Late capitalism is taking a great photo. The rich, the poor, the jobs, the money, the power, everything is photogenic and horribly telegenic. Money, and a lot of it, has always been portrayed wonderfully, first in the movies and then on television, but late capitalism – a term that came to the West in 1975 with economist Ernst Mendel’s book of the same name and became trendy in culture around the middle of the previous decade – brought with it an unprecedented preoccupation with money and its influence which distorts the human soul, and especially the feeling that this cannot continue, that we are approaching an end point where the extreme and pig version of capitalism will destroy itself or us. And it will photograph great too.
The series of late capitalism enjoy an aura of quality and sophistication from the very fact that they deal with the subject, usually in a critical and satirical manner. You can find series that touched on it even before the whole world was talking about it – “Breaking Bad” and “The Neighbor’s Weed” are two immediate examples that jump to mind and there are also earlier ones – but now it is also a term with a lot of buzz that opens doors for screenwriters. In recent years it has been a massive, cross-genre wave, and it will grow stronger as the capital gets crazier and drives us all crazy. There’s a chance he’ll destroy the world as we know it, but at least we’ll have good television.
Severance // Severance
Yes, the socio-economic satire of “Detachment” – a horror-horror-drama-philosophical-comedy series in which employees of a mysterious corporation undergo a surgical procedure that disconnects their work-memories from their home-memories – is more or less tattooed on her forehead. But the beauty And the sophistication of the series is that it never chooses its easy and predictable face: this is not just a predictable and didactic drama about bad corporations and predatory workplaces, even if the bottom line of the last episode of its only season so far is that the strength of workers is in their unity.
But in fact, as “Detachment” peels back the layers behind Lumon’s cold capitalist facade, it reveals a much more disturbed organization than expected, driven by many, many factors other than just the quarterly report. In fact, the corporation turns out to be some kind of Scientology-flavored religious cult that worships to the founding dynasty of the company – somewhat similar to how “The Squid Game” is a satire on the extreme capitalism of South Korea but in practice the lives of its protagonists feel more like those of citizens in North Korea. And maybe that’s where the real satire of the series lies: we think of huge corporations as bodies Rationals guided only by profit, and most of the satire on them also perceives them as such. “Disconnection” reminds us that reality can be much more disordered and much less logical.
The squid game // Squid Game
this idea. A game in which the participants, poor and plebeians, fight for their lives and the winner wins a huge prize that will change his life. This is the idea behind many ancient horror stories from Stephen King’s “The Hunted” (1982) to much earlier in Robert Shackley’s “The Price of Danger” (1958). This is the idea behind the Japanese reality and game show genre. The idea This has been a virus in the human brain for so many years that it’s almost surprising that we needed the South Koreans to take the concept to the extreme. And The Squid Game, despite and perhaps because of its plot simplicity, certainly takes it to the extreme. The murderous arbitrariness, the hideous childishness, The total erasure of humanity, every frame in this series is an anthem for late capitalism, and like its predecessors in the genre, it also preaches and warns against a future that is rushing towards us on an inevitable collision course. In short, it will end in blood and the Asians will make money from it.
The White Lotus // The White Lotus
The rich are screwed. it is known. And that should comfort us. At the height of the Reaganism in the United States, soap operas flourished about the disgusting and intrigue-laden lives of the excessively rich, and the series of late capitalism are similarly used as lightning rods for the fury flickering on a small fire against the background of the widening economic disparities. So much has already been written about the two seasons of “The White Lotus” and the cruel-yet-compassionate manner in which it skewers the people of the upper millennium and their lordly, not to mention piggish and disgusting, attitude towards the service providers from the lower classes in their pompous resort. It’s a fake world, a world of stress, a world of anxieties and lies that repels and attracts us in equal measure. We want to puke on them and we want to be them. Nice trick.
Mike White and HBO’s black comedy drama is the zeitgeist incarnate, full of contradictions and ambivalence, seducing the viewer and then laughing at him being seduced. More than being critical of late capitalism and the people who gain and lose from it, she simply looks at it with a clear eye and strips it of its posturing. “The White Lotus” is not enjoyable just because it deals with the troubles of the complicated rich with inflated egos. She is an intelligent candy precisely because she has a heart and no hatred. She does not paint this extravagant wealth as grotesque out of disgust. She simply presents it as it is, ridiculous, destructive, out of proportion and pointless. Although give us a week in White Lotus Hawaii and we might change our minds.
Heirs // Succession
Enough, we’re already tired of showering “Heirs” with all possible praise: yes, it’s the best drama on TV right now, yes, it’s also funnier than most comedies on screen. And, of course, it is also the number one television work on capitalism in the 21st century. Its first season began when it was still sketching this world in relatively rough lines: the unforgettable scene in the first episode in which the Roy family offers the child of their employees to play a baseball game with a chance to win a million dollars – a divorce for them, and a one-time opportunity for the family that is taken from them as easily as it is offered to them. Or maybe it was the frame where Roman Roy masturbates, literally, on the view from his new office. But after three seasons she is already much more refined, Shakespearean and infinitely crueler, as in her peek into the “Hon” wing of the beloved couple Hoon-Shelton, and of course also in the internal corruption journey that the clumsy and comical outsider of the family, Uncle Greg, goes through.
Abbott Elementary School // Abbott Elementary
How about a heartfelt and cute sitcom about a bunch of public school teachers and capitalism? Everything. Between all the sweetness of Quinta Bronson runs a clear line of collapsing systems in the mirror of greed. The school is always under budgeted (even though, as mentioned in the first chapter, the municipal stadium is actually being renovated), the teachers beg for equipment, improvise solutions and, if necessary, organize a new carpet for the classroom from friends of friends in the mafia. Because if a child peed on the carpet, the school can’t buy a new one. The constant struggle of the school is the plot engine of the series, which may be endowed with an optimistic message that states that a few good people can influence the system – but always remembers with slight bitterness the fact that as much as good people are important, money is what those good people need.
Upload // Upload
Greg Daniels doesn’t have to prove anything to us. After “The Office” and “Gardens and Landscape Department” his place in the Pantheon is guaranteed, and we are ready to throw in the first seasons of “King Hill” as well. His series have always been comedies about where late capitalism meets the middle class, the clerks and managers and sales agents – and defeats them. “Upload” looks at first glance like something completely different: a sitcom from Dubai that takes place in the near future in which it is possible to raise the consciousness of dead people to a virtual heaven, where they can continue to exist and communicate with their loved ones and relatives. The protagonist, a 27-year-old programmer, wakes up in a kind of heaven One that his rich widow would put him in. Now think that this scenario is entrusted to the man who invented Michael Scott.
After 17 episodes in two seasons – and the third season on the way – “Upload” took shape as a wild class satire with a measure of black humor, about a world where the rich try to control the lives of the people around them even after their death, and a bit like “The Good Place” it turns out that the promised paradise is Pretty hell. Each new tenant receives a close escort from a service representative who is a living person, from a lower status, who is connected all day to the virtual world to serve and help. In this paradise, which is of course intended only for the rich and designed like a luxury resort, exactly the same toxic and ostentatious over-consumerism and the same inequality take place. And yes, somehow it’s also funny. Although neither.
Atlanta // Atlanta
Donald Glover’s disturbed series had the privilege of examining the capitalist system from both sides of the fence – in the first couple of seasons, getting money was the engine of the series. Piper Boy, the rapper at the center of it, is literally named after money. Ernst, the cousin who became his manager, lives in the warehouse. Only the episode where Arn calculates backwards the money the date will cost him is enough to get on the list. But then in the third season an interesting thing happens – the money is suddenly not his personality, but a luxury. And as a great rapper once said, more money more problems. By presenting the structure of “we started at the bottom and now we are here”, Atlanta not only presented the very limited social leadership of African Americans, but also pointed out the inherent racism of capitalism. Or as they put it very nicely in one of the episodes: “Where there is Coca Cola, there is racism”.
Dopesick // Dopesick
First of all, Michael Keaton. I mean, Michael Keaton. Or my god Michael Keaton. In the previous millennium, he was always said to be underappreciated. In 2021 he was already highly valued. And still not appreciated enough. Then came “Dopesick” on Hulu with a role that earned him a triple Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG win for Best Actor in a Limited Series. It is completely possible to say – regardless of the plot or any other aspect of the series – that you should watch it because of Michael Keaton. This is a game show from Hollywood’s Champions League, one that reminds of other eras in cinema. But this series is also much more than that.
“Dopesick” is based on a non-fiction book of the same name, which brings evidence and revelations about how the pharmaceutical company of the Sackler family caused the United States to become addicted to the opioid sedative OxyContin, with quite a bit of help from the ruling capital, and the series processes it into a heartbreaking drama about lives torn apart by the hundreds of thousands Because of sick money greed. Its preoccupation with the number one cause of death in the United States made it an “important” series, but the development of the characters and the excellent cast (both Peter Sarsgaard and Rosario Dawson here, and Jamie Newman who is married to the Israeli director Guy Nativ) make it a series that you can’t stop looking at and can’t stop Think about it after it’s over. There are no analogies, allegories and metaphors here. This is the world we live in.
Schitt’s Creek // Schitt’s Creek
Quite a few of the representations of very, very rich people on the screen – among others in the series mentioned in this list – carry quite a bit of DNA, whether willingly or not, from “Arrested Development” – a comedy that was revolutionary in many ways, among others in the show Her grotesque the life of the Bluth family, real estate tycoons who have fallen from their greatness. “Sheet’s Creek” is a kind of updated spiritual heir for our time, partly because its creators, Eugene and Dan Levy, based them on rich families seen in reality series.
Therefore, the twist in “Sheet’s Creek” is actually the relative empathy for the characters: true, they are rich, annoying and disconnected, and their encounter with the common people with whom they are forced to share a town (a town they bought a few years before) usually does not bring them out Good – but this is a series with much more compassion for the rich than all the other series here. Perhaps this is also part of a deeper process of understanding the method according to which the world works (or tries to work) – to understand that no one exactly comes out of this story happy.
Shameless // Shameless
The earliest series on our list is also the lowest series in terms of economic status. It is also one of the funniest serials on the list, and this is not by chance – already in its English version it celebrated the pan at the bottom of the silver barrel, presenting types from the bottom decile who live more or less in filth, but from the moment it arrived in America, the capital of modern capitalism, it made this poverty human, and The criticism is sharp. Shameless wasn’t a brilliant show for the most part, focusing more on its spectrum of excellent characters (for all our love of “The Bear,” we miss Lip), but what always stood out from the lines was everyone’s constant pursuit of every measly dollar. In recent years, everyone has been focusing on the corruption that money brings with it, but Scheimels spoke about the corruption that its absence brings.