Review
America
Culture
Feminism
Film & TV
6 min read

White Lotus understands a lot - but not Christianity

Here’s what the girl squad storyline gets right and wrong.

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

Three woman dining in a luxury hotel in Thailand, turn and look to the camera.
Kate, Jacylin, Laurie.
HBO.

I really rate The White Lotus.  

This multi-award-winning show is one of the smartest around. It’s almost like a modern myth. The specificity of the premise alone is incredibly satisfying: White Lotus is the name of an international chain of high-end resorts, a luxurious touchstone for the rich, the famous, and the dodgy. Season one took viewers to Hawaii, season two jetted us off to Italy, and this year we find ourselves welcomed to Thailand. 

Each new series has a new location, a new cast and a new set of intelligent storylines. the only thing that ties the three series together is the omnipresence of the White Lotus hotel. Oh, and the presence of murder. Each series opens by telling its viewers that one person that we’re about to meet will die – it just takes us eight episodes to find out who.  

I’m convinced that Mike White, the writer and director, must be one of the most perceptive people on the planet. I wouldn’t be surprised if, before he entails on writing another series, he just sits and watches the world. He endeavours to notice, endeavours to understand. I say this because he seems to discern the way people work: the way they love, the way they hate, the way they rest, the way they hide. And then he turns it up to eleven when crafting his characters.  

Honestly, if Mike White hadn’t mastered the art of noticing, White Lotus wouldn’t work. But he pays attention to people; deep, intense and curious attention. That’s the magic sauce, I’m sure of it.  

In the latest episode (episode three of season three, as it stands), there’s a scene that caught me by surprise. Its perceptiveness stopped me in my tracks.  

Is Mike White over simplifying this, or is he saying what he’s seeing? That people have reduced the greatest, deepest, largest and truest story ever told to an association with red or blue?

We’ve been introduced to three friends: we have Kate (Leslie Bibb), Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) and Laurie (Carrie Coon). They’ve been friends since school, but now in their forties, life has taken them in different directions. Kate lives in Texas with her picture-perfect family. Jaclyn is a newly married and semi-famous TV star, living and working in LA.  And Laurie is a divorcee, working hard and raising her daughter in New York City. They’ve come to Thailand (at the invitation and expense of Jaclyn) to re-connect and make some new memories.  

But it’s not that easy.  

Each woman is caught in a tussle of loving and loathing who the other two have become, they celebrate each other’s ‘successes’ and instinctively compete with them in equal measure. It’s masterfully done. As deeply as they want to be good friends to each other, perhaps for old time’s sake, this trio is not a safe one to be in.  

One evening, after Laurie has had an ‘energy healing’ session, Jaclyn mentions that she can get on board with spiritual practices a whole lot easier than she can get on board with ‘religion’ – Christianity, she states, is made for men. She can’t seem to find herself, or any other empowered women, within the biblical story. And so, she finds herself gravitating to ‘witchy’ alternatives.  

I’m a woman, a pretty ‘feminist’ one at that. I’m also, first and foremost, a Christian. And so, I think I have the right to say that this is incredibly perceptive of Mike White. I have this conversation time and time again: people wondering why a woman, one who believes in the social, economic, political and spiritual equality of the sexes, would ever hitch their wagon to the Christian tradition. Honestly, sometimes I feel like a unicorn.  

Yet, when the ‘Christian’ church was first bubbling up (we’re talking first century) it had the reputation of being a religion for women and slaves. Everywhere it travelled - city by city, village by village - women (of every socio-economic background) flocked to the Christian community in dramatic numbers. It changed the cultural landscape. Jesus, the Galilean saviour that these communities couldn’t stop talking about, kept company with women in a history-making way and they were determined to do likewise. Now, what I can’t deny is all of the patriarchy that has been thrown into the mix since. To pretend it’s not there would be silly of me.  

So, I hear you, Jaclyn. But I’ve gone straight to the source (Jesus) and I’ve hit upon a disconnect between the story I believe/the saviour I believe in, and the way it/he has been used against my gender – so I’ve stubbornly chosen to ignore the latter. I’ve never let it drive me away. I find my whole self (my gender included) forcefully loved by the God I know, endlessly drawn into his company, convinced by his assertion that he made me – fearfully and wonderfully. 

Oh Jaclyn, they can try to tell me that Christianity isn’t for me, but I ain’t budging.   

The dinner conversation moves on, Kate hits back – she tells her buddies that she, in fact, goes to her Texan church every Sunday and finds it ‘very moving’. Jaclyn and Laurie, both wide-eyed, sympathetically state that it must be hard to be around people who voted for Trump. And then it becomes obvious, to those in the scene and those of us watching it, that Kate herself voted for Trump.  

It’s an emotionally intelligent watch: two women feeling viscerally betrayed by their friend for voting in such a ‘self-defeating’ way. And the friend on the other side, betrayed that they would think of her so differently as a result of her well-intentioned political leaning.  

I live in the UK, and so I was taken aback that these women were able to draw such a confident line between A and B – between Christianity and one particular political party. Because of the perceptive nature of Mike White (as evidenced by the lines that came before these ones), I trust that this is somewhat accurate. It may not be the truth (I’m sure not every Texan Christian voted one way), but it’s certainly a perceived truth.   

It intrigued but mostly troubled me. It made me wonder what the meaning of ‘Christian’ is becoming, or perhaps has already become – people holding the cross in one hand and a political party in another, claiming that to love one is to love the other. Are we really known as people who are wanting a messiah in the White House, a Saviour in the Senate? Is Mike White over simplifying this, or is he saying what he’s seeing? That people have reduced the greatest, deepest, largest and truest story ever told to an association with red or blue?  

To Jaclyn, Laurie, Kate, and all those you represent – I’m sorry if we haven’t done the best job at representing ourselves, or Jesus, to you.  

To Mike White – watch us a little longer, watch a little deeper. We Christians are neither a patriarchal nor political tribe; don’t squeeze us into the boxes that we’re pretending we fit in. That’s our bad. There’s more to us than that. You have my word. 

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Review
Culture
Film & TV
Fun & play
Justice
5 min read

Boom! I love this new Superman!

Eschewing ennui, it’s a great fairy tale for the modern age
Superman talks to his dog amid the ice.
Superman and Krypto the dog.
Warner Bros.

…and that’s what makes this film so enjoyable! 

Oh, apologies for any confusion.  

No tortuously ‘relevant’ preamble from me today. I’m starting the review right in the middle of the action, because that is exactly what Superman does. No initial slog through a ‘backstory’ that everyone knows – even my wife, who has never read a comic book in her life, is familiar with who and what Superman is. The closest we get to contextualisation is a quick sequence of text: informing us that Superman landed 30 years ago (adopted by the Kent couple, and given the name Clark), began his superhero career three years ago, stopped the fictional nation of Boravia invading the equally fictional Jarhanpur three weeks ago, and three minutes ago lost a battle for the first time. 

Boom! 

Then straight into the action! 

Superman lands in the frozen tundra of the Antarctic and can barely breathe. He lets out a whistle and the next thing we know there is a tremendous snowy disturbance. Krypto the Superdog dashes into view! No explanation – just delight in the fact that there is a mischievous canine with unbelievable power. Krypto drags Superman ‘home’ to the Fortress of Solitude. There the Superman robots heal him with a concentrated dose of radiation from the Yellow Sun which gives him his power. He immediately departs to continue his bout against the nationalist supervillain ‘Hammer of Boravia’, who is secretly being controlled by the evil genius and billionaire Lex Luthor. 

The pace of this film isn’t fast…its hypersonic. It flies by at the speed of Superman himself. There isn’t any lag, any let up. Even the quieter moments, such as those meditating on Superman’s dual identities (the alien superhero Kal El/Superman and the human reporter Clark) or his burgeoning relationship with investigative journalist Lois Lane, keep the story moving. Exposition doesn’t take place through inexplicable monologues; it is always pacy conversation, which teaches us something about the characters and their relationships and their motivations. 

This is the great triumph of writer/director/producer James Gunn. After his success over at Marvel Studios, he has taken the helm of DC and started to create a universe of characters and stories that doesn’t waste time with painful ‘exploration’ and moralising. This was always the issue that held DC films (arguably featuring the more beloved and well-known characters in comic-book culture) back from matching the success of Marvel. Christopher Nolan is a genius, giving us a superb Batman trilogy, and Zac Snyder produced an underrated dark take on Superman, but neither seemed to delight in the bright, bubble-gum, kaleidoscopic colourfulness of the comic-book medium. 

Gunn refuses to make his Superman film gritty or realistic. Characters appear in all their flash and bombast and are welcomed as cheery additions. The ‘Justice Gang’ are simply there – including the always enjoyable Nathan Fillion with an arrogant smirk and an almost offensive bowl cut. Luthor’s genius allows his to create a parallel dimension…why couldn’t he!? If we can suspend our disbelief to accept a protagonist who is an alien superhero, why not a mini-universe?  

There is none of the former focus on psychological trauma and existential crisis and the sheer overwhelming ennui of being. In previous films the ethical lesson wasn’t just ‘on the nose’…it flattened your nose with a Mike Tysonesque haymaker! Here, Superman simply IS. He IS good. He IS upstanding. He IS fighting for truth and justice. He refuses to allow political and public-relations considerations to corrupt and dilute his absolute commitment to do (and to BE) what is right. One of the most dramatic scenes isn’t a grand battle, it is a quiet moment where Clark allows Lois to interview him as Superman. The more she questions the realpolitik implications of stopping an invasion, the more Clark becomes incensed. How could someone not allow themselves to save innocent life and serve justice to the oppressed against the oppressor? 

The film is such a ‘sigh of relief’ in a bloated comic-book-film market. Yes, the script is hilarious – this is Gunn’s forte. Yes, the music is sublime – both John Murphy and David Fleming’s score (with wonderful nods to the John Williams original) and Mr Gunn’s own needle-drops. The performances are excellent across the board – special mention to David Corenswet, who doesn’t quite look like Superman to me…but boy does he embody the very essence of the character, to the point where you can’t imagine anyone else having played the alien since Christopher Reeve. But its truest strength and victory is its joy in the simplicity (especially moral) of this comic-book genre. 

This is what is so refreshing about Gunn’s vision. Superman IS pure. Lex Luthor (Nicholas Hoult not missing a baldy beat) IS so prideful and vain that it has warped him into something twisted and evil and collapsing in upon his own ego. Watching the film, I was put in mind of C. S. Lewis’ writing on the nature of fairy tales: 

“For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones…” 

Comic-books are the great fairy tales of the modern age…why would we make them brooding deconstructions of the human condition, a la Cormac McCarthy? That isn’t their point or purpose. Lewis again: 

“Since it is so likely that they [children] will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” 

Gunn has given us a film that isn’t just fun and fluffy, but important. In his sugary, childlike wonder and delight in the genre, he has given us a tale of good versus evil that is a true fairy tale: something gleaming and good, something radiant and right, something attractive and aspirational. Superman is a fairy tale where we can be comforted and emboldened by the moral (nay, ontological!) certainties of love and hope.  

5 stars

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