Why are “Eat-the-Rich” Movies and TV Shows Becoming So Popular?
You’ve seen (or at least heard of) Rosamund Pike’s character Elspeth in what may be one of 2023’s most talked-about films, “Saltburn.” Perhaps you noticed the way she can barely talk to her own children, even though she has no trouble talking to a complete stranger who is secretly plotting her demise. Or maybe you can’t help but wonder why HBO’s “Succession” seems to win every award a TV show could possibly win, or why Jennifer Coolidge has somehow managed to reclaim her fame by portraying the naive and desperate heiress Tanya McQuoid in “The White Lotus.”
What do all of these movies and shows have in common? They are a part of the ever-expanding genre of “eat-the-rich” entertainment, a category that aims to mock the wealthy and highlight the huge wealth disparities that are pervasive in our world today. While this idea certainly isn’t new, it is worth wondering why this unofficial genre is becoming increasingly popular.
The descriptor “eat-the-rich” comes from the quote by French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which states, “When the people shall have no more to eat, they will eat the rich.” The idea of placing blame on the rich is nothing new in society. In an era where we are trying to hold some of the richest people accountable for their actions, it makes sense there is an increase in entertainment that mocks these very subjects. The proliferation of memes making fun of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are only adding to this fodder for the entertainment industry. The 2023 film “Leave the World Behind” went so far as to depict hundreds of self-driving Teslas crashing into each other, showing how hackers could potentially hijack Tesla vehicles and cause mass destruction. The fact that movies and TV shows are becoming unafraid to call out specific companies points to how the media is drawing more and more from real life.
Making fun of the rich can look like more than a series of Teslas crashing into each other. In “Saltburn,” Barry Keoghan’s character, Oliver, relies on the naivete of the Catton family to ultimately strip them of their wealth, even though he has plenty of financial security to begin with. In teeing up the family’s destruction, director Emerald Fennell wastes no time in creating caricatures out of each of the family members. The matriarch, Elspeth, is constantly being depicted as lonely and shallow. Though she appears to care deeply for her family, the distance between her, her husband, and her two children grows more extreme as the movie goes on. This is proven by her increasing attachment to Oliver, whom she treats as her own son, while her actual son calls her a terrible person. Additionally, when a supposed friend of hers dies by suicide, she claims this person would do “anything for attention,” further illustrating how removed from humanity she is. In a way, she and Oliver bond over their mutual desperation—him being desperate for greater wealth and her being desperate for connection with other people. Oliver’s own heartlessness wins out in the end when Elspeth dies, due to him removing her breathing tube, and he inherits the family’s fortune.
One might point to the rise in popularity of the eat-the-rich genre to our current societal landscape. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated wealth disparities to such an extreme and frightening extent. Increased awareness of social injustices within the United States are continuously linked to the issue of functioning under a capitalist system. Eat-the-rich entertainment illuminates this dysfunction through creating characters that are both mockable and loveable, providing a semblance of comfort in some of the most unprecedented times in history. Ultimately, this illustrates how humans are simultaneously able to openly criticize society while being entertained in doing so.
