The aphorism “eat the rich,” long attributed to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, has found a contemporary home in popular media. Whether TikTok teens making snappy, meme-laden upper-class critiques in under a minute (now competing for Cannes awards themselves) or established filmmakers navigating narratives of wealth and privilege in Palme d’Or and Oscar-winning features like Parasite (2019), targeting the better-off at present has a deep-seated sense of satisfaction, for obvious reasons.
There was a feeling soon after the Cannes premiere of , Swedish satirist Ruben Östlund’s latest “eat the rich” parable, that it could be a serious contender for the Palme given that, once again, it gave the jury a chance to lean hard into such schadenfreude. Never mind the already clear us-versus-them nature of the Cannes was used to give the dubious impression of class solidarity. It does feel unfortunate that a more adventurous choice wasn’t selected, especially given that Östlund won the same prize only five years ago with his previous film , which treads similar satirical ground in the art world, to lesser effect.
