𝐃 𝐗 𝐌 𝐈 𝐍 𝐈 𝐐

rereading depression studies feat. white lotus s1 so you don’t have to :)

The juxtaposition of leisure and intellectual inquiry is rarely as fraught or self-conscious as it is in Mike White’s The White Lotus (Season 1). The narrative centers on the lives of upper-class vacationers, and it is within this setting of curated paradise that two characters, Olivia and Paula, carry a small library of critical theory texts. These books are not mere props; they function as metatextual commentary on identity, ideology, and the aestheticization of politics. I aim to explore the role of literature as performance, focusing on how Olivia and Paula’s reading material reflects and refracts their engagement with race, class, and post-colonialism.

Reading as Semiotic Performance

That Olivia and Paula are shown reading Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble, and Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae is, on the surface, a signal of intellectual engagement. However, these texts, situated conspicuously in beachside leisure scenes, become indicators of cultural capital rather than epistemological transformation. In other words, the act of reading becomes ornamental—an accessory to be worn, much like sunglasses or swimsuits. Their reading habits are less indicative of internalized critique and more aligned with what Pierre Bourdieu would identify as social distinction.

Capsule Analyses of Selected Texts:

• Frantz Fanon – The Wretched of the Earth: A foundational text in post-colonial theory that explores the psychological and structural violence of colonialism. Its presence highlights Paula’s potential identification with colonized peoples, though this is undercut by her complicity in the mechanisms of tourism and privilege.
• Judith Butler – Gender Trouble: Butler’s theory of gender as performative may resonate with Olivia’s performative wokeness, but it is unlikely that Olivia engages with its ontological nuances.
• Camille Paglia – Sexual Personae: A controversial cultural history of art and sexuality that seems tailored to Olivia’s brand of intellectual provocation.
• Friedrich Nietzsche – The Portable Nietzsche: A text often co-opted by young readers for its aphoristic cynicism. Here, it may serve more as a symbol of aesthetic nihilism than substantive philosophical engagement.
• Aimé Césaire – Discourse on Colonialism: This selection further affirms the show’s interest in juxtaposing radical anti-colonial texts with characters who benefit from colonial residues.

The Hierarchy of Literary Capital

Olivia and Paula’s books are not neutral objects. They function as part of a stratified system of cultural capital, wherein certain texts confer symbolic authority. The hierarchy embedded in reading lists: Winterson vs. Wittgenstein, Spivak vs. Marcus Aurelius, mirrors broader academic and social divides. As readers (and viewers), we are encouraged to evaluate not only the presence of these texts but the way they are deployed. The visibility of books by Butler and Fanon suggests not just an engagement with critical theory, but a desire to be seen engaging with it.

In this way, reading becomes both an epistemic activity and a form of social signaling. Olivia and Paula read not simply to learn but to perform. This is particularly evident in their ironic, almost theatrical detachment from the consequences of the theories they purport to understand. Post-colonialism becomes a beach read; gender theory, a form of armor.

Intersections of Race, Class, and Embodied Desire

Paula, as a character of color, offers a more complex (though still limited) site for examining the intersections of race and class. Her brief romantic entanglement with a hotel employee invokes the specter of sexual colonialism, yet the power dynamics are further complicated by her own class privilege and educational access. Paula is neither fully aligned with the exploited nor entirely immune to the seductions of privilege. Her trajectory echoes the familiar trope of the disillusioned liberal arts student: radical in theory, complicit in practice.

Quinn, another character in the ensemble, poses to remain in Hawaii, ostensibly embracing a simpler, more authentic life. Yet this too is a luxury of class. His access to reinvention is made possible not by merit but by inheritance. The choice to “escape” capitalist structures is always more available to those who have already benefited from them. Yet, with hesitation, he chooses to return.

Conclusion: Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Limits of Performativity

Ultimately, Olivia and Paula’s engagement with critical theory is deeply aestheticized. Their reading lists function as mirrors to their identities: curated, self-conscious, and limited in transformative power. If Paula is touched, however fleetingly, by Fanon’s fury or Césaire’s clarity, it is not enough to disrupt her return to comfort. Olivia’s post-colonial awareness remains an academic exercise, a form of ironic detachment she can deploy to outwit her parents or decorate her worldview.

As a viewer who has read these texts in earnest, who has sat through the lectures, annotated the margins, and confronted the implications, the spectacle is both familiar and maddening. The books are real. The effects are not. In The White Lotus, literature becomes costume: worn, displayed, and discarded.

Bibliography

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 1990.
Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. Translated by Joan Pinkham, Monthly Review Press, 2000.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox, Grove Press, 2004.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Portable Nietzsche. Edited and translated by Walter Kaufmann, Penguin Books, 1982.
Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson. Yale University Press, 1990