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Margaret Tally, Empire State University, United StatesAbstract
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.
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