The best writer in Hollywood right now is Mike White. In 2003 he wrote the film “School of Rock” for his friend Jack Black to star in. After a stretch competing in reality shows like “The Amazing Race” and “Survivor,” Mr. White is back where he belongs. He created, wrote and directed the recent HBO series “The White Lotus.” Set in Hawaii, it chronicles the dysfunction and competing narratives of staff and guests at a luxury resort. It is funny, biting and eye-opening. Mr. White so perfectly dissects society’s mental meltdown, I’m worried he might end up canceled.
Mr. White really shines when writing about the Mossbacher family. The mom, Nicole ( Connie Britton ), is chief financial officer of a search company. The dad, Mark ( Steve Zahn ), has health issues, and their daughter, Olivia ( Sydney Sweeney ), and a friend are pitch-perfect judgy college sophomores, dreaming of utopia while dripping in mockery and ridicule. The dinner conversations are priceless.
After Olivia accuses her mom of “old tribal thinking,” Nicole pushes back. “My feeling is most of these activists, they 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 of tyranny.”
Olivia sneers: “Hmm, no, that’s just you, mom.” Nicole then puts her daughter back in her place—something mothers don’t seem to do anymore: “And what’s your system of belief, Olivia? Not capitalism. Not socialism. So just cynicism?”
In another conversation, about expensive jewelry and who deserves wealth, Olivia declares, “Mom, good news. I’m looking around the hotel, and it seems like all of the white, straight men are doing just fine. They are still thriving.”
The mom responds: “Point taken. I just think it’s funny that now it’s OK to reduce everybody to their race and gender, but isn’t that the kind of thinking that we’ve been fighting against all these years?”
Finally dad pipes up. “I agree,” Mark says. “I mean, for years, I was the good guy, you know. I was the one in the room, saying, like, ‘Hey, that’s not cool,’ to all the chauvinists and bigots. But now I’m the bad guy, or at least I shouldn’t say anything on account of my inherited traits. I mean, why do I need to prove my antiracist bona fides? It seems wrong.” How many of us think this but are too afraid to say it out loud these days?
Olivia, with her daughterly venomous scorn, then lets this perfect line rip: “Yeah. It’s not all about you, dad. It is time to recenter the narrative.” Mark shoots back, “That’s fine by me. I don’t want to be the center of the narrative. Believe me. Let’s center the narrative around, uh, Paula.” That’s Olivia’s friend, who happens to be, as today’s narrative calls it, a person of color.
The mom responds: “Point taken. I just think it’s funny that now it’s OK to reduce everybody to their race and gender, but isn’t that the kind of thinking that we’ve been fighting against all these years?”
Finally dad pipes up. “I agree,” Mark says. “I mean, for years, I was the good guy, you know. I was the one in the room, saying, like, ‘Hey, that’s not cool,’ to all the chauvinists and bigots. But now I’m the bad guy, or at least I shouldn’t say anything on account of my inherited traits. I mean, why do I need to prove my antiracist bona fides? It seems wrong.” How many of us think this but are too afraid to say it out loud these days?
