This is embarrassing, there are two previous seasons of white lotus examining humans being human and behaving badly. I’m disappointed to see such a vapid take from The Atlantic.
the Atlantic has been a transphobic rag for a while now, they and the New York Times are almost singlehandedly responsible for the mainstreaming of fringe TERF philosophies
Couldn’t read more than the first two paragraphs but that’s a hilarious take by & for people who have never heard of Mike White before White Lotus. They rarely recognize when they are being parodied.
Not really. The prior 2 seasons had a quirky cast of individuals with no wokeism theme/subplot. This article is BS. The term woke (ironically hijacked from black culture slang) is now a Catch all for the right and opportunists seeking relevance based on an issue that doesn’t exist in many cases.
The word has been around since the civil rights movement and has transcended just being slang. It has a complicated cultural and political context. Both seasons absolutely had heavy themes concerning human rights, civil rights, racism and classism. Every season had them. :)
Woke was black jargon for a white person who wasn’t racist. This season is no big departure from previous seasons. The good, corrupt, haves and have nots. The article is really a load of crap.
Rett, that is not what woke means at all. It is not mere “black jargon”. And it is not a word that black people use to describe white people that aren’t racist.
“Out Magazine recently described Blanchard’s idea as ‘a widely discredited pseudoscientific theory from the 80s.’And yet here it was being discussed on television’s buzziest show.” Well that’s all I need to know about sound science- being discussed on TV’s “buzziest show.” It must be serious! FFS
"The White Lotus repudiates the “peak woke” era of the late 2010s, which yielded safe, self-congratulatory, and didactic art, obsessed with identity and language, that taught pat moral lessons in an eat-your-greens tone."
Being concerned with wellness for all is the worst one can be in current US.
That description of the late 2010s’ television offerings would be much more accurate if applied to the early/mid 90s television shows I grew up with. But since ‘Full House’ was whiter than a Republican convention I guess it doesn’t count as woke.
I’m reading the article against my better judgement and she does indeed call out Ryan Murphy as making the kind of television she’s decrying as woke. If she spent any time at all in queer communities that follow pop culture she’d know Murphy is pretty hated.
You know what? I have my doubts that the show that first premiered in 2021 and was created by an openly bisexual vegan obsessed with Jennifer Coolidge is “Post-Woke.” I’ll never know for sure though because I’d sooner die than click on the link.
I would have disagreed with this if not for the fact I just tried to recall anything that happened and realized the only thing I remembered is Jennifer Coolidge saying "please, these gays, they're trying to murder me" 😅
lol the whole point of the show is that exactly zero people On the show have even a shred of character and those that *might* make shitty life choices we have to watch in agonizing detail. Which is why I was done after half of season 2…
WL is notable because of the acting, set/scene design and cinematography. 👍🏼
90% of the budget was likely blown on actors and set rental. The writing was likely done the week before shooting. Shooting was probably done in a week.
👎🏼
Nazis did this too. Destroyed and took beautiful works of art away from the world, some that have been lost forever, calling them degenerate and instead opened museums of glorious nazi art that were all like concrete blocks or whatever shit.
Me when Lewis thinks the drug-induced ravings of a middle aged white guy who wants to be an Asian girl is anything like actual groundbreaking cultural commentary from shows like Star Trek
The rich people are still the villains in season 3. So is the trump supporter. Mike is no stranger to punching up. This weird-ass review in the Atlantic doesn’t seem to get that.
They are so morally bankrupt that they can’t recognize who the bad guys are in fiction anymore? That’s the only way one could see the show as “post-woke”. It’s an incredible self-own. 🤭
Look, there's a rich toxic male who is having an existential crisis after drunkenly making out with his brother and who also has an odd interest in his sister.
This is post "woke". Don't ask me.🤔
Mike White goes to great lengths to humanize even the cartoon villains he creates as a show of empathy and compassion but The Atlantic has a mission to normalize immorality to protect corruption.
The hell does that even mean? And have they WATCHED the show?? I just finished the first season and it was mainly how white people ruin everything and even well meaning people of color can destroy a fellow minority by doing the wrong thing. And how corporations turn ethnic heritage into commodities.
To be fair the article's author made the assumption the show wasn't "woke" because they noticed that the show has the adjective "white" in the title and the creator of the show has "White" in their name
I’m old enough to remember and certainly Rob Reiner can attest to the fact that many watched “All in The Family“ thinking Archie Bunker was the good guy and was the only character that spoke true common sense on the show.
Same for kids watching Cartman on South Park, sadly.
I managed to make it through episode 1 of season 1 but episode 2 didn't make the cut and I quit watching and have never regreted it. White Lotus STINKS!
I just finished watching the fourth episode of The White Lotus, and not once did I think about the word “woke” or its definition of being socially and politically aware. I did see a man’s penis—which made me laugh out loud—and a whole lot of people treating each other really crappy. But that’s it.
Genuinely hilarious. Im guessing it would be "post-woke" if any of the characters were redeemable, but they're all awful, which suggests it's very much a critique. Perhaps the anti-woke brigade ARE just so awful they think these ppl are heroes.
I haven't watched White Lotus yet, this article isn't encouraging. What's the appeal of being anti-woke? Logically do these people just want the opposite? To be asleep, & blind to the negativity in society? Head in the sand like "this is fine, nothing's wrong, don't be awake to the real world." Damn
The White Lotus is about how wealthy white Americans visit other countries, use them as tourism party pads, and make fools of themselves by cluelessly wreaking havoc on the lives of the locals and support staff. It's basically "Ugly Americans: The Show."
I guess she didn't watch Succession, Westworld, or Game of Thrones? (her idea of anti-woke is that there are TABOO subjects / complicated rich characters!)
I shouldn't be surprised by people missing the point but... HOW??? The only characters on that show who aren't clearly miserable are children, sugar babies, or working class.
I don't know, but there have been multiple White Lotus resortwear collections that launched recently, so 3 years sounds like a pretty good bet, if the show lasts that long.
Oh yeah, 3 seasons in already for a streaming show means it's got legs and life. I guess it's up to the writers if they have to literally spoon feed the message to a leaky brained audience if the audience still doesn't get it. "It's about money and how it ruins you. Roll credits." lol
Right? I cancelled my Atlantic subscription long ago, saw every episode of the show, and am so confused. Did Saxon write that? I admit I don't know what the term "post-woke" means.
Dog whistles like "woke" not only avoid the controversy of using slurs, but also average people eventually adopt the language, which makes fighting the language harder.
Cause even if the author isn't using it in a bigoted way(they aren't, I think?) it still feels like a "win" for bigots.
I feel like it’s like post-modern, where “post” doesn’t mean “no longer” but rather “even more.” WL is full of unwokeness, but still with the subtext of “this is all awful.” I’m sure someone will disagree with me, though.
Thank you thank you thank you! Just finished it. So she seems to say that we now live in post-woke era and WL is the first show to celebrate it? But, first of all, "post-woke era" as she describes it sounds a lot like "ok guys we can stop pretending that there aren't two kinds of people in the US,
That take doesn't even make any fucking sense. Have they actually watched it? Or dis they just assume that because there are a lot of rich white guys in it that it's anti-woke? 🙄
All good writing highlights the complex interplay of the inner energies of the individual, but morality is not absent but expressed via a Buddhist commitment to nonviolence as the core of spirituality across religions and via a redemptive energy that somehow pulls the characters back from the edge.
These days I just assume the majority of people that use the word woke in this way are about to say some of the most idiotic things I have ever heard, and adjust expectations accordingly.
whoa--must've taken Lewis weeks to construct that "TV was obsessed with didactic lessons about identity until just now" straw man she tries to knock over
Well, its a virtual statement of total degenerates that has no relation to reality. The definition of "woke" doesn't exist anywhere at all. They can't answer "what is woke" ever.
What a shit take. Anyone who says woke in any context, post or otherwise - drop em like the syphillis biscuit they are. Is that post-woke enough for you Helen?
Isn’t the whole point if The White Lotus that these rich people are incredibly boring and unlikable, so that while you’re mildly curious to know who gets it, you ultimately don’t give a shit?
Fun to watch yet another seasoned liberal writer failing to realize that 'woke' is a mercurial propaganda buzzword being wielded as a weapon against out groups, and not a term that describes an actual phenomenon.
Between the Sam Rockwell monologue that reeked of the discredited “autogynephila” theory as well as the removal of a trans character, I can definitely see that as an outsider who hasn’t watched it.
The above didn’t really make a good impression on me to watch it.
The Rockwell character is presented as an unusual guy who's been on an extended weird trip involving massive substance abuse, and then had the Buddhist-tourist version of a born-again experience, and he's describing his past through that lens. He's not a reliable narrator.
That said, cis men with that type of kink do exist, just like people with any kind of kink you can possibly imagine exist. The discredited theory isn't that that guy exists— the discredited theory is that trans women are actually that guy.
Also, a pretty central part of Blanchard's stupid theory was that an "autogynephilic" person *is not attracted to men*. Rockwell's character was cross-dressing exclusively in the context of acting out a fantasy of having sex with lots and lots of men, while imagining it wasn't really him.
Also— it took me a minute to think what you meant by "the removal of a trans character", but I think you're referring to what Carrie Coon mentioned about a backstory detail of her character having a non-binary child. That is, Mike White, the sole writer of the show, wrote some dialogue about this...
...in the context of Coon's character being grossed out by her friend's support of Trump; and then later White cut that bit, because (Coon says) he felt it would be too politically on-the-nose in a way that couldn't be adequately addressed by just a brief reference. Now maybe that was an overly...
Thank you for the context, I really do appreciate it. There is one caviat to your post. Transphobes have come up with the idea of “meta attraction” where someone considered AGP will have sex with a man because if makes them feel like a woman since most women are straight. No, it doesn’t make sense.
Yeah, they have many logical gyrations around this, but they're not a good fit for the character White wrote here, who IMO is meant to be very hard to categorize. I mean, the exact opposite reading is also easy: this is a bi man in denial, but as a woman he can have sex with men & feel straight.
Sam Rockwell character has a long monologue where he talks about how he thinks he is a Asian woman inside and let’s men fuck him as he dresses up like a Thai woman.
Funny to read when I’m just about to start the new episode of the white lotus, a show that I absolutely love. Did this guy who who this not know about The Boys as well until the last season? Post woke? Lmao wtf
Also, this take is 100% projection. Like, Art is basically woke or not woke based solely on the political vibes of this viewer. This is season 3, did Mike White suddenly become post-woke.
This review is a total strawman: "White created a cabal of murderous gay men—an offense against the liberal orthodoxy that movies and TV shows must portray members of disadvantaged groups in virtuous ways"
Which liberals? Alternatively, Most liberals I know _don't_ want 1-dimensional minorities.
It is neither woke nor anti-woke that gay people (just like straight people) come on the spectrum of innocence to criminality. One (sexual orientation) has nothing to do with the other. What piece of BS!
"After a decade when too many television shows had the tone of a Sesame Street episode on healthy eating". Did this person live in a prison? What kind of bizarre woke bubble did this person live in.
Succession, westworld, yellowstone, fleabag, the bear, etc. et al.
I'm not saying that the type of thing this person is observing did not exist, but there's a certain brand of mainstream "art" making that has always been sort of written by the execs that has sort of boring bad safe tropes.
Maybe that had a "woke" flavor to it, but the idea that the problem is woke, and not just corporate safe media making is crazy. Does this person think that like CBS is going to follow Mike White's lead? No, there will always be safe bullshit art.
Was the writer in a coma for the past decade? Right off the top of my head, Ryan Murphy productions have been giving us flawed, & sometimes fully evil, gay characters since like 2010!!
The writers portray the staff and servants of The White Lotus as just as feckless, selfish, and self-centered as the super-wealthy guests. The theme is that we are all assholes, and we all get punished for being assholes, the penalty matches your place in the Great Hierarchy, not the offense.
I mean, sure, there are lots of shows that do this. "Post-woke" just means that, for any given offense, where a wealthy person experiences social embarrassment, a poor person might experience something far more dire. In their universe, that is a just outcome.
Clicked to get the flavor and the first paragraph got me.
No, sorry, your art criticism license has been revoked. This is not a meaningful comparison; if this point is relevant, compare it to other movies or shows which were tightly controlled by a single person. There are many. Many, many, many.
I like that Marvel movies are now an entertainment yardstick like when someone says how big a country is compared to Rhode Island or how long something in terms of football fields
I don't think he's doing the marketing at all? It's a bizarrely written paragraph that conflates what actually is unusual about Marvel movies (having a multi-movie plot that the directors of individual movies can't really control) with what isn't unusual at all (having big marketing campaigns)
Creators are very often writers. An executive producer in TV is also known as a showrunner (head writer/producer). The only semi-unusual bit is that he's also directing. But even that isn't rare.
Maybe I'm biased bc I have some idea of how the industry works (mainly from listening to TV show rewatch podcasts made by the original actors) but this doesn't feel Milennial to me, it's just ignorant & stupid. Comparing 1 series to 20+ movies& several series, all w the same base material, is loony
Would be great if there was anything like an example of a 'woke' show as this article describes that wasn't a complete outlier. Strange there are no lefties decrying how incorrect the White Lotus is.
That does seem to be the thought process.
Which is interesting because simultaneously, America is ruined and needs to go back to the 50s, but also nothing is wrong with America - America is the best country to ever exist.
It's fascinating how reality changes to whatever is convenient at that moment.
MAGAs think we need to go back to the 1950’s, but the joke is on them.
Trump, Musk, et al are trying to take us back to the 1890’s - the era of the Robber Barons. EVERYTHING they’re doing is 100% consistent with that objective.
This article (what I could stand of it) was such a waste of an argument. I just recently subscribed to the Atlantic and in addition to another article I read about colleges are making me reconsider. I’m on my free trial month and I’m finding it mostly disappointing.
Honestly, I just started it and it’s just dark and kind of ugly. I’m 4 episodes in and assume not a single character is likeable and money makes bad people is the general theme. Can’t bring myself to watch more. And I ADORE Jennifer Coolidge. Real life is dark enough.
It's very dark and ugly but enough camp and intrigue enough to carry it. Compared with something like Ballad of Buster Scruggs which I didn't even finish because it was so mean spirited and nihilistic. But yeah
"Dark" is fair, it's a morbid satire, it's not for everyone. I will say that season 1 was my least favorite & also had the most consistently unlikable characters (although I think Coolidge's character is more or less sympathetic, just unbearable).
In the 1970’s there were a lot of bigots who thought “All in the Family” was a celebration of their views. They never understood that Archie Bunker was the butt of the jokes.
i just read the article and yea this person doesn't understand anything it is willfully rewriting the meaning to cape for fascism, can also be both are correct
It’s such an old article format at this point. I remember reading a review of “In Bruges” that talked glowingly about how it was “refreshingly politically incorrect,” and that came out in 2008.
Comments
Helen Lewis: you are capable of good journalism. Why are you now making a living writing absolute bollocks like this?
i'm good
Thanks for heads up.
"I’ve had two tedious years of being abused online as a transphobe and a “TERF” or “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”"
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2019/01/maria-miller-called-me-fake-feminist-over-gender-self-id-now-she-says-i
Not at all tempted by their FREE TRIAL!!
Being concerned with wellness for all is the worst one can be in current US.
oh my God, helen lewis is officially the worst tv critic alive.
I find this take funny as so many shows the past decade, like sex education, labeled woke, had VERY unique individualism for all characters.
But let's ignore those shows. 🙄
90% of the budget was likely blown on actors and set rental. The writing was likely done the week before shooting. Shooting was probably done in a week.
👎🏼
But no, we can never have nice things
Take no heed of that article. It’s entertaining.
he is not doing whatever this crazy woman claims he is doing
This is post "woke". Don't ask me.🤔
Not a single soul in the entire internet:
Helen Lewis, writing for the Atlantic: “WE HAVE FINALLY LIBERATED HOMOSEXUAL BROTHER INCEST FROM THE HANDS OF THE WOKE MOB”
That makes it woke
Makes you think.
But many friends have recommended, i will give it a try one day for sure
https://bsky.app/profile/hypervisible.bsky.social/post/3llmjb7abfs2n
As Lynch once said in a completely different context: "you didn't watch it, you just looked at it"
Same for kids watching Cartman on South Park, sadly.
They just can’t process the joke
This level of pretension is off the charts.
Season 4 Trailer leaked 🤣
I guess we had the wrong “family values” pegged to that group all these years
Sounds legit as well as this:
Cause even if the author isn't using it in a bigoted way(they aren't, I think?) it still feels like a "win" for bigots.
Especially if you add the handful of real, decent characters who are trying to survive around these monsters.
And Greg and what access to BIG money did to him.
But I don't want to pay to read the article, so no idea what the author meant.
(I am absolutely not reading the article.)
Or is that too generous a reading?
Also, Sophie Lewis is the superior Lewis.
The above didn’t really make a good impression on me to watch it.
https://www.tiktok.com/@msnbc/video/7485017644576509230
(she is such an asshole.)
I rest my case based off this brain dead Atlantic article
Which liberals? Alternatively, Most liberals I know _don't_ want 1-dimensional minorities.
Succession, westworld, yellowstone, fleabag, the bear, etc. et al.
- Breaking Bad
EDIT BUTTON DAMMIT
*vaguely remembers her as being one of those full-of-shit contrarian bullshitters*
No, sorry, your art criticism license has been revoked. This is not a meaningful comparison; if this point is relevant, compare it to other movies or shows which were tightly controlled by a single person. There are many. Many, many, many.
I dunno.
I have a couple of dozen eggs you can have.
Also one show vs 20 movies and a bazillion comics? Is that really even worth comparing be for real
Sometimes this works, as with Dennis Potter
Like it was obvious he was evil before that, but if you don't figure it out even after he did THAT...
But I do think the plane crash is where it starts to be like, okay, this should've clued you in A LITTLE at least 😂
Which is interesting because simultaneously, America is ruined and needs to go back to the 50s, but also nothing is wrong with America - America is the best country to ever exist.
It's fascinating how reality changes to whatever is convenient at that moment.
Trump, Musk, et al are trying to take us back to the 1890’s - the era of the Robber Barons. EVERYTHING they’re doing is 100% consistent with that objective.
The writer never had a single original one, and it shows
Are u in the tRump cult.