Unfortunately, Thai culture is an afterthought in ‘The White Lotus’

The finale for the third season of The White Lotus is approaching, and who knows what will happen? For those who are unfamiliar, the show is an anthology series in which writer and director Mike White indulges audiences in 10 hours of hate-watching a group of rich white people parade around a trendy vacation destination for a week and, in the meantime, ruin local lives. This season, White’s destination just happens to be where I’m from. And while most TikTok theorists are busy discussing whether a monkey will be responsible for the gunshot or why they decided to change the theme song, as a Thai American, I’m more interested in how Thailand and its people are actually portrayed.

At first glance, this season feels like a win. Unlike past seasons, there are actual Thai characters with native-language speaking roles. The soundtrack is full of Thai musicians, and the dialogue feels familiar. But if you watch more closely, it becomes clear that the Thai narratives are generally peripheral. Two characters, Gaitok and Mook, played by Tayme Thapthimthong and Lalisa Manobal (better known as BLACKPINK’s Lisa) respectively, are both hotel staff members. They’re given moments of intimacy and light glimpses into their personal lives that suggest complexity, but are generally fleeting and overshadowed by the stories of the resort’s wealthy western guests. Gaitok isn’t even good at his job, a detail that could have been used to explore the labor conditions of Thailand’s hospitality industry, but instead, it just serves as a driving storyline for the white characters. In an early episode, Gaitok’s carelessness leads to a gun getting into the wrong hands. Instead of exploring that further, it’s a plot device to move forward the central conflict involving the white characters. And then there’s Lisa, arguably the most famous Thai person in the world, whose casting feels like a choice to attract global K-pop fans, rather than a way to explore Thai stories. Instead of using the star to showcase her identity and multitude of talents, she’s portrayed as a secondary character who is given a dance sequence and a few lines per episode.

Underneath all this, White clearly understands the way westerners use Thailand as their playground and this season is flooded with commentary. The mostly white cast of characters this season includes a group of American women, three old friends who are reconnecting on a trip to Thailand. In episode four, the women, Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan), Kate (Leslie Bibb) and Laurie (Carrie Coon), roam the streets during Songkran, the water festival which signifies the Thai New Year, only to be outraged, disgusted, and scared when they get sprayed with water by children. The trio embodies the mindset of tourists who believe their money exempts them from local customs, putting them above local happenings and traditions. Their reaction isn’t just comedic, it’s indicative of a colonialist attitude and white supremacy that persists in global tourism, especially to Southeast Asia.

The Ratliff family further exemplifies this. Victoria, played by Parker Posey, is a season favorite and a perfect portrayal of the upper-class, conservative, all-American mom. She scoffs at her daughter Piper, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, for wanting to move to Thailand and practice Buddhism in a temple. During the discussion, she questions her daughter asking, “What if it’s a cult?” And yet, throughout the season, Victoria and her husband Tim, played by Jason Isaacs, are obsessed with their alma maters, Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill—constantly talking about the age-old rivalry between the two schools, exhibiting behaviors that mirror the very cult-like tendencies Victoria criticizes to her daughter. It becomes very clear that within this family, one form of community and belonging is encouraged, whereas the other is villainized and seen as dangerous, highlighting the hypocrisy of how Americans—namely conservative Christians—pick and choose which belief systems are worthwhile and which ones are only worth mocking and disparaging.

The irony in The White Lotus is sharp, as is its depiction of a specific kind of white man, the “loser back home,” or LBH, as they’re colloquially referred to in the show: men who were losers in the west and come to Thailand to start fresh in a place where they can be different. Sam Rockwell's portrayal of Frank offers a pretty candid depiction of an LBH seeking reinvention in Thailand. He delivers a monologue that is both bizarre and deeply revealing, leaving viewers like me feeling both disgusted and confused. The monologue has made its way around social media and even captured the attention of people who don’t watch the show. Frank claims he felt a dissatisfaction with his endless need for sex after moving to Thailand and specifically seeking it. “What is desire? The form of this cute Asian girl, why does it have such a grip on me?” he asks, leading him to make some generally shocking statements, including how he wants to be an Asian girl.

Frank’s revelation, framed as a casual personal introspection, ultimately reinforces the already-rampant fetishization of Asian women that drives men like him to Thailand in the first place. He also reveals that he was struggling with addiction, to drugs and to sex—until he became Buddhist and suddenly was able to detach. This weird form of healing for the character, or some version of Buddhism that absolves anyone from actually changing, is a narrative that many men decide to adopt when moving to the east. In reality, it’s just 21st Century colonialism: appropriation and commodification of eastern philosophies by westerners, who extract what they want from a culture or religion and use it for their self-serving narratives.

The majority of the season was filmed in Koh Samui, which has been a trendy vacation destination for tourists and Thai locals alike for decades. The Thai economic ecosystem is dependent on tourism and its bountiful profits, especially post pandemic. It’s not a bad thing that this season will hopefully bring more visitors to Thailand’s shores, but as a writer at Grist points out, this could also cause anxiety for natives, especially with the looming fears surrounding climate change and its impacts. The country has been experiencing higher rates of severe flooding, torrential rainfalls, and eroding beaches in the past decade. In 2018, the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation decided to shut down Maya Bay, the iconic beach from The Beach (2000), indefinitely, for ecosystem restoration following the tourist boom that the movie brought. This is a side of tourism we don’t generally see on screen, especially when the stories we see follow the lives of wealthy white tourists.

For all its self-awareness, The White Lotus doesn’t fully escape the trap of using Thailand as an aesthetic, like it has in past seasons, filled with full moon parties and opulent beaches rather than a fully realized world with a complex culture and grandiose traditions. The show reiterates what we already know: that rich westerners will always be at the center of the story, both in fiction and in real life. The only difference is that in this case, at least we get to watch them fall apart.