconnected from the “apocalyptic” news cycle, they claim. Ethan and Harper, a lawyer, both “socially conscious” to a point, are sanctimonious in their attitude toward contemporary events, which apparently keep them up at night. One scene where Daphne takes Harper to a plaza surrounded by leering men makes a visual allusion to Antonioni’s L’Avventura, a film about rich Italians living empty lives. 

Aubrey Plaza and Meghann Fahy in The White Lotus

Coolidge is once again humorous and sympathetic in her role. She reminds Portia she’s happy to be among people of her own social status as “it’s a good feeling when you realize that someone has money, ‘cause then you don’t have to worry about them wanting yours.” Her wealth, however, becomes the prey of a gay entourage led by an old-money dandy Quentin (Tom Hollander) and his supposed working class nephew Jack (Leo Woodall).

The acting is again mostly terrific. The cinematography is stunning, and once again the soundtrack is entertaining. White can make a paradise for the wealthy come across as truly suffocating and grotesque. His eye for the natural, elemental beauty of the world—moonlights, volcanoes, sunrises and waves—is striking, especially in contrast to the social rot and ugliness of the wealthy who dominate the social landscape.

But the second season gets by much more on individual moments. It lacks the inner artistic unity of the first season, which more satisfyingly moves the various social interactions to their logical conclusions. Season two of The White Lotus, unfortunately, falls prey to cliched television tropes, with sensationalist plot devices that become increasingly outlandish. There’s also a flatness and falseness to some of the character arcs, including the fates of Mia and Lucia, as well as those of Tanya and her gay friends.

Mike White is sharpest when he examines the hypocrisies of American class society, tracing out its corrosiveness in an artistically convincing manner. In an interview with the New Yorker about the success of the first season, White said, “I constellated the show with many people grappling with ideas about money. Who has the money can really create the dynamic of a relationship. Money can really inform and pervert our most intimate relationships, beyond just the employee-guest relationship at the hotel.” Both seasons bring this out with varying degrees of success.