The White Lotus delivered some major surprises in the back end of this season (no pun intended) but one of the most intriguing things was a brief mention of something you may vaguely remember learning about in high school or college philosophy class. The philosophical concept of mimetic desire might be a major clue for The White Lotus fans as we race against the clock to figure out who gets killed, and by whom, before the end of the season.
In episode 6 of The White Lotus this season, Harper, wine drunk and not-so-subtly trying to get Cameron and her husband Ethan to admit to partying/hooking up with the local sex workers Lucia and Mia, asks if they ever had sex with the same girl in college. Did they ever watch each other? Have an orgy? But what Ethan says in response surprises even her. He accuses Cameron of sleeping with every girl he had a crush on before he had a chance to sleep with them.
“You have a bad case of something called mimetic desire,” Ethan says. “If someone with higher status than you wants something, it means it’s more likely you’ll want it too.” He then says that maybe Cameron getting with women Ethan, who was and is smarter than him, connected with would make him smarter by association. We’ve seen Cameron hit on Harper, though he hasn’t taken it that far yet, so it’s not surprising to hear this. It’s only surprising that Ethan said the quiet part out loud.
So, what exactly does that mean? Is it specifically a sex thing? Is that not what all of us experience when we buy clothes we think are cool because the model in the magazine looked so cool wearing them, or give in to celebrity #sponcon when it comes to choosing skin care and tea?
Basically, yes. The theory comes from twentieth century philsopher Rene Girard. Mimetic desire is a subconscious imitation of another’s desire. It’s a close neighbor to jealousy. Desire is a social activity. We don’t just see something and want something. We see something in relation to a person we desire to imitate and want that something. It causes sibling rivalry, and then other kinds of rivalry. In addition, Girard once said that “rivals are more apt to forget about whatever objects are the cause of the rivalry and instead become more fascinated with one another.” Juicy!
The extreme, obsessive end of mimetic desire is the basis of films like All About Eve and Single White Female—both about women who so desire to be like another woman that they take over their life. It’s rarely something we see or talk about happening with men. But it for sure happens IRL. Kind of cool to see The White Lotus flip the script.
Girard probably wouldn’t think of it as explicitly linked to sexual desire (the way it is presented on The White Lotus) and would argue that we all experience it to a degree. But that’s fair. Ethan isn’t diagnosing Cameron with mimetic disorder—that’s not a thing. He’s just saying that Cameron is particularly susceptible to that particular type of desire.
What mimetic desire leads to, posits Girard, is violence and scapegoating. You know, when you throw someone under the bus and blame them for someone else’s screw ups? Mimetic desire ultimately causes chaos because of too much competition and rivalry. Society then resets itself by identifying a scapegoat they deem as the source of the problem, ganging up on them, and expelling them. Then, they cover it up and move on. This applies to big groups in world history and smaller groups like the average family.
That’s… interesting in the context of this particular HBO series. We know that this season of The White Lotus is going to end with multiple dead bodies. Who would this mini society identify as the source of their drama and expel? Who are the scapegoats? My best guess is Lucia and Mia. Think about how many people are mad at them currently. Dominic, Cameron, Ethan, maybe Albie soon, depending on how that situation shakes out. Even the manager, Valentina, might get sick of Mia eventually. It’s the local sex workers who are linked to the most storylines this season. Also, if we recall from the first season of The White Lotus, the rich people tend to get away without a scratch. Punishing them and their desires, mimetic or otherwise, is not what this show is about.
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