By Haoran Xia
Published on: ToroScope
April 18, 2025
Hell Is Other People— Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit
This world is saturated with entertainment.
What I mean by “entertainment” is not the kind built upon consumption—where fleeting, monetized pleasure is extracted from the act of consuming itself (often without limit); nor is it the entertainment derived from the entertainment industry or so-called “entertainment products”—Hollywood blockbusters, games, concerts, variety shows—consumed as capital-driven spectacles or mere ways of killing time (consuming time, consuming money). It is also not the kind of inspiration found in art, where one is moved by beauty, pure artistic value, or high culture—an enlightened form of self-amusement. “Entertainment” in contemporary society has long been absorbed into another dimension: it has detached itself from, while simultaneously absorbing, capital, consumption, industry, and culture. Entertainment has become a phenomenon.
This means that entertainment itself constitutes a phenomenon—one in which entertainment fuses with all the behaviors, products, and industries we associate with it. In other words, entertainment no longer requires a medium. It is independent, complete, and autonomous. Even if we are not inside Disneyland riding its attractions, we can still feel and experience the “entertainment-ness” of Disneyland. Jean Baudrillard used Disneyland as an example in his 1996 essay Disneyworld Company to explore entertainment and falseness in contemporary society.
Within this phenomenon of entertainment, the real world and the virtual world produced by entertainment merge into one. Likewise, we—as players in the virtual world and consumers in the real one—become both the producers and consumers of entertainment. This form of entertainment lays its foundations deep within our (sub)conscious, leading us to believe that entertainment is something we consume. In truth, we ourselves have long since become entertainment. When we observe ourselves, we reach the extreme limit of entertainment. We are our own Disneyland.
The White Lotus constructs another kind of Disneyland.
The White Lotus is an HBO series that premiered in 2021, with its third season concluding this Monday. Each season unfolds in a new location: Hawaii in Season One, Sicily in Season Two, and Koh Samui, Thailand, in Season Three. Each season features an entirely new ensemble cast and tells a completely different story. The only narrative thread connecting all three seasons so far is Tanya’s ex-husband, Greg.
Decoding
As the familiar theme music plays, the camera opens on five White Lotus resort employees standing by the beach, waiting early in the morning for the arrival of the Season Three guests. A boat cuts through the sea, carrying the new arrivals: the Ratliff family, a “successful” core American family—new-money parents and their three children (Saxon, the Duke-educated, supposedly “elite” straight white male; Piper, quiet and meticulous; and Lochlan, just eighteen and preparing for college); a flopped actress, Jaclyn, traveling with her two childhood friends, Kate and Laurie; Rick, a balding middle-aged man; and his young muse girlfriend, Chelsea.
Compared to the first two seasons, this is a classic White Lotus representation. Each ensemble represents a segment of the narrative, and each group corresponds to a specific social stereotype. As the story unfolds and its mysteries gradually surface, the symbols behind these stereotypes become increasingly clear. This is the core narrative mechanism of The White Lotus: de-symbolization. The “symbols” here are not mathematical or physical signs, but cultural symbols formed within specific historical moments, cultural contexts, and social frameworks—what Roland Barthes calls mythology. These symbols function as stereotypes. They resemble navigation software: when we do not know how to judge a phenomenon or a group, they provide us with a direction and a ready-made line of thought. Over time, they harden into cognitive inertia.
The groups portrayed in The White Lotus have always represented various symbolic configurations of modern society. Whether it is the successful white male Shane and his trophy wife Rachel in Season One, the three generations of men who all “fall in love” with the same sex worker in Season Two, or the crude, abrasive American redneck Ratliff family in Season Three, these characters embody roles we already recognize—roles that are chaotic, contradictory, and deeply familiar.
As the narrative progresses, these characters are placed in an unfamiliar environment. We expect them to change, or at least expect the intensity of their stereotypes to shift. Yet as the truth approaches, most of them do not change at all. Their symbolic nature remains untouched by environment, geography, other people, or the sense of uncertainty that supposedly comes with travel. On the contrary, their stereotypes are reinforced. This demonstrates one thing: a symbol will always remain a symbol, and de-symbolization can only occur from within the symbol itself internally
After seven days of vacation, the Ratliff family still believes itself to be at the top of American society. The three women continue to maintain their fake friendship. Rick and Chelsea remain together only in death. Belinda, now in possession of five million dollars, becomes the very Tanya who once abandoned her without hesitation. Perhaps the only characters who appear to gain some form of self-reflection are Saxon and Lochlan: Saxon realizes that the power he possesses is ultimately hollow, while Lochlan comes to understand the narcissistic core of his family.
In a social structure where all rules are pre-written and all behaviors pre-programmed, symbols represent stability. To crack a symbol is therefore a dead-end proposition—an act of defiance against order, an almost impossible task. This is precisely why cracking symbols is so compelling, so entertaining. It is a battle.
What The White Lotus does is place these symbolic figures directly before us, showing how they handle interpersonal relationships and social conflicts under extreme conditions, how they reveal their worst and most repulsive sides within the most luxurious artificial environments on Earth. This is a massive amusement park. Inside it, we encounter familiar figures, witness the ugliest dimensions of human nature, sense the subtle, unspeakable, politically charged awkwardness between people, and consume a form of entertainment rooted purely in contemporary humanity.
The entertainment The White Lotus offers is exactly the kind described earlier: we are our own entertainment objects. What we see in The White Lotus is the false society we have created and the object we consume—ourselves. This is a reflective form of spectatorship. Within this spectacle, we recognize familiar social symbols and thus become aware of the delicate political dynamics embedded in everyday relationships. When characters collide, we are forced to confront a realization: everything is profoundly fake, and we must ask ourselves why we allow ourselves to live so falsely within such an environment.
This is also a battle between authenticity and falseness. No matter where these characters go, no matter how luxurious the hotel or how exquisite the scenery, they cannot escape the symbols that imprison them. Their masks are welded to their souls. They believe that traveling to another country, embracing another religion, liking someone with a different gender or race will bring redemption. In reality, they exist only within the void contained by their own symbols.
To crack a symbol means escape, liberation, freedom. But it requires confronting the soul and psyche sealed within the symbol—identity and value, class and belief. At its core, cracking a symbol means recognizing that the sense of entertainment constructed by modern society—the pleasure born of entertainment—is itself an infinite void.
Cracking symbols is painful. Constructing a symbol requires little effort; it is a social phenomenon arising from every aspect of daily life. Cracking one, however, is an inward act. It demands a force that emerges from within and breaks through social barriers: capital, class, power, and sex.
Nothingness
On one hand, The White Lotus is entertaining and highly watchable. On the other, it reveals—through different ensembles, races, classes, and genders—that the essence of contemporary life is nihilism. This nihilism stems from capital constructing a “White Lotus” world suspended above reality, a world that exists solely on accumulation, consumption, and pleasure, and that ultimately collapses back into them. This “White Lotus” world is the most accurate microcosm of the concept of contemporary travel. We believe that travel allows us to forget our problems and become our best selves. In truth, it often exposes our worst selves. Problems persist, pain intensifies, emptiness replaces scenery, and we locate the meaning of travel in consumption. Capital’s consumer paradise collaborates seamlessly with the illusion of travel, keeping modern people endlessly searching for the next destination.
This nihilism also arises from the fact that in an entertainment-centered world, our relationships grow shallow. Pleasure and casualness fill what was once built upon trust, communication, sincerity, and intimacy. When we enter a relationship, we constantly calculate its meaning and its duration. To some extent—within limited time and space—the relationship between “you” and “me” becomes a performance. We entertain each other, and we are entertained by those who watch us. Commitment thus becomes irrelevant: Tanya and Belinda in Season One, the sex worker and the son in Season Two, Belinda and the massage therapist Pornchai in Season Three. Intimacy is always temporary. Relationships never progress. Others ultimately become hell—not because others are inherently hell, as Sartre argued, but because in an entertainment-centered world we unconsciously transform others into our hell.
This nihilism is also rooted in a Western-centric world. Westerners—more precisely, straight white Caucasians—approach Asia (or Hawaii in Season One) with curiosity. Beneath this curiosity lies a sense of atonement: a Christian-inflected desire to cleanse the sins of colonial history. On the one hand, it derives from the doctrine of original sin embedded in Western, particularly American, culture; on the other, from a white obsession with absolution—the belief that by understanding and consuming minority cultures, one can forgive the crimes of one’s ancestors. They believe that living in Asia, eating Asian food, listening to Asian music, having sex with Asians, or practicing Buddhism will cleanse their emptiness. But as Victoria tells her daughter, you may be interested in Buddhism, but you will never be one of them—you come from a completely different world.
Westerners project fantasies onto Asia, sometimes bordering on blind worship. This worship stems from ignorance, arrogance, and superiority. Their superiority—and their ignorance of it—is precisely what keeps them trapped in emptiness. They cannot produce genuine empathy; they cannot truly understand. As a result, everything that happens in Thailand becomes entertainment for them—a cheap, pleasurable, live-action amusement park. This entertainment ends only when power is reversed.
That moment arrives when Frank recounts his sexual experiences in Asia: hiring white men similar to himself, having sex with him while having Asian women watch. He looks at the Asian women and thinks, I am them—I am fucking myself. In this moment of power reversal, entertainment collapses and gives way to philosophical reflection on race and sexuality. This is the only moment that resonates with the true purpose of atonement: complete surrender, complete abandonment of superiority.
Outside of this highlighted moment, however, the Thailand portrayed in Season Three remains entirely framed by Western perception: a tourist destination, a spiritual refuge, a marketplace of sex and power. It is not Thailand as it exists, but Thailand as Westerners imagine it—a place edited, aestheticized, and colonized anew.
Thus, Western curiosity toward Asia is political from beginning to end. Only in the instant of power reversal does that political charge dissolve. At all other times, Asia exists merely as entertainment for the West.
作者：夏浩然
发表于：陀螺电影
二零二五 四月十八日
他人，即地狱 ——萨特，《禁闭》
这个世界充满了娱乐性。
我所指的娱乐性并不是一种构建于消费行为之上，通过消费这个行为（往往无限度）本身所获得的短暂的、货币式的娱乐快感；也不是从娱乐行业或“娱乐”产品——好莱坞（大片）电影、游戏、演唱会、综艺，等等——中获得的一种基于资本效应或纯粹打发时间的消费（消费时间、消费金钱）方式；当然，也不是在艺术中所受启发，被美、纯粹的艺术价值和高等文化所感动的一种启蒙式的“自娱自乐”感。“娱乐”在当代社会早已被容纳进另一个维度，它脱离并吸收资本、消费、产业和文化——娱乐成为一个现象。
这意味着娱乐自身构建一个现象，在这个现象里，娱乐与我们所知道的与“娱乐”相关的行为、产品和行业融为一体，换而言之，娱乐不需要任何媒介，它是一个独立的、完整的，拥有自主权的个体：即便我们不在迪士尼乐园里玩各种娱乐器械，我们仍然能感受并体会迪士尼乐园的“娱乐性”（鲍德里亚在他1996年所发表的论文’Disneyworld Company’中以迪士尼乐园举例探讨当代社会的娱乐性与虚假性）。
在“娱乐”这个现象里，现实世界与存在于娱乐中的虚拟世界融为一体，同样，我们——作为虚拟世界的玩家/现实世界的消费者——成为娱乐的构造者和消费者，这样的“娱乐”在我们的（潜）意识中搭建根基，让我们误以为娱乐是我们的消费体，但其实，我们早就是娱乐本身：当我们观赏我们自身时，我们便体会到娱乐极限；我们是我们自己的迪士尼乐园。
《白莲花度假村》则构建了另一种“迪士尼乐园”。
《白莲花度假村》（以下简称“《白莲花》”）是由HBO开发，开播于2021年的剧集，第三季在本周一完结。每一季《白莲花》在一个全新的地域展开：第一季夏威夷，第二季西西里，第三季泰国苏梅岛；同样，每一季的人物群像截然不同，讲述着完全不同的故事情节（唯一串联目前三季故事线的便是塔尼娅的前夫格雷格这一条情节）。
破解符号
熟悉的背景音乐响起，镜头展开，五位白莲花酒店员工早早地在沙滩一旁等待第三季游客的到来。
游船划过海面，第三季客人迎面而来： 成功的美式核心家庭拉特利夫一家人：“新钱”父母和他们的三子女（杜克毕业所谓的“精英”顺直白男撒克逊，文静缜密的派珀和刚满十八准备读大学的拉克兰）； 过气女明星杰克琳和她的两位发小凯特和劳里； 秃头中年的瑞克和他年轻的缪斯女朋友切尔西
和前两季相比，这是典型的《白莲花》设置：不同的人物群像分别代表故事的一部分，每一种群体设置与社会中的某种刻板印象所对应，而当故事逐渐展开，谜团逐渐被揭晓，人物群体所代表的刻板印象背后的符号也逐渐明晰——这便是《白莲花》的核心叙述方式：一种去符号化。
这里我所指的符号并不是数学或物理中表达公式所需要的符号，而是在特定历史时期、文化背景和社会框架中由经验变为意识再变为定理的文化符号——也就是巴特笔下的“神话修辞”。这样的文化符号实际上是一种刻板印象，它好比导航软件，在我们不清楚如何判断一个现象或一种群体的时候，明确指出方向和思考路线，久而久之，它成为一种思维惯性。
《白莲花》中的群体一直以来所代表的便是现代社会中各种各类的符号：无论是第一季中的成功白男肖恩与他的花瓶妻子瑞秋，第二季中“爱”上同一位性工作者的祖孙三代，还是第三季中粗俗无礼的美国红脖拉特利夫一家人，所有角色所代表的都是我们已知的，存在于当代社会中的复杂混乱的角色。
当故事逐渐展开，这些角色被迫放置进一个完全陌生的环境里，我们本以为这些拥有“刻板印象”的角色会有所改变，或者至少，它们所携带的“刻板”性质会有所减少/增加，但当真相离我们越来越近时，大部分角色并没有任何改变，他们的刻板性并没有受到外界（环境、人物、地理和仅仅存在于旅行之中的未知感）冲击的影响，反而得到稳固。这便说明：符号永远是符号，去符号化的过程只能在符号内部形成。
七天假期结束，拉特利夫一家人仍然以为自己是美国社会中的人上人，三姐妹依然虚假地维护着她们的友谊，瑞克和切尔西在死亡中永远与彼此在一起，拥有五百万的比琳达成为了当年狠心抛弃她的塔尼娅，或许在这么多角色里，唯一似乎自省并破解自己符号的角色是撒克逊和拉克兰：撒克逊明白了自己所拥有的权力是虚无，而拉克兰则明白了自己家庭的自恋本色。
在当下这个一切规则被提前制定，一切行为被提前预定的社会架构里，符号代表着稳定性，而破解符号自然而然成为了一个死命题，一个对抗规律的行为，一个几乎不可能完成的任务，这同时也说明了为什么破解符号这个行为本身这么吸引人，这么富有娱乐性——这是一场较量。
所以，《白莲花》所做的是将这些符号性人物一一呈现在我们眼前，让我们看到他们是如何在极端的环境下处理不同的人际关系和社会问题，在地球上最优质的人造环境中呈现自己最糟糕、最恶心的一面——这是一个大型游乐场，在这座游乐场里，我们看到的是我们身边熟悉的人物，体会到的是人性最差的一面，感受到的人与人之间微妙的，无法说破的，具有言下之意的政治性尴尬，体验到的是一种纯粹基于当代人性的娱乐。
《白莲花》所提供的娱乐便是我前文提到的“娱乐”：我们是我们自己的娱乐体，我们在《白莲花》里看到的是我们自己创造的虚假社会和我们消费的客体：我们自己。这是一种具有反省性的观赏：我们在《白莲花》这片景观里看到我们熟悉的人物符号，从而熟知身边各种关系中的微妙政治色彩，当我们看到人物与人物之间发生碰撞时，我们则意识到：一切真的太虚伪了，以及，我为什么会允许我自己在这样的环境中活得这样虚伪？
这也是一场真实与虚伪的较量：无论这些角色在世界上任何一个地方，住在最豪华的酒店里享受着优质的服务与景色，他们始终无法逃脱被禁锢在自己身上的符号，他们虚假的面具被死死地嵌在灵魂里，他们以为前往另一个国度，追寻另一种宗教，爱上另一种性别、另一种种族的人便会得到救赎，但实则，他们仅仅活在存在于他们符号之中的虚无国度里。
破解符号意味着逃离、意味着解禁、同时意味着自由；破解符号需要的是面对封存在符号之中的灵魂和心灵，身份和价值，阶级和信仰；最核心的，破解符号意味着明白当下/现代社会为人类构造的这种娱乐感（从娱乐中诞生的快感）其实是一种无限的虚无。
破解符号是一场痛苦的经历：痛苦的原因在于，“构造”一个符号并不需要一个人付出多少，它是一个社会性现象，它来自于一个人生活中的方方面面，不过破解则是内向的，这意味着这股力量是由内而外散发并需要突破种种社会性阻碍：资本、阶级、权力和性。
虚无本色
一方面具有娱乐性以及观赏性，而另一方面，《白莲花》从不同群像，不同种族，不同阶级以及不同性别告诉我们当代生活的本质是一种虚无：这种虚无来自于资本构造一个架空于现实世界的“白莲花”世界，这样的“白莲花”世界仅仅存在于资本的积累之上，它来自于消费和快感这两个核心概念，同样最终落脚在消费和快感之上；
这样的“白莲花”世界是当代“旅行”最好的缩影：我们总认为在旅行中我们会忘记我们的所有问题和痛苦，在旅行途中我们会成为我们最好的自己，但实则，我们往往看到的是最差的自己：问题永远存在，痛苦无限加倍，虚空感取缔景色，在消费中我们找到旅行的意义——资本构造的消费乐园“白莲花”世界与“旅行”这种假象亲密合作，让现代人始终忙碌于寻找下一个“目的地”。
这种虚无来自于在当下这个以娱乐为中心的世界，我们与他人的关系变得浅薄，关系的质地被快感和随性填满，关系惯有的由信任、沟通、真诚和亲密构建的基础不复存在，当我们与他人建立一段关系时，我们时常想着这一段关系的意义以及，这段究竟能维持多久？“我”与“你”的关系在某种程度上——在有限的时间和空间里——只是一场秀：我们相互娱乐，我们同样娱乐着观赏我们的他人。
所以，承诺变得无关紧要。（第一季中的塔尼娅与比琳达，第二季中的性工作者与祖孙三代中的儿子，以及第三季中的比琳达与按摩师Pornchai）， 关系中的亲密时刻永远只拥有暂时性，“我”与“你”无法走向下一步（蒂莫西与他的家人，切尔西与瑞克，三姐妹的三角虚假友谊），他人终究成为地狱——但，请记得，并不是他人（萨特哲学）自行成为地狱，而是在当下这个娱乐为中心的世界里，我们不自觉地、潜意识地将他人转化为我们的地狱。
这种虚无来自于在当下这个以西方为轴心的世界，西方人——准确地说，顺直高加索人——以一种类似于好奇的心态前往亚洲国家（或第一季的夏威夷：少数裔）感受并体会亚洲文化和文化多样性；这种“好奇”背后实则有一种赎罪感：一种沉淀于基督教，旨在于洗去西方殖民历史罪恶的赎罪感；这样的赎罪感一方面来自于基督教中的“赎原罪”，一种在西方（特别是美国文化）文化中无法抹去的、隐性的宗教需求；另一方面来自于西方白人的执念：通过让自己了解并感受更多少数裔文化而原谅自己祖先犯下的殖民罪。
他们以为生活在亚洲，吃着亚洲菜，听着亚洲音乐，和亚洲人上床，信佛教就能洗去他们作为当代西方人的空虚感，但好比维多利亚（拉特利夫一家中的妈妈对她女儿）所说：你可以对佛教感兴趣，但你永远不可能成为他们中的一员，因为你来自于一个完全不同的世界。
西方人对于亚洲充满着幻想，或一种盲目崇拜；这样的盲目崇拜来自于他们的无知、他们的自大、以及他们的优越（资本、权力、性——有钱的顺直白男在泰国好比帝王；具有讽刺意义的便是对于老白男格雷格的描述：loser back home——在自己老家一无是处）； 他们的优越以及他们对于他们所拥有的优越的无知是让他们永远生活在虚无中的根本原因：因为他们始终无法产生同情，也因为他们始终无法根本理解，这便意味着泰国中发生的一切对于他们而言只是一种娱乐——一种让他们自身感受良好，让他们拥有快感的，廉价的真人游乐园。
这样的娱乐性只有在权力发生置换时才会终止，也就是当瑞克的好友弗兰克在酒店酒吧讲述他与亚洲女孩上床的故事：某一时刻，他开始聘用与他年纪/外表相仿的白男上他，并在他们做爱的同时，随意地让亚洲女孩看着他们做爱——他看着亚洲女孩，想着，我其实是亚洲女孩——我在上我自己。
在这第三季的高光时刻，权力置换终于发生。在这段独白里，白男所拥有的权力与亚洲女孩发生置换，而在这样的瞬间里，娱乐性消失，转而生发的是一种具有哲学思辨的关于种族和性取向的自省，这样的自省才与“赎罪”的真正目的产生回音：彻底妥协，彻底放弃一切优越。
不过只在这一个片段里，我们——作为中国观众——在剧集中看到的泰国才是在我们理解范畴之类的泰国。第三季的核心问题在于，剧集中所刻画的泰国自始至终是西方框架下的泰国：一个旅游胜地，一个寻找信仰、重新找到自我的净地，一个充满性和权力的贸易场所，简而言之，一个西方人可以为所欲为的场地。
虽然第三季里有当地演员，音乐应用泰国本地音乐，片头制作有十分仔细的文化考察，但剧集所呈现的是西方人眼中的泰国，即西方人体验的，他们想看到的，他们脑海中泰国应该有的样子。而他们眼中的泰国，早被西方人所中产阶级化，存在于他们口中/眼中的泰国并不是泰国真正的样子，而是一个被精修、被西方“殖民”的新泰国。
所以他们对于亚洲的盲目崇拜，对于亚洲的好奇自始至终带有一种政治性色彩，这样的政治性色彩只有在权力置换的一那瞬间，才会消失。至于其他时刻，亚洲对于西方人而言始终是一种娱乐性存在。