no more content about class please
Hollywood’s interest in class has been ruined by the very affluents behind the camera—the ones who benefit from inequality the most.
FYI I started writing this over a year ago, and decided to put it out because it seems like a tide is ready to turn regarding what kinds of stories we are being told in film, t.v., literature, podcasts and the news. Not saying it will. But there’s a hunger out there, at least for me.
Just before Covid, Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite sort of did the impossible by making class, an issue that’s been hard to talk about in America, a trend in film and t.v. It’s not surprising that it took foreign eyes to pull it off. Since then, it seems like every film or show has been about class. There was Succession, Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion, The Crown, Saltburn, Mountainhead, Blink Twice, The Menu, whatever the name of that trash John Ham show was, literally all reality t.v., and of course White Lotus. During Covid, Eat the Rich content went into overdrive. So did t.v. about cults, and it’s all tied together. Most cults are by and for the upper classes.
It’s easy to see why a lot of this stuff was popular. Succession was like Survivor for the ruling class. And shows like White Lotus politely skewered the affluent as a means of reaching that very same demographic.
Many of these shows were pretty entertaining. But they’ve also left much to be desired, and have all followed a specific formula. Like, I am a good Polish-American boy, brought up to notice class, but even I am sick of being fed eat the rich content. Because most of it focuses on the upper classes, while largely ignoring the underclass. So the intended subversiveness about class structures just ends up being a type of rich worship. We subconsciously admire cold social strivers like Shiv Roy, or Jennifer Coolidge’s wine cave mom in White Lotus. People think it’s cool. But it’s all pretty anodyne. And those in lower society are usually cast off as side characters.
I get why it’s like this. We’d rather watch beautiful rich people do horrible things on screen than watch lower income outcasts win. We’d rather eat the rich then love the poor, as my friend said. It’s just the American way babe. I mean, the media affluents and tech oligarchs in charge of content and algorithms don’t want to show people who don’t look like them. Look at podcasts. Once a great source of in-depth storytelling, podcasts have been captured by large companies and private equity, and the result is every podcast latching onto a celebrity to stay alive. But podcasts make no money, so it’s all about stealing your attention.
Not all eat the rich film and tv is bad. Nomadland was really good, as was Minari’s examination of heartland immigrant farmers during the 80s farming crisis. American Honey and Florida Project were also solid in their depictions of youth poverty. Going back further, Harmony Korine’s Gummo and Kids looked at urban and suburban child poverty. But these are rare, and even then there are tropes. Films made about poverty are usually about drugs and crime. They’re usually dark. Can anyone name a film about the working class/poor that is uplifting?
This year I really liked Tim Robinson in Friendship, because it was a fresh perspective. Everyone says it’s about male loneliness, but it’s really about middle-age loneliness. The wife also is going on her own transformative, private journey, it’s just that Tim Robinson’s character is oblivious to it. And Weapons was good because it was really about any one group of people having to suffer for one person, or one idea. In this case, the gerontocracy. It took place in Anytown, USA, not on a coast.
While not a good movie, Ari Aster’s Eddington drove home the very now scenario of people manipulated by algorithms to fight each other over trivial calamities, while the ultimate winners are data centers and tech companies who continue to destroy humanity.
So I don’t know what the next streaming trend will be, but I feel like right now we’re due for a vibe shift, or one has even started, although at the bottom level (Substack I’m looking at you). But also, a shift probably won’t come because Hollywood is really struggling and not likely to take any risks. Like a lot of good stuff, you have to go looking for it.
Hollywood is dead, but still in control. We’re still forced to see things through the eyes of people who are not like us. Politically, class is a timeless issue. But for art, it gets old, just like any topic run to the ground gets old. Scroll the news if you want the same shit. But please don’t try and make art out of it right now. I’ve had my fill.
Amen from me on a Sunday morning. When I am out of my car and wandering through the city I overhear and see hints of how poorer folks are making their way and breaking past all manner of challenges in quietly creative ways, but we never make it to the screen. My recent outing to see what was billed and reviewed as a masterpiece led me to think Hollywood doesn’t know it’s dying. Thanks for the viewing recommendations.
Great thoughts, though I do hang up a little on “We end up admiring cold social strivers like Shiv Roy, or wanting to be like Jennifer Coolidge’s wine cave mom in White Lotus.” Do we? I thought both those shows (maybe more Succession than Lotus) made it fairly obvious these people are/were monsters, not things to admire, even if you might root for them in a scenario amongst other monsters. Lotus definitely leaves a lot more to be desired and is fairly shallow in talking about class but Succession is monsters eating monsters, even if we can sympathize with them on occasion.