Why Are the Wealthy the Focus of Recent Comedy Films?
When it came to picking something to watch last year, there were endless amounts of shows and movies to choose from in the comedy genre. This very much pertains to the world we lived in, following the absurd hilarity of having a billionaire takeover Twitter, the mocking of nepotism babies, and the acceptance of a pandemic as normal in year two - we need something to laugh at in the midst of the hell fire. In our search for comfort, comedy has always allowed us to escape through jokes and witticisms and accept our flaws as humans, but how easily does that translate to the upper classes?
While we have celebrated the working man climbing to the top of the corporate ladder in films like Nine to Five, Working Girl, Office Space, and Sorry to Bother You, recently comedy has taken a darker, wealthier turn, with cutting criticisms of those in the upper classes from an upper-class perspective. On shows like The White Lotus and Succession and in movies like Bodies Bodies Bodies, Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and The Menu, comedy became about laughing at the rich with more energy and less kindness than ever before.
This wasn’t the first time we’ve seen television and film on this subject, which has been delved into in other years and in different genres. Eleven years ago, many of us watched the dystopian Hunger Games franchise when it came out and desired to be Katniss Everdeen, revolution leader fighting against capitalism. In 2019, viewers also got a glimpse at the working-class struggle in Bong Joon Ho’s film Parasite, which won the oscar for Best Picture. But only a few years later, we have moved into new territory, whereby billionaires are the main characters but simultaneously the butt of the joke.
The dark comedy movies of this year (note: some of these have been labelled horrors and thrillers), Bodies Bodies Bodies, Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and The Menu do not give us a class hero like Katniss, but rather provide us subtler attempts at class critique. In Bodies Bodies Bodies, a film about a sleepover gone terribly wrong, the characters are well aware of their privilege but deny it vehemently. In one scene, characters argue over who is the most upper class among them, fighting to win the least privileged position in the group and cementing the idea that Gen Z favours the working classes - if only on an aesthetic level.
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This same guilt for one’s social standing similarly plays out on Triangle of Sadness, about a group of rich adults on a yacht vacation; one of the attendees demands that all members of the staff swim in the pool, as though to demonstrate solidarity with the working class. As a result, the captain’s dinner goes terribly wrong, since the cooks went swimming and the food went bad. In The Menu, about a fancy dinner for the elite gone awry, working class Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) is able to free herself by protesting the bizarre menu chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes) has prepared, while the rich guests have taken for granted their abundance of food and their ability to access a luxurious experience.
In Glass Onion, the sequel to the 2019 murder mystery Knives Out, our lead detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is an outcast amongst the rich Elon Musk-like Miles Bron (Edward Norton) and his cohorts. Though he helps to crack the case, it’s Bron’s former friend Helen (Janelle Monae), along with Blanc, who pushes him to the edge, unable to be swept away by his money like everyone else in the cast. These films use comedy to mock the idea of wealth, while also trying to make sense of what it means to have money. The luxury we see on screen is laughably ludicrous, but there is an undeniable tension between the audience and the movie in knowing that it isn’t ludicrous at all - this is real life for a lot of the elite.
Glass Onion and The Menu specifically show us heroes to root for and a villain to root against. While both endings feature physical destruction, it feels unsatisfactory as justice is never really served and those in power don’t truly face the consequences of their actions in the public eye. There is no reckoning against class disparity, but only against individuals who take advantage of it.
“But when the movies end and the laughs die down, we’re left to ponder with this question: can the mega wealthy ever be honourable or are the rich always unredeemable?”
In her piece “‘White Lotus’ Didn’t Care About Toxic Masculinity After All” for the New York Times, Michelle Goldberg writes that there is a specific type of audience for movies and television about rich people. “These movies, critical darlings all, whack you over the head with their politics. There’s an element of wish fulfilment in each of them; they seem intended for upper-middle-class people who both envy and resent the rich. The jokes are pitched toward a very online audience that is willing to laugh at its own privilege but that also probably wishes it had more of it,” she says. For Goldberg, the upper class audiences laughing at these films are those that can find some relatability in the characters, while also laughing at their lack of self-awareness. But for those audiences, these films encourage action but don’t necessarily provide real solutions, though they seem to provide the same statement: the working class will win in the end. Talk is cheap. If the upper class doesn’t get on board and pull their weight, they will be the ones who ultimately suffer.
What movies about the upper classes highlight is both a comfort in watching the wealthy struggle and also a desire for their lifestyle. Dark comedies allow us to laugh at their exclusivity, while also creating pride for the working class. But when the movies end and the laughs die down, we’re left to ponder with this question: can the mega wealthy ever be honourable or are the rich always unredeemable?
Words: Mara Kleinberg
