Mike White on the New Season of “The White Lotus” in Sicily

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 November 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

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Summary

The first season of “The White Lotus” won ten Emmy Awards and was a critics’ favorite. A dark satire of the privileged, the show chronicled the visit to a luxurious Hawaiian resort of a tech mogul and her family, a pair of newlyweds, and a single woman—all having the worst time of their lives—while the hotel manager goes off the wagon in a way both hilarious and harrowing. In Season 2, creator Mike White has moved the action to Sicily, and is focussing on gender roles and masculinity. White speaks with the staff writer Naomi Fry about his upbringing as the child of a minister, in a modest family in a wealthy community. “I hope that I’m not writing this show for the rest of my career,” White says. “But it does feel like, if you’re taking a snapshot, I am being true to the things that I’m thinking about right now.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and the New Yorker.
0:09.4	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remney.
0:12.2	The first season of HBO's white-loaded Chronicle the Visit to a Hawaiian Resort of a select
0:18.6	group of the very, very privileged, a tech mogul and her family, a pair of newlyweds
0:23.4	having second thoughts and an ares who's grieving and in need of therapy.
0:30.4	When I saw my mother's ashes hit the water, you know, I just, just reminded me of, you
0:37.9	know, sprinkling fish food in an aquarium and I was just like, oh my God, you know, am
0:45.6	I feeding my mother to the fishes?
0:49.0	All the wilder resorts managers having a complete meltdown that's both hilarious and kind
0:54.1	of harrowing to watch.
0:56.0	New Yorker staff writer Nomi Frye called the show a near-note-perfect tragic comedy.
1:02.5	When I first watched the first season of white-loaded I was really interested in its combination
1:11.2	of scathing, critique, and kind of just basic plot enjoyment, right?
1:19.4	It was about watching a bunch of rich people in a luxury resort supposed to be having
1:25.7	the time of their lives and through a series of events having like the worst time of
1:31.4	their life pretty much.
1:33.3	But it also said something bigger about where we are right now as a society.
1:38.7	I think it's fairly rare that a show manages to do both of these things without being too
1:44.5	ponderous or too flimsy.
1:47.3	I think one of the things that interested me to talk about with Mike White, he's a very
1:53.0	successful writer and creator.
1:56.2	He wrote movies like School of Rock.
	...

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