White Mischief: The Undoing and Movies About the Precarious Condition of the Dominant Group

摘要

The Undoing, a miniseries on the cable channel HBO, is a crime melodrama that presents unannounced background content reflecting the changing multicultural situation in the United States. A dominant white Euro-American group is becoming merely another group in a crowded field of American subcultures. Although multicultural issues are not explicity referred to, details of the series invoke current controversies about the white European culture that has been dominant in America. Recent political events highlight the status anxiety of white people and their alarming responses to the prospect of an America where they are not automatically seen as the proprietors of the nation's identity. White people now face the same challenges as subordinate subcultural groups do. Most societies that include several significant different cultures have a dominant culture and some subcultures. This particular arrangement is brought about by histories of conquest or immigration. A dominant majority might command a subordinate minority, as in the case of European Christian nations with Jewish minorities, or an elite minority may rule a subordinated majority, as in colonial Jamaica. However they arise, complex societies are subject to transformation over time as history produces changes in circumstances.