Satire with Bite
What's missing from THE WHITE LOTUS (and present in THE STUDIO)
Nothing from nothing, huh? That was certainly one way to end the latest season of The White Lotus … no spoilers because it did literally just air, after all.
If you still want to read more about The White Lotus and creator Mike White, I’ve got you covered:
I think the overwhelming sense I got, both from reading online chatter and from talking anecdotally with friends, is that this season was a bit of a letdown. A part of me hopes that we can backdate some of that dissatisfaction and realize that The White Lotus as a show overall has been pretty one-note since the beginning. The show feels like the epitome of Trump/Biden-era art, heavy on style and strut but light on substance. It has all the trappings and appearances of an intellectual endeavor but has little to offer beyond “LOL, rich white people are craaaaaazy 🤪”.
For those of you who might be OG Marshall and the Movies followers, you may appreciate that I went back to my notes from high school English class when we studied satire. I had a feeling I’d find a good definition, and I wasn’t disappointed (thanks, Mr. Lambert!)
Satire is a form of literature that uses irony, sarcasm, parody, hyperbole, and other methods of ridicule and humor to criticize human institutions and human folly.
The purpose of satire usually extends beyond merely poking fun at its subject, often going so far as to give people the ideas (if not the tools) to introduce reform. Especially since season 1, The White Lotus has lost the plot on any reformist angle for the divides of race, class, and wealth it skewers on luxury vacations. Its obsession with ridiculing sensibilities blinds it from laddering those back up to indicate systems at large.
Mike White isn’t alone here: popular “eat the rich” cinematic satires like The Menu, Triangle of Sadness, and Saltburn all skim the surface. (Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise INNOCENT.) They focus on the absurd antics of the wealthy without using them to highlight the mechanics that entrench their power and perpetuate inequality.
There is a show on-air, however, that does seem to get this. That project is Apple TV+’s The Studio, created by star Seth Rogen and his longtime creative partner/best friend Evan Goldberg. This satirization of showbiz suits galavanting about Hollywood as if they will usher in another heyday of the art form is refreshingly in on the joke. It’s even embedded in the format itself: how ironic that these buffoonish executives love to talk about creating great cinema within the confines of a TV show.
Each episode following the misadventures of Rogan’s newly minted studio head Matt Remick ladders up to an overarching message: the businessmen aren’t going to save the art form; artists are. All their ideas for what resonates or looks cool are corrupted by perverse and usually pandering incentives, be it to the company’s board or an imagined audience. On top of being laserlike in the precision of its critique (perhaps to the point that it might be a little too “inside baseball” for people who aren’t as immersed in the trades), The Studio is also really, genuinely funny.
“I’ve been yelled at three times in the last week,” Rogen told Stephen Colbert on a recent appearance to promote the show. “Some of them are pleased, some of them are not pleased, I will say.” And you know what? GOOD. Too much of today’s satire is entirely toothless. More should be like The Studio and dare to lace their observations and critique with venomous bite.
With that in mind, I’ve rounded up ten movies (in five thematic double-bills) that embody the spirit of The Studio: satire with bite. This will be a paid subscriber exclusive, so if you felt The White Lotus and The Menu left you with an empty stomach, come and fill yourself up.
If you want to get a taste of what my thematic double bill posts are like, revisit one of these posts from previous years and consider moving to paid today!
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