by Spoiler Alert! This article contains spoilers of White Lotus S3!!!
Gentrification
As a Mexican living in Mexico, where gentrification is on the rise, watching White Lotus, created by Mike White, makes me feel a deeper type of pain. Gentrification has always been bad. Just compare 1990 to 2000 to 2025 Tulum. Now it’s even worse. I lived in Yucatán, a place with many immigrants and tourists from Canada, the U.S., and various European countries. A month ago, a Canadian woman went viral for complaining about Mexicans enjoying the beach. She kept insisting they were on private property —supposedly the beach area in front of her house–. But in Mexico, beaches are federal property and considered public spaces. People can own land near the shore, but they don’t own the beach, the shoreline, or the ocean itself. She got angry and threw eggs at them, another woman started complaining to a man telling him his car was ugly and shouldn’t be parked in front of her house, but the man had parked his car in front of his friend’s house, not hers. Another woman from the United States went viral in Mazatlán, Mexico for yelling at a group of locals, who were enjoying their music and playing their instruments. She didn’t like the music, and she wanted to be in silence. Another couple went viral for wanting to sue a 30-year-old restaurant for having loud music, but they bought the house next to it, knowing it was already there. Another man from Italy yelled at locals who were swimming in the ocean, telling them to go somewhere else because they were on his side of the beach. Not to mention the amount of MAGA hats being worn all over Cancún.
What all these examples have in common with White Lotus is the entitlement many Western tourists and immigrants –– not “expats” –– have. This a global reality: places like Thailand, Indonesia, the south of Europe, South America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and many more have been dealing with this for decades. The fact that many Westerners demand immigrants in their countries to adhere to the rules but behave completely differently when abroad shows the level of hypocrisy and arrogance. This is perfectly portrayed in season one of White Lotus when Kai tells Paula how the resorts sidelined and marginalized the locals, impoverishing them, increasing the cost of living, and leaving them with no choice but to work for them. Just as Bad Bunny sang in his last song, “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii”, protesting gentrification in Puerto Rico trying to avoid the same situation that happened in Hawaii. The south of Mexico has the same issue and I see it through my eyes instead of a screen. Resorts are many times owned by some locals and some foreigners, they push the locals to the side, and exploit the resources from the area, making it too expensive to live nearby.
Many people argue that these types of developments bring employment and development –which I understand to a certain point–. Yet, how beneficial is it, if people live in worse conditions after being pushed to the side even if they have a higher-paying job? For example, a beach town called Sisal in Mexico. The government declared it a “Magic Town” to increase tourism, but this is where people used to make a living through fishing and their own resources. Of course, the locals didn’t have an industrialized urban lifestyle, but just because it was rural doesn’t mean it was miserable for them. They weren’t rich in terms of an economic pyramidal scheme, but if they enjoyed the resources, if they held a sustainable lifestyle with their land, their fishing, their agriculture; were they truly poor? Rural communities have a right to exist and stay that way. Now, real estate companies are starting to build houses, apartments, and hotels on any virgin beach left. In Mexico, the government is very corrupt, and it is on the lookout to partner with local and foreign investors, unfortunately, they do so by stripping vulnerable Mexicans of their land for yet another tourist destination out of the thousands that you can already find in Mexico.
To put this horror into perspective, the government and private investment burned mangroves in the area of Sisal to start building hotels and apartments, but mangroves protect the area, the animals, and the people from hurricanes. It wouldn’t be a surprise if similar things happened in Hawaii, Thailand, or any other exploited tropical destination. Moreso, this greed loves putting makeup on and selling itself as “Eco-tourism”, but it’s only Greenwashing. For example, Tulum is very polluted right now, but it is marketed as an ecological tourist destination, but the reality is that the subsoil and the underwater keep getting more and more polluted because the infrastructure for the drain system only covers 30% of the urban area in Tulum.
The Ratliffs
Piper
After rambling about gentrification and displacement of locals for touristic growth, I want to analyze the Ratliffs and how they contribute to some of them. Piper is someone who arrives in Thailand trying to find herself and step away from her family. Many people do that, but it’s interesting to think why they do it so far from their own countries. I believe there is some value in feeling like you are physically far from those who hurt you, but Piper specifically strikes from the very beginning, as yet another entitled girl pretending not to be one. If she is compassionate and in disagreement with the abuse and harm coming from extreme wealth, why force her family to travel to Thailand without them knowing and contributing to the economic gap in such a country? We could argue that another reason why she traveled far is because if things don’t work out, she can be disruptive and burden the Thai monks and then go back home as if nothing happened. She pretended to be morally superior to the rest of her family, but that was her narcissism all along. She reminds me of people who think they are better than everyone because they “worked on their ego”.
For example, when she first visited the temple, she didn’t even try to speak Thai. That itself shows a level of selfishness by expecting others to adapt to her linguistic needs even if she was a foreigner. It was also very inconsiderate to casually drop by the temple with no previous appointment. Her approach to the monk was very similar to how celebrity culture works in the United States. She was expecting him to see her and listen to her, she was behaving almost like a fan rather than a spiritual person meeting someone with similar visions who could offer deeper insight. She also took her parents knowing they would disrespect the monks and even look down on them. Victoria wasn’t even respectful enough to remember they were in Thailand, for example, when she said they were in Taiwan or China.
Timothy
I think Timothy is also very interesting. As he worries about losing his wealth, going to jail, and losing his family, he goes desperately to the monk and asks – What happens after we die? – He inquiries about the temple being a good place for his daughter, which also shows a bit of egoism because the whole search for information regarding the temple was treated as if Piper was going away to college and the Ratliffs had to know if it would be a good option for their daughter. Of course, any parent would want to know if a temple is a good place for their kid, however, their attitude disregarded the fact that the temple is not recruiting new people. Piper is asking for a place there. The Ratliffs should’ve been more tactful with their questions rather than demanding information about the quality of their lifestyle.
Lochlan
Piper is selfish compared to Lochlan because instead of looking for Nirvana or inner peace, she wants to get rid of her trauma without facing herself. Unexpectedly, the night they both spent at the temple, Lochlan confronted his issues and was able to mirror his reality, detaching from judgment or pretension. Accepting that he is a people pleaser and how it caused him great pain, especially by satisfying everyone around him but himself. As he told Saxon – “I am a people pleaser in a full family of narcissists”–. It’s ironic because he got closer to a path of self-acceptance and balance, precisely the one Piper had been bragging about for so long. I think Piper was focusing on Buddhism because she wanted it to be her thing, but the moment Lochlan wanted to join her, she couldn’t stand not being the only one morally different. The entire Ratliff family is so narcissistic that they compete with one another, so much to the point that Piper thought being a Buddhist and seeking enlightenment would make her better than everyone else.
Saxon & Victoria
Lastly, Saxon is interesting because no matter how tone-deaf he seems, he approaches Timothy and says–
“At this point, my career is totally tied to yours. So, if something bad is happening, it’s happening to both of us. And I’ll always be seen by everyone as Timothy Ratliff’s son and I’m okay with that. I am. As long as everything in work is going good… I don’t have anything else but this, I don’t have any interests, I don’t have any hobbies, okay? If I’m not a success, then I’m nothing. And I can’t handle being nothing. I’ve put my whole life into this basket. Into your basket, dad…” –.
This scene leaves me wondering. Can people be fully blind to their privilege? For example, Katy Perry was just launched into space while she kept preaching about how beautiful our Earth is, completely ignoring the massive carbon emissions from that spaceship. All over social media, people have expressed their discontent, they think she’s being tone-deaf, blinded by her wealth, and whenever a rich person says something without tact or consideration, society often assumes it’s because they live in a bubble surrounded by their luxuries and have lost a realistic perspective about the state most people live in. Other people widely judged for their lack of social conscience are the Kardashians, but again, no matter how much these people try to celebrate massive expensive parties while most people are struggling to cover their basic needs, I think deep down they are aware of their privilege, the only forget when it’s convenient. In my opinion, no one has more class conscience than someone who wishes to keep their wealth. I think that is why many men in the bourgeoisie wish to ban abortion, because they are aware of their position in society, and they know they wouldn’t be where they are if it wasn’t for their employees. If birth rates are decreasing, so are future employee rates.
This moment of clarity for Saxon reminds him of his position in society and for many years he ignored it until things seemed out of place, and his success didn’t seem as stable as before. It’s also ironic because he called it “his success” after recognizing it was his father’s name that put him there. I think people like Saxon forget about their privilege because it’s easier and more convenient to pretend to be “out-of-touch” than to confront themselves. That is exactly why Piper gave up on Buddhism and her crossings through Thailand. She realized she was spoiled; she would always be like that, and she enjoys what may be an unfair lifestyle unless she gives it up. But, let’s be honest, who would give up that lifestyle? The counterpart of Saxon or Piper is Victoria. She is aware of her advantage and the opportunities she’s had in life, and she is cynical about it.
–“We’re lucky, it’s true. Nobody in the history of the world has lived better than we have. Even the old kings and queens. The least we can do is enjoy it. If we don’t, it’s an offense to all the billions of people who dream that one day they could live like we do–”.
I like to believe that one day there will be balance. That one day the global economic gap will shorten. However, the more I observe the state of the world, the wars around it, the fight for control, power dynamics between the West and the East, I remind myself that no matter how much we try to organize ourselves by rules and laws; at the end of the day, we live in a real-life “Sailors of Catan” or “Game of Thrones”. I don’t want to be pessimistic and state that life will forever be violent in a never-ending cycle of wars and power battles, but greed is human. We want to convince ourselves that humans are good by nature and that the root of all evil is money or cultural constructions. But greed will never cease to exist. The problem goes beyond money, because if one can be corrupted by money or anything else, was one ever purely ethical?
