Martian Notes

For anyone who has not watched the TV show, “White Lotus”, my only advice for you is, “run and turn on your TV sharp”.

Although depicted in a dreamy resort that matches with everyone’s vacation goal, White Lotus is fundamentally nostalgic, much relating to an exciting theater play in the 19th century.

Just like its predecessors centuries earlier, White Lotus is a vivid masterpiece of satire shown as a contemporary TV series, exposing the entrenched conflicts of capitalism, classism and exploitation in society of today. With an undertone of suspension and comedy, White Lotus reveals the rooted inequities among the haves and the have-nots, contrasted by the spoiled guests and the stressful laborers. Beyond that, the show cuts into the ills within the white privileged, WASPs born with a golden spoon and gold-diggers in denial, hypocritical nouveau riches with their per-formatively woke offspring. An excellent, genius group play, without absolute protagonists. Everyone is the lead in his or her own plot.

Among its plethora of revelations, what strikes me most, is the self confession of Tanya, a distressed, bereaved and rich woman traveling with her mother’s ashes. It is totally another story to untangle Tanya’s complex problems with her mother’s enduring influences, even after the death of the latter. I was truly provoked, when she lost herself and confessed to her new date, that she was ‘an alcoholic lunatic’ at the core.

Tired of the past relationship rollercoasters of obsession and abandonment, and feared of being left alone again, Tanya threw her master card at the beginning of the game, revealing her inner world behind the glamorous outfit. It strikes me that Tanya has such an honest judgement of herself, maybe those costly therapeutic sessions helped. Amongst the slew of narcissistic, presumptuous and preemptive creatures, it is just refreshing to hear somebody call herself “lunatic” at first encounters. It takes a life’s journey to find what it is at our core, while the effort of peeling the onion of our souls takes more than tears. Even if we identified our core, would we be brave enough to admit who we are?

White Lotus renders much more enlightening scenes beyond Tanya’s self-confession. The show has also masterly employed the picturesque oceanic shots with unique, hallucinating music combinations. Just a few hints here. The opening of the show includes metaphorical animals, indigenous beats and a mysterious image in the end looking like either an entrance or a gravestone. The flows of sea waters figuratively echo with the twists of plots, even including passionate scenes (genius!). The name of the show or the resort where it is on play, mirroring a Tennyson’s poem, ‘the Lotus Eaters’. The poem reciting scene is one of the best moments of the show, insinuating an epic, nostalgic feeling of a story that is not merely fictional.

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.