Pandemic from the Janitor’s Point of View
Timothy Sheard's murder mystery One Foot in the Grave explores pandemic in a hospital from the point of view of the lowliest, aka "essential", staff.
economic inequality
Parasites: Montesquieu on the End of Civic Virtue in a Republic
Bong Joon-ho's scathing Parasite reflects Montesquieu's critique that the decline of civic virtue causes great social inequality, which then incurs greed, envy, and violence.
‘Capital in the 21st Century’: Pie for the Rich, Crumbs for the People
Justin Pemberton's film version of Thomas Piketty's landmark book on the dangers of today's yawning income inequality, Capital in the 21st Century, is more TED Talk than documentary, but it's a handy summary nonetheless.
‘Generation Wealth’ Turns Too Soft a Light Upon America’s Nouveau Riche
Flamboyance and bombast prove to be Generation Wealth's most common thread, which serves as an upsetting indictment of the American Way.
Losing the Narrative of Your Life: On Alissa Quart’s ’Squeezed’
Alissa Quart’s perspective-driven reporting on the struggles of middle-class working families in Squeezed addresses the results of America’s utterly depraved neoliberal capitalist state.
‘White Night’, ‘American Psycho’, and Economic Inequality, the Killer That Devours America
I’m not especially bothered by violence in media, but the rich-on-poor violence seen in American Psycho and suggested by White Night is exceptionally detestable.