The last few months of 2022 saw a flurry of films that poked fun at the Super Rich. The Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion and The Menu are all remarkable films in their refreshing take on excessive wealth. Each film demystifies the top 1% by taking groups of rich characters and placing them on remote islands that are far outside of their comfort zone. This is something that Hollywood has never really explored before. Of course, movies have long been fascinated by the lives of the wealthy, but it seems that the focus is now starting to shift. Instead of just showcasing extreme wealth, these three films expose what’s really lurking beneath.
There has never been much love for the entrenched super-rich in Hollywood. Blockbuster films have tended to prefer rags-to-riches characters over ones that were privileged from the outset. This is no real surprise. After all, It’s much easier to empathise with Chris Gardner than Patrick Bateman. But what’s more interesting, is the question of how these inherently rich characters have historically been portrayed, and what exactly has changed with the release of The Triangle of Sadness, Glass Onion and The Menu.
A recent study investigating the stereotypes of the rich in Hollywood movies systematically analysed 43 iconic wealthy characters across a number of different films. Most of these were portrayed from the get-go as arrogant, unsympathetic, callous, immoral and selfish. These are all traits we easily recognise and would expect in the likes of Mark Hanna, Patrick Bateman and Gordon Gekko. At the same time, these same characters are shown as competent, imaginative, daring and visionary. Think of James Bond’s Ernst Blofeld or Kingsman’s Richmond Valentine. As a result of their cunning, they also tend to be extremely powerful, capable of anything they set their minds to. This is especially true of the likes of billionaires Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark who are somehow intelligent enough to single-handedly invent all kinds of revolutionary super-weapons. So, even though richer characters in movies tend to be unlikeable, they are nevertheless associated with power and intelligence.
This stereotype of the rich, evil genius is not unique to the world of cinema. Findings from the field of prejudice research show that people in the real world often perceive the rich as cold, yet ruthlessly competent. But why has this become the default way to view the top 1%? Why do we imagine that the super rich are also super smart and super powerful?
At first glance the association between intelligence and wealth makes sense. Surely they must have been smart to get where they are. Maybe they cut a few astute business deals or invented a revolutionary new product. To achieve this meteoric rise, they would surely have also needed a certain willpower to propel them towards their fortune. Maybe they were ruthless and exacting, not letting anything or anyone get in their way. But, this way of thinking often gives far too much credit to wealthy individuals that were simply…lucky. It takes no genius or immense power to win the lottery of birth, to inherit the family business or cash out an unlikely bet. If it was merely luck that set them on the path to riches, is there any reason that they need also be intelligent and powerful?
This is the question that Glass Onion, The Triangle of Sadness and The Menu jointly raise. They each take a group of elites and put them in a situation that is unlike anything that they have ever experienced. An island that is deliberately out of reach from wider society. The island in Glass Onion plays host to a make-believe murder mystery that soon becomes very real, the one in Triangle of Sadness showcases a fight for survival whilst the one in The Menu sets the stage for a deadly feast. On each island, the central characters are faced with the distinct possibility of a premature death, something that was previously inconceivable within the relative safety of capitalist society. Once removed from a world where money can buy anything, they are forced to use their inherent intelligence and power to save themselves from almost certain doom. Therefore, each film is concerned with whether each of the rich protagonists has what it takes to make it to safety.
The Triangle of Sadness starts by showing that the super rich passengers aboard a luxury boat are more than capable of blatant stupidity and ignorance. No one is a criminal mastermind or evil genius, rather they are all just fallible human beings that unwittingly struck gold. They all gained their status by either being in the right place at the right time, marrying a rich partner or monetising their good looks. So it comes as no surprise that this luxurious facade of wealth begins to crumble when it comes under pressure. Trapped on an island, we see that the remaining passengers lack decency, self-control and basic survival skills.
Contrast this to Abigail, one of the only staff members to make it to the island after the boat sinks. She is able to fish for food, light fires and play the other passengers against each other for her own gain. It doesn’t take long for the others to see how valuable her skills are and start offering her extravagant gifts to be granted once rescue arrives. Yet such promises are meaningless on an island where survival is paramount. Whether they like it or not, the passengers can’t use their luxury watches and perfumes to stay alive. Therefore, Abigail soon becomes rich in the currency of survival, with the other passengers relying on her for their basic needs. A reliance that sees her become the undeniable leader of the group, in a full subversion of the previous social order.
With this contrast in mind, it is clear that none of the passengers ever had any special character qualities that preordained their fortune. It’s like peeling back the layers of an onion to reveal that there’s no real substance at the centre.
The Glass Onion is a perfect metaphor for this mirage of super rich intelligence. In this scene Benoit Blanc confronts his mistaken assumptions about the billionaire Miles Braun. He had struggled to solve Andi’s murder for so long because he believed that the killer was smart and sophisticated. Of course, the killer could have been Braun, but surely a billionaire CEO of a visionary company would be impossibly elusive. Instead, Blanc soon discovers that Miles is far less intelligent than he originally gave him credit for. His only good ideas were stolen from other people, a realisation that finally solves the case. In this sense, Glass Onion is not just a murder mystery, it is a sociological mystery. Why did Blanc, just like everyone else, make the assumption that Braun was a complicated genius?
It seems that this assumption is no accident of Braun’s. Rather, it is something that was deliberately created to fool those around him. He commissioned puzzle boxes, paid for a murder mystery to be written about him and bought an army of lawyers to legitim ise Andi’s intellectual property as his own. At each step of the way Braun used his money, rather than his ability to convince others that he was smart.
This explains why the empty centre of the glass onion is so rarely exposed. Once wealth is attained, it’s easy to use it to buy expensive distractions from the truth. Just look at Birdie Jay who has to hire a full-time assistant to filter out any inflammatory tweets.
Braun’s deception also highlights the dynamics of power within the world of the super-rich. After he’s caught by Blanc, he manages to destroy the key piece of evidence tying him to Andi’s murder. Even though there are multiple witnesses to this act, it soon becomes clear that no-one would ever testify against the murderer. Is this a result of Braun’s inherent power as a cunning businessman? No, it’s because he’s been able to pay off each of his so-called friends. None have particularly amicable feelings towards Braun but all of them are on the take. They all know that without Braun’s funding they are out in the cold. Here we see the true nature of power, it is not earned but bought with obscene amounts of money. Of course, when this money disappears, becomes worthless, or explodes – as does Braun’s entire business at the end of Glass Onion, the power also disappears. There is no reason for each of his “friends” to remain loyal after they can clearly see that Braun has lost all of his money and credibility.
We see the same dynamic between power and money play out in The Menu. The only difference here is that all money has lost its worth from the start. It soon becomes clear that Chef Slowik’s motivations in putting together his deadly dining experience are not financial in origin, but artistic. He wants to fight back against a system that has degraded his cherished art form from an expression of love down to a mere status symbol or instagram post. In particular, he rails against how the price of his food has become so unattainable that only the wealthiest can afford it, whilst many in the world struggle for basic staples like bread. This completely transforms the incentive system from one driven entirely by the pursuit of wealth and status to one that rewards honesty and love.
Unsurprisingly, some guests still try to escape Slowik’s restaurant by using their immense wealth and status as a tool. First, this is used as a threat, with the “Do you know who I am” card being played to hint at how the chef’s reputation could easily be tarnished. Then, when this fails, it becomes more desperate with Slowik being told he can get any amount of money he wants. Yet this doesn’t work either. It is clear that on this island, entirely under the control of Slowik and his staff, money has no value. As such, the elites that are dining at his restaurant are reduced to mere humans, who only have their inherent abilities with which to appeal to their captor.
It soon becomes clear that Margot, the out-of-place escort, is the only truly intelligent one there. She is the only one that grows to understand Slowik’s values and why he has been driven to put on his suicidal feast. She understands that all the warmth has been stripped out of the chef’s craft by the thankless characters that surround her, and that all he truly wants is to return to the purest form of his craft, that is cooking as an act of love. She frankly tells the Slowik exactly what she wants to eat, with no care for how that will be perceived in elite, status-obsessed circles, a cheeseburger. The honesty of Margot’s request takes Slowik by surprise, and enables him to once again feel joy, fulfilment and love in the act of cooking, something he has been missing all along. This cunning play straight to the heart of Slowik turns Margot’s experience on the island from a sure death sentence to a fancy takeaway. She was the only one that could succeed in a moneyless world driven only by love.
We can see how the remote settings of Glass Onion, Triangle of Sadness and The Menu expose the bitter truth about many of the super-rich. They are unlikely to be inherently intelligent or powerful. Instead, their luck probably drove them to immense wealth, which has in turn bought them power and status. Currencies that are valuable only in today’s capitalist world. Once transported to a different world, one with an entirely different value system, these currencies quickly become worthless, helping to expose those that are truly worthy of acclaim; characters like Abigail and Margot.
So why is the popular myth of the smart and powerful elite rarely challenged, and why does it feel it’s only now just starting to be questioned? Probably because the truth is a bitter pill to swallow. At the centre of capitalist mythology is the idea that the American Dream will reward pioneering, hard-working entrepreneurs with the riches they deserve. Therefore it’s very tempting to believe that everyone at the top has earned their place, even if they are unsavoury characters that are arrogant and unsympathetic. To suggest that these individuals are not actually as smart as we would think, that many are, in fact, idiots, is hugely subversive. It shatters the long-held perception that we live in a meritocratic society, where only the smart ones make it to the top.
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