Down with the rich: how the suffering of the upper classes has become the great vein of series and films

A fiery group of millionaires, each one from their mother and father, get together on a boat headed for an exclusive experience that, they have been promised, will change their lives.

And so it is, but not as expected.

The ship lands on a private island where travelers are confronted, more violently each time, with the consequences of the indecent accumulation of fortunes like theirs.

Not everyone will return home alive.

This is the argument of not one or two, but of three films that aspire to be the great satire of winter:

(already on Disney+ after its theaters in December 2022),

(the same but on Netflix) and

(Palme d'Or at Cannes, three Oscar nominations, premiere February 17).

It is also from the first season of

, the revelation series of 2021 (and, without changing many words, that of the second, which has been, if anything, more famous than the first).

When something is repeated three times, it goes from chance to trend.

When it happens five is a sign of the times.

The suffering of the rich has become a matter of global concern.

02:06

Trailer for the movie 'The Menu'

Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy, in an instant from 'The Menu',

The boom has clear audiovisual roots:

(HBO Max), which recounts the baseness of a comically ambitious and treacherous family of billionaires, has been the great reference series practically since its premiere in 2018. On the other hand,

(2019) does not It was the first film by Bong Joon-ho to deal with the ravages of social inequality, but it did receive the Palme d'Or and the Oscar for best film.

Outside of fiction, the roots do not present much mystery either.

The US, the richest 1%, has gone, in two decades, from collecting 8% of national wealth to 20%, something similar to Great Britain, Australia, Canada, parts of Europe and Japan.

The pandemic, which separates

from

has exacerbated the problem: between the end of 2019 and 2021, while the rest of the population became impoverished, that 1% of the Americans increased their domination of wealth by 1.3%.

According to Bloomberg, 131 billionaires doubled their value in those years.

The richest man in the world, Bernard Arnault, was blamed about 60,000 million in 2020 and 159,000 in December 2022. The 2008 crisis, which the less affluent classes paid for with their homes and savings, caused a zombie boom

,

the reflection of seeing ourselves surrounded by dispossessed at once.

The age of inequality has given us the pain of billionaires.

00:31

Trailer of the series 'The White Lotus 2'

Haley Lu Richardson and Jennifer Coolidge, in a moment of the first chapter of the second season of 'The White Lotus'.

“We all love to see the rich suffer.

It's a matter of proletarian resentment," says Cristóbal Garrido, a screenwriter

,

who has

The film

, by Juana Macías, is pending release, which will bring the phenomenon to Spain (where the income of the richest 10% multiplies that of the poorest 10% by 11.8: before the pandemic it did so by five).

The feeling has a universal component for him and, therefore, susceptible to turning into a vein: "Also, the

shows with famous people who suffer are the ones that give the most audience and conversation."

Mike White, creator of

, is such a fan of the American version of

that he has been in it several times.

But if all these projects share a theme to their heart's content, it can also make them ugly (and has been done) by coming face to face with the same walls.

Among them is the portrait, almost brushstrokes, that is offered of the upper classes, as close to reality as a zombie to a homeless person: people comically disconnected from the real world;

foolish, naive or just tacky, terminally selfish because of their circumstances.

Having money can be, to a large extent, the main trait of your personality: more even than what is required in a satire.

Garrido admits that this lack of realism and complexity in the characters is due, in part, to how difficult it would be for a screenwriter to meet truly affluent people.

“The rich we have access to are the ones on display:

or

[both Netflix].

Filthy rich people live in another world,” he explains.

“One so closed that no matter how much you go out to document yourself, you will have to complete what you see with what you intuit and what you need for the story.

And what you know is going to like it”.

02:45

Trailer for the movie 'Knives in the Back: The Mystery of the Glass Onion'

Janelle Monáe and Kathryn Hahn in a snap from 'Knives Out: The Mystery of the Glass Onion.'

Another slightly more perverse complication: “As a viewer, you want the rich to be laughed at.

But on the other hand, you want to belong to his class.

The challenge is for you to be able to identify with them and criticize them”, argues Carlos Montero, co-creator of the great Spanish series on privilege,

Christopher Bollen, author of

(RBA, 2020) and other black novels that touch the upper class, agrees with him: “It is inevitable, when watching these films, to be entranced by designer clothes, contemporary art, mega yachts and the mansions on top of a cliff... Everything that is seen before they take out the guillotine.

These titles add to our cultural drool over money and privilege, even though they claim to be against it,” he says.

"It's Trap 22

We fall in love with this inaccessible world while being told how pernicious and selfish it is."

There is an old narrative legal vacuum that, in these new works, becomes a weapon to criticize the rich and praise him at the same time.

It is the theme of death, essential in

and Bollen's novels, and also with a good part of the historical genre (they have always been there).

Colombo or Agatha Christie's Poirot...).

Killing someone who flaunts her privilege too much serves as an excuse to visit her world.

"There is a moral component of punishing those who have a good time," says Carlos Montero.

“It's pure revenge,” adds Bollen.

“The rich get away with so much in this life that this new batch of movies, novels and series that combine murder and fortune fulfills a very basic desire,” adds Bollen.

But in this consignment –

especially – murder becomes an essential part of the narrative framework.

It is the quickest solution to moral ambiguity to satirize with admiration.

Firstly, because death and money seem to be linked thematically: "We always take it for granted that there is a crime at the root of all fortune, hence the link between these environments and the mystery genre", reasons Bollen.

But, above all, because as long as some millionaire pays for the excesses of the system, the rest can learn the lesson without falling into the role of villains.

Yes, they are responsible for the world's ills, but only circumstantially.

They have simply been favored by an archaic and perfidious system of which they are only glancing accomplices.

Thus, these stories of wealth are curiously framed.

As portraits of the class that sucks up the world's wealth, they do not offer the detail that works by authors raised among the real super-rich have.

Edith Warthon, for example: the three-time Nobel candidate and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize belonged to the New York elites that she later showed in detail in classics such as

(1913) and

(1920).

As satires of wealth, they also don't seem to have much of the fang of a Mr. Burns from

, to put it in the most famous skit ever.

This one, by the way, was inspired by John D. Rockefeller and other 19th century magnates.

That word, now almost in disuse, then connoted a certain fearsome inhumanity.

You can tell that the rich are richer now, because we don't stop talking about them or just demonize them like before.

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