Triangle of Sadness and the Poor Representation of Asian Characters in Film.

by Chloe Buxton.

I was looking forward to Ruben Ostlund’s Triangle of Sadness(2022) , a sharp black comedy satirising the super rich. Set on a luxury yacht, models, influencers, oligarchs, and tech millionaires come together to enjoy a lavish holiday… that ends up going horribly wrong. The crew slave away, unable to say no to the most absurd demands. When the ship begins to capsize, the previously beautiful, upper class guests are overcome with sea sickness and diarrhoea, sliding helplessly around to hilarious effect.

Abigail (played by Dolly de Leon) in Triangle of Sadness trailer, 2022, Lionsgate.

I wish the film had ended somewhere around here, with its social commentary still on the fairly funny side. Unfortunately the film derails in its third act when survivors from the yacht end up shipwrecked on an exotic island. A few of the wealthy guests end up stranded with random members of crew, including one 53 year old Filipino toilet cleaner named Abigail. Abigail becomes a key character in the third act and I was excited to see what Ostlund had planned for her. Safe to say I was left extremely disappointed.

Despite being half Filipino, I’ve never actually heard my language being spoken in a successful feature length film before. I thought it would be a great opportunity to have Filipino people represented in such a highly acclaimed, award winning production. But all it did was confirm outdated stereotypes of the worst kind.

Within what seems like 20 minutes of being on the island Abigail manages to catch fish with her bare hands in order to provide food for the rest of the group. She is the only character who knows how to make a fire from scratch and towards the end of the film she manipulates a much younger man into sleeping with her for extra food.

Although the film was trying to make it seem as if this made Abigail a smart, independent matriarchal figure, to me it really just felt like the film was creating an uncomfortable “ideal native” stereotype. What I mean by “ideal native” is this idea that people of colour are uncivilised and backwards in comparison to the white or European characters around them. The “ideal native” is someone who fulfils the key roles white people around them need, for example if they can cook, clean and catch food. The film will then present these skills as coming instinctively only to the person of colour as if their ethnic background and culture gives them these abilities, when this is not true for the majority of people and actually supports racist stereotypes.

Abigail might be Filipino, but she was working on a luxury yacht in the 21st century, so why she would be able to catch fish with her bare hands is beyond me. Think about it, if it had been any other character would catching fish with their bare hands have seemed “normal” or “natural”? It’s disappointing hearing so many good things about a film when their representation of a minority group is this bad. Abigail wasn’t the only Filipino character I noticed in the film either.

There had also been a few background characters conversing in Filipino I had noticed during the second act. I whispered excitedly to my friend that I could understand what they were saying and I felt a real sense of pride and excitement, that a film which had been so revered at Cannes featured Filipino dialogue in it. But as the film went on I began to realise that the filmmakers weren’t really interested in what Filipino people had to say at all.

The background characters I had noticed appeared to be staff who were living and working on the yacht but were never given more than about 30 seconds of screen time during the second act. They were shown briefly preparing rooms or walking through hallways appeasing the requests of the rich. But by no means were these passing moments portrayed as significant to the story, or particularly meaningful to the director’s message. I realised after the film that their “foreign-ness” had simply been used as a point of comparison to the class and affluence of the guests who the story mainly followed. The film failed to explore these working class characters aboard the yacht and instead maintained a focus on the rich, white and beautiful, which I found more than a little ironic.

Chefs in Triangle of Sadness trailer, 2022, Lionsgate.

Filipinos only seem to make it in films if they’re toilet cleaners. Or catching fish with their bare hands. Forever stuck below deck, in a 30 second clip, never making it as civilised main characters. For a film that is supposedly sickened by the class divide it's amazing how much screen time they give to the rich and privileged characters of the film. Although Triangle of Sadness featured scenes I enjoyed, the film ultimately failed to meaningfully comment on class divides, beauty standards or racist stereotypes as it enforced the exact same values it appears to criticise.

Many other films which attempt to join the discussion on wealth disparities in the modern age such as Parasite (Bong Joon-ho, 2019) successfully speak to the audience as they show the ridiculous wealth of one family through the eyes and feelings of lower class characters. Triangle of Sadness could have taken a leaf out of Parasite’s book in terms of how to explore inequality in my opinion. Despite being a satire, the best black comedies should actually make you laugh, which I didn’t find myself doing past the second act.

Moreover, Ruben Ostlund said that he wanted to make a film about beauty being currency. The film makes a point of highlighting the stupidity of influencers, models taking photographs of themselves eating pasta which they never actually eat and so on. Yet if the film is sickened by this kind of superficial beauty, why is it only the beautiful, upper class protagonists that it chooses to feature across its promotional campaign? Why is it the white wealthy guests it grants the most screen time to? Why is it the European characters that end up being victims to the violence of people of colour?

Triangle of Sadness trailer, 2022, Lionsgate.

It’s interesting because the film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes film festival, one of the most prestigious awards a film can receive. But after an interesting lecture on film festivals this past week, I’ve come to realise although such an official body has awarded the film a badge of approval, it doesn’t mean we can’t critique it. If anything it's interesting to think about how films like Triangle of Sadness get chosen by film festival boards, because it fits the sort of “political” film they want to see.

It makes them feel good, picking something that just dips its toe in poc representation. “Oh look! It tries to make a little filipino woman a matriarch on a desert island, and makes fun of rich people. This makes us seem very tolerant and self aware! Yes, yes give it the Palme d’Or…” But they fail to think about how it actually portrays people of colour. Quiet, subservient, lesser than, minimally explored, except for one character who cooks, cleans and then randomly demands to have sex with a man almost 30 years younger than her.

It became a very simple “swap” film, almost like I can hear someone in the writer’s room going “what if we made a world where like, instead of a man being in charge.. A woman was?”. Yeah it’s not a terrible idea to explore, but I think it's really ridiculous to think that a woman put in the position of power a man usually has would behave in the same way. If you don’t think the concept through it becomes a pretty easy gimmick that doesn't actually present anything other than a fantasy.

Woody Harrelson in Triangle of Sadness trailer, 2022, Lionsgate.

Overall, Triangle of Sadness had a lot it was trying to say but it didn’t land in the way I think it could have. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad Ruben Ostlund is trying to do something different, but I think if you’re going to make a film about despising the class divide, and hating on the stupidity of influencers and the greediness of the rich then you should at least think it through. Otherwise, without carefully questioning your representation of minority groups you teeter on being deeply hypocritical as well as painfully unfunny.

by Chloe Buxton, November 2022