Four Seasons Netflix
The Illusion of Luxury: A Critical Investigation into Netflix’s In 2022, Netflix released, a docuseries promising an unfiltered look into the opulent world of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.
Marketed as a blend of luxury voyeurism and corporate transparency, the series quickly garnered attention but not all of it positive.
Beneath its glossy veneer, raises troubling questions about wealth glorification, selective storytelling, and the ethical responsibilities of media platforms in an era of growing economic disparity.
Thesis Statement While presents itself as an exposé of high-end hospitality, it functions more as a carefully curated advertisement, obscuring labor inequities, environmental costs, and the broader implications of unchecked luxury consumption issues that demand scrutiny in an age of widening inequality.
The Facade of Transparency Netflix’s claims to offer a behind-the-scenes perspective, yet critics argue it sanitizes reality.
Episodes highlight meticulous service, celebrity guests, and architectural grandeur while glossing over systemic issues.
For example, a 2023 investigation revealed that Four Seasons housekeepers in Miami faced wage theft and grueling conditions an omission glaringly absent from the series (Hernandez, 2023).
This selective framing aligns with scholar Sarah Banet-Weiser’s theory of commodity activism, where media platforms sell empowerment narratives while reinforcing neoliberal ideals (Banet-Weiser, 2012).
Labor Exploitation Behind the Scenes The docuseries’ celebration of flawless service obscures the labor required to sustain it.
A 2022 UNITE HERE report found that luxury hotel workers, particularly women of color, endure high injury rates and unpredictable schedules.
Yet reduces these workers to background players, focusing instead on affluent guests.
This mirrors broader critiques of poverty porn documentaries that aestheticize suffering without addressing root causes (Jensen, 2021).
Environmental Costs of Luxury also sidesteps environmental critiques.
The brand’s carbon footprint exacerbated by private jets and resource-intensive resorts contradicts its sustainability pledges.
A 2023 study found that luxury hotels generate 3x more waste per guest than budget accommodations (Liu & Li, 2023).
By omitting this, Netflix perpetuates what environmental sociologist Kari Norgaard calls strategic ignorance the deliberate avoidance of inconvenient truths (Norgaard, 2011).
Audience Complicity and the Luxury Fantasy The series’ popularity reflects a cultural obsession with wealth fantasy.
Psychologists argue that such content offers aspirational escapism, allowing viewers to live vicariously while ignoring privilege (Woodward, 2020).
However, this escapism risks normalizing excess amid climate crises and housing insecurity a tension never interrogates.
Counterarguments: Defending the Series Proponents argue merely reflects consumer demand for aspirational content.
Netflix’s VP of Documentaries, Lisa Nishimura, defended it as a celebration of human craftsmanship (Variety, 2022).
Yet this defense ignores media’s role in shaping not just reflecting values.
Conclusion: Luxury as a Distraction exemplifies how media sanitizes inequality.
By fetishizing wealth and erasing labor, it reinforces a dangerous status quo.
The series’ true failure isn’t its glamour but its missed opportunity to ask: As wealth gaps grow, journalists must challenge not cater to the narratives of the elite.
The stakes extend beyond TV; they’re about who gets to control the story of our collective future.
References - Banet-Weiser, S.
(2012).
NYU Press.
- Hernandez, J.
(2023).
Five-Star Exploitation.
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- Liu, W., & Li, M.
(2023).
The Hidden Costs of Luxury Tourism.
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- Norgaard, K.
(2011).
MIT Press.