I do think that there's a purpose in helping, even rich people, you know, helping them to find healing, making them feel more present, more aware.

Yeah.

Because rich people, they're the ones that you know fucking up the whole world.

Yeah, I mean, I know a lot of rich, white, fucked up people.

They could really use you.

Hi, everybody, and welcome back to the White Lotus podcast.

This week, we're going to zero in on the themes that underpin the show's first season,

specifically how money shapes the way we behave in the world.

We all know that Mike White is a master of taking champagne problems

and spinning them into biting satire.

You want a pin a lot of...

That's a lot of sugar.

Okay.

But baked into the show are urgent questions about justice, power hierarchies, and exploitation.

Like, how does our relationship with wealth, whether we inherit it, earn it, or lack it, influence our treatment of others? And how does the experience of struggle or privilege shape our attitudes about the world?

There were so many just very keen observations about how, like, rich people talk to poor people or young people talk to old people.

This is Hunter Harris, a culture writer and podcaster. I sat down with her to gain her perspective.

All of those interactions just felt like, oh my gosh, I'm like I'm at the best party right now.

Also the specificity of these families, like the families all feel, like the characters all feel

very familiar. And I think that the way that these are not stereotypes, but just archetypes,

that we can fill in the blanks ourselves, works very well.

A lot of these ideas emerge in the show's pilot, which hinges on a character who, surprisingly,

...