Misogyny & Flawed Femininity
Female sexuality, when weaponized against misogynists, trumps any other currency of power.
(Contains some spoilers!)
It took me a while to start watching The White Lotus. Well, two months. Not exactly a punishable offense; one simply doesn’t have time to watch everything, and the amount of content out there in the wilderness is brutal. Way too much noise. And writing & Netflix do not make a happy, compatible couple.
Yet, when so many people praise a single show, day-in day-out, I tend to budge. The verdict was in; take a day off and binge.
And wow.
I was jealous.
Sometimes I watch or read something, and get flustered about the amount of talent I just witnessed. The writing is just — impeccable. No scene that leaves you thinking there is a hole in the storyline here or there, or a plotline that’s not layered or believable.
The level of focus this kind of writing requires, the way the characters are built and the stories connect; simply astounding.
I felt as if I needed to bow, at the end of Season 2.
Mike White, the show’s creator, I’m jealous. Won’t lie.
When I heard the series is a societal satire, I was curious as to how you write a piece that won’t sound clownish or, well, end up creating a comedy that would take away from the seriousness of the issues you’re trying to depict.
And it wasn’t. It’s exaggerated only to a degree that grabs your attention toward the subject.
The first season, my less favorite — was a satire about the sudden struggles of white cis males, and the white population in general, by a sudden, rude trend of inclusiveness.
I don’t want to give out much of the plot, in case some of you still didn’t watch it or finished it; only, it always amazes me, in literature or a film/series, how social issues, its pyramid, and a structure are always best told— with a satire.
Character Mark’s speech, about the white/rich privilege:
“It’s humanity, welcome to history, welcome to America. I mean what are we going to do? Nobody cedes their privilege, that’s absurd. It goes ahead the human nature. We’re all just trying to win the game of life. How are we gonna make it right? Should we give away all our money? Huh? Just what I thought. Maybe we should just feel shitty about ourselves all the time, for the crimes of the past. Wear a hair shirt and not go on vacation?”
If it was written in any other way than satire, it would be read as preaching or tone-deaf. To get the exact tone this touchy subject requires, in these challenging times where it’s easy to miss a target; what a talent.
And then you have Paula, the only character that’s not been swiped through a satire filter, a counterpart to the unaware folk, who completed this debate with only one short sentence:
“Maybe it’s someone else’s turn to eat.”
Season 2 was mine. I felt it deeper. In Season 1, it was obvious what was wrong and who was wrong. In Season 2, everyone is wrong. The first season dealt with class. This season deals with “masculinity”, as reported by NY Times, “masterpiece on misogyny”, as reported by Elle, and a “white knighting toxic masculinity”, as reported by Popsugar.
And I saw masculinity, not as a centerpiece, but used to showcase gender politics, as well as flawed femininity. I couldn’t say with certainty the show’s creator Mike White didn’t stage toxic masculinity and misogyny to show that women are flawed as men, and will also use their position of power if they have one.
Yes, I get it, Di Grasso family consisting of a grandfather, father, and son depicts the whole palette of generational misogyny, “subtly rebranded but ultimately still in sync”. But women are not morally superior, just because they are women.
As said by Bert Di Grasso, the grandfather: “Women aren’t all saints Albie. They’re just like us.”
Popsugar was also on my wavelength here:
“While it’s terribly ironic that this line comes from the male chauvinist, the sentiment is based in equity. Being placed on a pedestal simply due to one’s gender can be dehumanizing.”
I don’t mind this narrative. Women are not always victims, and the sexual politics and the power dynamics in season 2 were perpetrated by both sexes.
As said by Rebecca Cox, for Elle:
“Perhaps White’s message, then, is not in the dangers of misogyny, but that ultimately female sexuality, particularly when weaponized against misogynists, trumps any other currency of power.”
Sexuality is the currency of power. Women might not have as many as men do, but it's the strongest kind, and often time the only currency women have.
The truth to this lies in Tanya’s storyline. She is rich and pretty but not young anymore so therefore not desirable; she has no currency even though she’s worth half a billion dollars. Instead of being in a power position due to her enormous wealth, she’s a target because of it.
Men have many currencies of power, and they last them a long time. Women have a few, and their duration is short.
It’s short but it trumps any other currency of power.
As seen in the storyline of Valentina, the hotel manager, who uses her power position to remove the staff member who flirts with the object of her desire to another working position, or hires the new object of her desire, while firing a piano player she has no romantic interest in. She uses it unapologetically, like most men.
There’s also Harper who has a problem with her husband saying no to a hooker during a wild drunken party, but doesn’t see any flaws in flirting with his friend and going to a hotel room with him, where they “just kissed”, and nothing else, repeating “it was nothing” and “I was drunk”, whereas Ethan was also all that, and didn’t actually sway.
Desire is at the center of Season 2, and every single character thinks their desire makes them righteous in their action. Desire and sexuality are the ultimate altar of self, where everyone sees the damage done to them as hurtful and wrong, while their own desire excludes them from any accountability to their actual partner or a promise of one.
Portia who owes nothing to Albie but is too unbothered by dumping him on the side by a promise of a more adventurous partner, to distract her from her own life.
Albie, “gender is a construct” and “I’m a third-wave feminist” thinking listening and understanding women guarantees they’ll sleep with you, but ultimately ends up paying for affection.
Everyone is at the service of desire.
There is a saying about love and sexuality I have been repeating to everyone that would listen, as if trying to pass a secret that will solve everyone’s love lives, and it's from 2008–2014 Sons of Anarchy:
“Men need to be loved. Women don’t need to be loved, women need to be wanted.”
And today, in the series and in real life, everything evolves around being wanted. Both men and women. Countless texting and attention on social media. All we want is attention and to be desired.
What is love and how do we measure it?
When Harper talked to Ethan in their room, and he proudly said — But I love you, and she answered, yeah whatever. But do you want me? Are you even attracted to me?
Ultimately, we all just want to be wanted.
Someone I’ve met last year kept telling me for the whole duration of summer — “We need to go to this place in Sicily called Taormina next summer!” This was a few months before the show aired, and I kept asking, why there of all places? He said, it’s the most amazing place on earth and we need to go there and have sex on every single corner, it’s the place you want to take someone you desire.
I don’t see any hints in this coincidence, but I do see hints in desire being this phenomenal thing that measures our worth more than someone loving us. Your mother loves you. Your siblings love you.
You want desire.
Desire is a currency of worth. Sexuality is a currency of power.
In this context, the two characters of the Italian prostitutes made the most sense to me and were the most pleasurable to watch.
All the other guests, wealthy but aimless, spending their vacation in Sicily, and instead of going out exploring every night, they all eat at the same hotel restaurant, day by day. Breakfast, lunch dinner.
It annoyed me, their eating habits. It was way too Dickens for an Italian vacation.
Vox said it beautifully:
“They congregate around the breakfast buffet — fruit and pastries — every morning. They do not want to experience a place in its real state; they want to experience that place as the hotel, a golden cage. A cage that isn’t meant to keep them in, but rather keep everyone else out.”
Money is always spent on those who least know how to enjoy it — or is this just a platitude we use to comfort ourselves, thinking we would know how to enjoy it better if we had money?
Lucia and Mia have a precise goal, a plan, a tactic, and a currency to execute it.
In Elite Daily’s words:
“Mia and Lucia’s friendship remained one of the healthiest, purest relationships of the entire show. There’s an uncomplicated warmth and camaraderie between them that’s hardly replicated among any of the more privileged characters, and despite their moral grayness, it’s easy to wind up rooting for them.”
The message I ended up with is — money and opportunity, in this case, equate cluelessness (Tanya, Albie, Ethan), while honest struggle and the hustle make you aware and vigilant.
Albie’s naïveté to think a woman selling anything sexual in 2022 still has a pimp and falling for a damsel in distress older than thou scenario while claiming he’s so in touch with the oppression women face, makes him the most ambiguous character of all.
We don’t have to agree with what they’re doing, but they are showcasing the empowerment of young women by choosing their own destinies, even if it’s through transactional sexuality.
By Newsweek:
“Mia and Lucia have been immortalized as embodiments of the modern feminine ideal: empowered, glamorous and fiercely ambitious, sending the message to young women that transactional sexuality is empowering — smart even, and the fastest route to an aspirational, enviable life.
White Lotus does not cast moralistic aspersions on these hustling, cool-girl sex workers; instead, it attempts to objectively examine the exhilaration and moral ambiguity in situations where transactional sexual relationships are the norm.”
The White Lotus season 2 shows us — sex is even more powerful than money.
Every. Single. Word. 👏🏻
Wow
Beautifully written 🙌