White Lotus fans keep making fun of Portia, but they’re missing the point

Portia is just a young woman trying to figure out what she wants and yet has many fans of it The White Lotus can’t seem to give her a break.

Portia, played by Haley Lu Richardson, is one of the new faces to grace HBO’s comedy-drama The White Lotus for his second season. This time the story takes place in a luxurious all-inclusive resort on the picturesque coast of Sicily. Fresh out of community college, Portia finds her way to the high-end locale by being the assistant to multi-millionaire Tanya McQuoid, played by a smoky and unpredictable Jennifer Coolidge. A normal, not rich person, Portia’s character contrasts with the lavish guests around her, and yet many fans online have criticized the character for her fashion taste, personality, and even romantic choices. It’s all part of a long and weary tradition of fans tearing female characters to pieces, especially when they haven’t figured everything out. And it’s a symptom of fan tendency to judge whether a character is “good” or “annoying” — rather than considering how they fit into the story.

The criticism started with Portia’s outfits. Fans marveled at her taste in fashion; Her outfits ranged from wild looks that paired loose-fitting cargo pants with a bucket hat to more classic Y2K fashion. One of the most cited offenses was a zebra-print bikini and rainbow-knit bolero top. Online fans wore exaggerated versions of their outfits, calling them “Portia core‘ and dragged her along for her lack of taste. One comedy account even joked that costume designer Alex Bovaird — a tenured costume designer who has worked on award-winning films like nope and The perks of Being a Wallflower — should be demoted for Portia’s outfits.

Photo: HBO

And the criticism didn’t stop at her fashion sense. One popular tick tock uses an audio clip that says, “And now I want to sit back and relax and enjoy my evening when all of a sudden I hear this stirring, grating voice.” As the voice says “agitating,” the video clip focuses on Portia. Additionally, fans questioned Portia’s romantic choices, like her decision to make out with a Guy who has a neck tattooinstead of picking the standard nice guy who went to Stanford, Albie Di Grasso.

Fans ultimately criticize Portia’s lack of wealth and ability to socialize with the elite class. your outfits? Not luxurious enough. Your taste in men? trashy. Her behaviour? Not cool and collected.

But that’s beside the point. Portia is a young college grad who is thrown into a level of luxury most normal people will never experience in their lives. It makes sense that she’s not as good looking as the other characters – like a super-rich stay-at-home woman, or the wealthy and astute lawyer played by Aubrey Plaza. in a (n Interview with Variety, Bovaird said that Portia’s costume was meant to convey a character who was still finding herself and who didn’t have as much money as the other characters. “She’s young, she doesn’t really know who she is and she’s trying out different ideas. Sometimes she dresses more delicately, and sometimes she dresses like a boy,” said Bovaird.

But the online fan discussion doesn’t focus on fundamental questions about her motivations as a character or how her character fits into the story. Instead, the fans seem to be more interest in theorizingDraw characters or Shipping Portia with Albie than engaging in story or character crafting.

This confuses personal dislike for a character with the idea that their character is poorly written and focuses on questions like Personally, do I like Portia’s sense of style? and Would I personally be friends with Portia? Instead of asking why Portia is the way she is and why her character dresses or acts the way she does. Or how her overall presence as the only non-wealthy person in this elite space could make this particular story intriguing.

Of course, maybe Portia just isn’t landing on young viewers in a way that matches her experiences. Haley Lu Richardson gives Portia a kind of elusiveness that gives her scenes a restless feel. This is especially true when she is on a date with Albie talking about what she wants out of a relationship. Holding a pristine glass of white wine, she says she wants to “have fun.” She continues, “I’m sick of TikTok and – and Bumble and just…fucking screens and apps and sitting there blasting Netflix. And I just… I just want to live.”

In such scenes, she appears confused and uncomfortable. Portia, like the rest of the guests at the White Lotus Resort, is feeling just a little light-headed and, to be honest, extremely cramped. The conversations held between the guests function as social satire, presenting their own form of horror outside of a death that occurs at the hotel. And Portia is no exception. She is an idiot like any other hotel guest. When she talks to Tanya about why she likes Albie, she says, “He’s nice and smart. He went to Stanford and he’s not non-binary.” What is Unique to her is the bar where people hold their character.

The White Lotus is a show about horrible, horrible people. Everyone “touches” and “scratches” in their own way. Are we really going to ignore the two Giga-Chads who act on screen like college sorority boys, the perverted grandpa or, God forbid, the cheating father trying to win his wife back? Season 2 offers us a veritable hodgepodge of terrible men, and yet TikTok seems to delve into Portia’s fashion sense and taste in men during her fling in Italy.

For those fixated on Portia’s shortcomings, I’m afraid this show is less of a way to marvel at the utterly self-absorbed nature of the super-rich and more of something sophisticated. Regardless of how effectively the show satirizes the ultra-elite, there are many of us who would love to live lavishly and head to Sicily. It’s a mystery with a possible accidental death or murder that lets us stare at the good life of rich people, and Portia interrupts that.