Review
America
Culture
Feminism
Film & TV
6 min read

White Lotus understands a lot - but not Christianity

Here’s what the girl squad storyline gets right and wrong.
Three woman dining in a luxury hotel in Thailand, turn and look to the camera.
Kate, Jacylin, Laurie.
HBO.

I really rate The White Lotus.  

This multi-award-winning show is one of the smartest around. It’s almost like a modern myth. The specificity of the premise alone is incredibly satisfying: White Lotus is the name of an international chain of high-end resorts, a luxurious touchstone for the rich, the famous, and the dodgy. Season one took viewers to Hawaii, season two jetted us off to Italy, and this year we find ourselves welcomed to Thailand. 

Each new series has a new location, a new cast and a new set of intelligent storylines. the only thing that ties the three series together is the omnipresence of the White Lotus hotel. Oh, and the presence of murder. Each series opens by telling its viewers that one person that we’re about to meet will die – it just takes us eight episodes to find out who.  

I’m convinced that Mike White, the writer and director, must be one of the most perceptive people on the planet. I wouldn’t be surprised if, before he entails on writing another series, he just sits and watches the world. He endeavours to notice, endeavours to understand. I say this because he seems to discern the way people work: the way they love, the way they hate, the way they rest, the way they hide. And then he turns it up to eleven when crafting his characters.  

Honestly, if Mike White hadn’t mastered the art of noticing, White Lotus wouldn’t work. But he pays attention to people; deep, intense and curious attention. That’s the magic sauce, I’m sure of it.  

In the latest episode (episode three of season three, as it stands), there’s a scene that caught me by surprise. Its perceptiveness stopped me in my tracks.  

Is Mike White over simplifying this, or is he saying what he’s seeing? That people have reduced the greatest, deepest, largest and truest story ever told to an association with red or blue?

We’ve been introduced to three friends: we have Kate (Leslie Bibb), Jaclyn (Michelle Monaghan) and Laurie (Carrie Coon). They’ve been friends since school, but now in their forties, life has taken them in different directions. Kate lives in Texas with her picture-perfect family. Jaclyn is a newly married and semi-famous TV star, living and working in LA.  And Laurie is a divorcee, working hard and raising her daughter in New York City. They’ve come to Thailand (at the invitation and expense of Jaclyn) to re-connect and make some new memories.  

But it’s not that easy.  

Each woman is caught in a tussle of loving and loathing who the other two have become, they celebrate each other’s ‘successes’ and instinctively compete with them in equal measure. It’s masterfully done. As deeply as they want to be good friends to each other, perhaps for old time’s sake, this trio is not a safe one to be in.  

One evening, after Laurie has had an ‘energy healing’ session, Jaclyn mentions that she can get on board with spiritual practices a whole lot easier than she can get on board with ‘religion’ – Christianity, she states, is made for men. She can’t seem to find herself, or any other empowered women, within the biblical story. And so, she finds herself gravitating to ‘witchy’ alternatives.  

I’m a woman, a pretty ‘feminist’ one at that. I’m also, first and foremost, a Christian. And so, I think I have the right to say that this is incredibly perceptive of Mike White. I have this conversation time and time again: people wondering why a woman, one who believes in the social, economic, political and spiritual equality of the sexes, would ever hitch their wagon to the Christian tradition. Honestly, sometimes I feel like a unicorn.  

Yet, when the ‘Christian’ church was first bubbling up (we’re talking first century) it had the reputation of being a religion for women and slaves. Everywhere it travelled - city by city, village by village - women (of every socio-economic background) flocked to the Christian community in dramatic numbers. It changed the cultural landscape. Jesus, the Galilean saviour that these communities couldn’t stop talking about, kept company with women in a history-making way and they were determined to do likewise. Now, what I can’t deny is all of the patriarchy that has been thrown into the mix since. To pretend it’s not there would be silly of me.  

So, I hear you, Jaclyn. But I’ve gone straight to the source (Jesus) and I’ve hit upon a disconnect between the story I believe/the saviour I believe in, and the way it/he has been used against my gender – so I’ve stubbornly chosen to ignore the latter. I’ve never let it drive me away. I find my whole self (my gender included) forcefully loved by the God I know, endlessly drawn into his company, convinced by his assertion that he made me – fearfully and wonderfully. 

Oh Jaclyn, they can try to tell me that Christianity isn’t for me, but I ain’t budging.   

The dinner conversation moves on, Kate hits back – she tells her buddies that she, in fact, goes to her Texan church every Sunday and finds it ‘very moving’. Jaclyn and Laurie, both wide-eyed, sympathetically state that it must be hard to be around people who voted for Trump. And then it becomes obvious, to those in the scene and those of us watching it, that Kate herself voted for Trump.  

It’s an emotionally intelligent watch: two women feeling viscerally betrayed by their friend for voting in such a ‘self-defeating’ way. And the friend on the other side, betrayed that they would think of her so differently as a result of her well-intentioned political leaning.  

I live in the UK, and so I was taken aback that these women were able to draw such a confident line between A and B – between Christianity and one particular political party. Because of the perceptive nature of Mike White (as evidenced by the lines that came before these ones), I trust that this is somewhat accurate. It may not be the truth (I’m sure not every Texan Christian voted one way), but it’s certainly a perceived truth.   

It intrigued but mostly troubled me. It made me wonder what the meaning of ‘Christian’ is becoming, or perhaps has already become – people holding the cross in one hand and a political party in another, claiming that to love one is to love the other. Are we really known as people who are wanting a messiah in the White House, a Saviour in the Senate? Is Mike White over simplifying this, or is he saying what he’s seeing? That people have reduced the greatest, deepest, largest and truest story ever told to an association with red or blue?  

To Jaclyn, Laurie, Kate, and all those you represent – I’m sorry if we haven’t done the best job at representing ourselves, or Jesus, to you.  

To Mike White – watch us a little longer, watch a little deeper. We Christians are neither a patriarchal nor political tribe; don’t squeeze us into the boxes that we’re pretending we fit in. That’s our bad. There’s more to us than that. You have my word. 

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Interview
Assisted dying
Culture
Politics
S&U interviews
5 min read

Marsha de Cordova: the personal experiences driving her passionate politics

“What disabled people need is assistance to live, not to die.”

Robert is a journalist at the Financial Times.

 

A woman wearing a red jacket stands formally beside an office stair case.

When Marsha de Cordova talks about most issues relating to her work as the Member of Parliament for Battersea, in south London, she sticks to the standard position of her Labour party. Meeting at her constituency office by the busy Clapham Junction railway station, she dutifully defends her party’s government, elected last July. She points to ministers’ work to reform planning and improve renters’ rights as evidence they are making progress. 

But when conversation turns to the Assisted Dying Bill currently going through parliament, her tone becomes unmistakeably more urgent and her passion more obviously personal. 

The strong feelings mark de Cordova out as one of a group of Labour MPs who have been spurred by personal experience and, in many cases, religious conviction to oppose the Assisted Dying Bill introduced by a colleague, Spen Valley MP Kim Leadbeater. While the legislation is a private member’s bill without official government support, it has been widely seen as reflecting the views of Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 

De Cordova, who is Black, expresses similarly trenchant views about the government’s rhetoric on immigration. She is also a strong supporter of rapprochement with the European Union. 

However, her views on assisted dying – informed partly by being a committed Christian – are particularly forcefully expressed. She answers tersely, “No, I’m not”, when asked if she is happy about the political capital the new government has expended on the Assisted Dying Bill. She adds that she voted against it at second reading, the first parliamentary vote on a bill. She intends to oppose it again at third reading, before it passes to the House of Lords. 

“We didn’t need to expend so much capital on it,” de Cordova says. “The aim now has to be to ensure the bill doesn’t pass third reading.” 

Many of the Labour MPs who have opposed the legislation have cited religious objections. In the Cabinet, they include health secretary Wes Streeting and foreign secretary David Lammy, both Christians, and justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, a Muslim. 

De Cordova also links her opposition to her disability. De Cordova is registered blind because of nystagmus, in which the eyes repeatedly move involuntarily, disrupting vision. There have been fears assisted people could come under greater pressure than others to seek assisted death. 

“As a disabled woman, I’m incredibly concerned,” de Cordova says. “What disabled people need is assistance to live, not to die. That should be our government’s priority.” 

“My faith is an integral part of who I am. It really is part of my values, my beliefs, my politics.” 

The assisted dying fight has garnered unusual levels of publicity for the Battersea MP, who entered parliament seven years ago when barely expecting to do so. De Cordova, now 49, was serving as a Lambeth borough councillor when the 2017 snap general election was called and decided to seek the Labour nomination for Battersea, then held by the Conservatives. 

The seat was one of several Conservative seats in pro-Remain areas that fell to Labour’s surprisingly strong showing in the election in the wake of the 2016 Brexit referendum. 

“No one really thought I could win here,” de Cordova says. “Obviously, Brexit I would say played a role in that I’m a strong Remainer.” 

De Cordova increased her majority in 2019 and last year’s general election. She sees strong continuities between serving as an MP and her previous role in the charity sector. She had been working when elected as the engagement and advocacy director for the Thomas Pocklington Trust, which supports blind and partially sighted people. 

“I didn’t grow up wanting to be a politician,” de Cordova says, of her upbringing in Bristol. “I’ve always had the desire to be making a difference. All of my work before becoming a politician centred around that – being that voice for the voiceless.” 

She links her work to her faith. She became a Christian in her late 20s and now attends Holy Trinity Clapham. The church is famous as the spiritual home of William Wilberforce and the “Clapham Sect” of early 19th century campaigners against the slave trade and other social evils. 

Her faith has led to her appointment as second church estates commissioner – the liaison between parliament and England’s established church, who answers questions in the Commons on behalf of the church. 

“My faith is an integral part of who I am,” de Cordova says. “It really is part of my values, my beliefs, my politics.” 

It becomes clear speaking to her that her objections to the policies of the government – and the Assisted Dying Bill, which many of her party colleagues support – are clustered around areas involving challenges to fundamental rights. 

She objects to the Assisted Dying Bill because she sees it as part of a steady erosion of disabled people’s rights. 

“The issue will have a hugely, hugely disproportionate impact on disabled people,” she says. “That, for me, is a no-no.” 

Provision for disabled people was “hollowed out” under the last Conservative government, she says. 

“That, for me, will always be the issue,” de Cordova says. “I want to campaign and fight for full equality for us.” 

She also views immigration issues through the prism of immigrants’ rights. 

Asked if she wishes the government took a less hostile tone on the issue, she replies: “From my perspective, when I think about immigration, I tend to think about it in a compassionate way.” 

She calls for the establishment of “safe routes” to ensure people fleeing persecution can claim asylum from outside the UK, without making dangerous Channel crossings. The government has shown no signs of introducing such rights. 

“Let’s think about immigration in a positive way,” de Cordova says, adding that her grandparents were immigrants to the UK from the Caribbean. “The Tories and the right have always tried to portray it as a negative. It’s not always a negative.” 

For de Cordova, the unglamorous role of church estates commissioner forms part of that pattern of advocating for the voiceless. 

The job entails dealing with every aspect of MPs’ questions about church life, including the status of historic buildings and other less obviously morally important questions. 

However, de Cordova, who was appointed a month before publication of the Makin Report on the church’s handling of abuse by John Smyth, is clear the church has urgent problems to resolve. 

The Makin Report has to be a “turning point”, she says. 

“I understand steps are being taken to address the challenges,” de Cordova says. “They need to set out over time how they’ll ensure such abuse never happens again.” 

The campaigning approach is part of de Cordova’s wider philosophy. She says she has faced many challenges as a result of her disability and tried to overcome them. 

“I want to ensure that I can break down the barriers for people coming after me, so that people don’t have to face those same experiences,” she says. 

​​​​​​​Join with us - Behind the Seen

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If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

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