Season 3 of The White Lotus, like seasons 1 and 2, portrays the vacation stay of an eclectic cast of resort guests that ultimately ends in a murder. The show is dark and satirical, and the characters are wealthy and generally unlikeable. In episode 5, Rick goes to Bangkok on a quest to avenge his dead father, and meets up with an old friend Frank, who he’s asked to bring him a gun. While the two catch up at a dimly lit bar, Frank goes on a crazy monologue about his journey to sobriety and celibacy. He tells Rick that he moved to Bangkok because he “always had a thing for Asian girls.” When he first moved, he was partying and having sex constantly and “was out of control.”
“I started wondering, where am I going with this? Why do I feel this need to fսck all these women? What is desire? The form of this cute Asian girl, why does it have such a grip on me? ‘Cause she’s the opposite of me? She gonna complete me in some way? I realized that I could fսck a million women, I’d still never be satisfied. Maybe… Maybe what I really want, is to be one of these Asian girls.”
He proceeds to tell Rick in detail about how he explored sex with men (“white guy, my age”) while role playing as one of the “Asian girls.” Periodically throughout the monologue, the camera pans to Rick, who looks perplexed, and mildly disgusted. The show’s core eerie leitmotif builds in the background. At the end, he explains that he got into Buddhism and became sober and celibate.
Frank, like most of the cast, is generally not a character that the audience is meant to like. He’s wealthy and slimy and it’s implied that he used to be a hit man. As he speaks, the music imbues a sense of dread, and even Rick, who’s also a sleazy character, seems aghast at his monologue. In this sense, the show can be read as critical of Frank’s blatant fetishization and objectification of Asian women. However, the topic is not ever explicitly addressed or criticized, and Frank doesn’t appear in any other episodes. While race, class, and sex are all key themes in The White Lotus, with the show making a clear critique of the character’s privilege and ignorance, it’s often unclear how the viewer is meant to interpret the depictions of sexual deviance. The season also includes a portrayal of incest and references to voyueristic fantasies, all of which involve characters who are obnoxious and cruel. Are we meant to judge them for their sexual desires? Or simply see the hypocrisy in the way that they remain rigidly adherent to other gender and sexual norms? Frank’s monologue is the show’s only mention of cross-dressing or gender nonconformity, and it only appears accompanied by racist and misogynistic dialogue. TERFs online have labelled Frank as autogynephilic, and have claimed this scene as evidence that trans women are all just men with deviant sexual fetishes. While this interpretation is misinformed and bigoted, it does highlight that in many ways, The White Lotus representation of sexual nonconformity falls flat. It adds intrigue and shock factor, while skimping on any opportunity for a more nuanced or radical discussion of the subject matter.