In an interview last year, Triangle of Sadness’s cinematographer, Fredrik Wenzel, described the film’s 15-minute vomit sequence as “kind of beautiful to watch, like a ballet”. The visceral descent into madness that takes place during a captain’s dinner onboard a luxury yacht will conjure less elegant associations for some, but few will forget the scene easily.
The meal begins with the vessel’s alcoholic captain barely able to contain his disdain while greeting unsuspecting guests and gets worse from there when choppy conditions set in. Despite noble attempts to settle her stomach with “more champagne”, a Russian oligarch sprays orange bile across dishes of octopus and what looks like clear jelly, setting off a chain reaction that ends in an all-out explosion of human excrement.
Worse still, the crew and guests attempt to maintain decorum through it all, their polite chit-chat and the tinkering of fine china only adding to the horror. While the yacht’s passengers have left dry land in search of escapism, they cannot stop the (literal) muck and mire from seeping in.
Triangle of Sadness’ shit, piss and vomit-filled crescendo is the tip of the iceberg of a recent boom in chaos-at-sea entertainment. Between Bravo’s nautical reality hit Below Deck (whose Australian edition is currently mid-season), Tanya’s grisly voyage on season two of The White Lotus, the gripping season two finale of Succession and Anna Delvey’s bad boat etiquette in Inventing Anna, audiences are being saturated with television about rich people going through it on luxury yachts.
Despite the beauty of their surroundings, onscreen yacht-hoppers are often in distress, whether at the hands of fabulous and secretly murderous gay men, the imminent corporate equivalent of a man overboard or a hand grenade hurled by pirates. In a time of increasing financial inequality – as the cost of living skyrockets and economies tank – it’s comforting to imagine that holidaying on a yacht … might actually suck?
While the definition of superyachts and the even larger megayachts are disputed – perhaps, like porn, you know it when you see it – we can all agree they function as a middle finger to the proletariat: a space for the wealthy to flaunt their privilege away from prying eyes (unless they invited the paps). While any upwardly mobile aspirant can save up for a designer handbag or blow their paycheck cosplaying at a fancy restaurant, vacationing on a yacht – with price tags anywhere from 10 to hundreds of millions to buy, and roughly $150,000 a week to charter – remains firmly out of reach.
In a recent New Yorker article from last year titled “The Haves and the Have-Yachts”, one yacht owner claimed, “Boats are the last place that I think you can get away with it.” But what exactly is “it”? For the masses, television is the only way to find out.
Onboard, whatever guests say goes – however unhinged. In the words of Triangle of Sadness’ chief stewardess, Paula: “It’s always yes sir, yes ma’am. If it’s an illegal substance they want, or a unicorn: ‘yes sir, yes ma’am!’” Later in the film, another stewardess’ can-do attitude is tested when a guest commands her to enter a Jacuzzi fully clothed as part of a mock role reversal, because “we are all equal”.
Viewers unfamiliar with Below Deck – which chronicles a group of spritely young “yachties” over a charter season – might incorrectly assume that only a fictional character would make such an absurd request – but Below Deck guests have demanded everything from the delivery of coloured gumballs (by helicopter if necessary) to dinner service by crew members wearing just loincloths.
While extreme power tripping gives guests a sense of superiority, it often belies deep insecurity and sadness. In Below Deck’s season 6 “Foam Party of One” episode, a perpetually sloppy guest named Steve demands a foam party on the yacht deck on a windy night. His fellow guests refuse to partake, so Steve stands red-faced, bow tie-clad and alone in a puddle of soapy water yelling “foam is coming! YAH! YAH!”.
The camera pans to a yachtie who whispers, “That is so sad, dude”. It’s a moment not even a producer could orchestrate, showing crew and audience alike that all the riches in the world can’t provide Steve the frat boy-fantasy that evades him.
Below Deck is particularly gratifying because it elevates the workers that some guests treat as expendable. Passengers – and their crazy antics – come and go, but the real main characters are the yachties, with their complex love triangles, allegiances and rivalries. As viewers, we align ourselves with these underdogs, who must prevail in the face of gruelling work schedules and unreasonable guests.
This dynamic recurs in Triangle of Sadness, when a shipwreck leaves a tech billionaire, a Russian oligarch and two model-influencers to answer to the former “toilet manager” Abigail, the only one in the group who possesses critical survival skills. This reversal is short lived; the film ends with Abigail facing a return to a world in which she should consider herself lucky to wait on her overlords once again: a sobering reminder that in real life, class holds steady.
We may not be able to stop the mega rich from getting away with “it”, but it is a thrill to watch them literally and metaphorically sink on screen.
