This presentation examines how prestige "eat the rich" television during the 2020-2025 period—particularly *Succession* and *The White Lotus*—transforms legitimate anger about wealth inequality into dark comedy that ultimately reinforces rather than challenges capitalist structures. Drawing on Bakhtin's theory of the carnivalesque, I argue these shows function as ideological safety valves, offering temporary inversions of social hierarchy (mocking billionaires, exposing their venality) that provide catharsis without transformation.

*Succession* invites viewers to laugh at the Roy family's dysfunction while teaching us to speak capitalism's language fluently. We learn corporate strategy, understand media consolidation, and develop intimacy with wealth even as we claim to critique it. *The White Lotus* similarly exposes tourism as contemporary colonialism while packaging this critique as entertaining mystery. Both shows demonstrate sophisticated understanding of systemic inequality—yet their very sophistication becomes containment, channeling political energy into consumption rather than action.

The presentation explores how these shows embody "capitalist realism"—the conviction that capitalism is inevitable and alternatives unimaginable. No character proposes dismantling Waystar Royco or redistributing wealth; the most radical position is "nicer billionaires." This honesty about capitalism's cruelties becomes sophisticated despair masquerading as media literacy. I conclude by questioning whether recognizing inequality through dark comedy constitutes meaningful critique or provides permission for complicity, as long as we remain sufficiently ironic about our participation in systems we claim to oppose.

Authors:
Margaret Tally, Empire State University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Margaret Tally is Full Professor of Social and Public Policy at the School for Graduate Studies of the State University of New York, Empire State College. She is the author of Television Culture and Women’s Lives: Thirtysomething and the Contradictions of Gender(1995). She has also edited three book collections with Betty Kaklamanidou, HBO's Girls: Questions of Gender, Politics, and Millennial Angst(2014), The Millennials on Film and Television: Essays on the Politics of Popular Culture (2014), and Politics and Politicians in Contemporary US Television(2016), The Rise of the Anti-Heroine in TV’s Third Golden Age(2016) and The Limits of #Metoo in Hollywood: Gender and Power in the Entertainment Industry (2021, McFarland Press).

See this presentation on the full schedule – On Demand Schedule

Bookmark