Horrible Bosses
Three buzzy titles this year introduce a major new archetype asking questions about power, loyalty, femininity and safety: the assistant. She works for a powerful woman, but who is she really? Through The White Lotus, Glass Onion and Tár, Ella Kemp investigates.
The only thing worse than being a girlboss is working for one. I am a feminist in every possible way, but my heart aches for three young women carving out their own way in the world through the shackles of their boss – power-hungry, lonely, reckless, difficult in so many ways. It is important for every young woman to make a life for herself and be financially independent, but you’ve really got to pour one out for these poor assistants.
It’s a wretched situation that’s led to the downfall of girlboss havens like The Wing, but that still permeates many different part of societies: a woman of great importance (read: rich) hires a bright young thing to take care of her affairs, leaving the job description deliberately that loose in order to lure her in to whatever her innocent mind, body and spirit can handle – and then to go far, far beyond that.
These assistants can have many different reasons for taking such a job – the appeal of working with (read: beneath) a woman with such influence seems obvious at first, inviting you to glamorous events and occasions where just basking in her glow should be enough, but it never is. You are there to put in the hard work that creates the illusion of glamour, because it is exactly that, a fake image that only looks the way it is because of what you have done. What you’ve salvaged and what you’ve sacrificed.
It’s the way to keep a careless socialite content on holiday in a Sicilian hotel, a way to keep damage to the bare minimum for a notorious and controversial orchestra conductor, and the only way to stop a trigger-happy supermodel-cum-entrepreneur from ruining her own career with another little tweet.
In The White Lotus, Haley Lu Richardson plays Portia, the assistant of Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge, MVP) who has brought her on holiday this season for…reasons unknown. It’s not clear what Portia ever helps with in any way, as Tanya doesn’t visibly do any work, and begins the holiday with her husband Greg, but she still needs Portia there. The young woman is, well, going insane. She’ll tell anyone who will listen how crazy Tanya is, how stifled she feels (while poolside on a cloudless day in an idyllic resort) and how dissatisfied she is with the whole situation.
But what makes the dynamic so interesting is the total lack of logic in it all. Tanya admits to Portia that she feels like she is a younger version of herself (an uncanny observation truly justified here) and there is a genuine connection between the two that makes you realise that perhaps the work was never the point after all.
A similar realisation quickly comes to the fore when observing Peg and Birdie Jay in Rian Johnson’s whodunnit Glass Onion. There is no reason for Birdie Jay, a fashion titan at the heart of growing backlash over the realisation that sweat shops aren’t in fact where people make sweatpants, to bring Peg on this weekend away with her oldest friends. After all, a new person hasn’t been invited in eight years until now, so how does Peg fit in, beyond adding another year on her résumé?
But there is, begrudgingly, care and concern in this relationship as well. Peg has more power than Portia, sternly telling Birdie when she’s wrong and rarely hiding her despair when realising her boss, really, has no clue what she’s doing. Peg is determined in her own worth, stubborn to save Birdie’s career as she’s painfully aware of the ways that it’ll affect hers. There’s no dragging her feet or silently waiting for it all to blow over – she will put out a fire to save her boss who, in this world of two-faced acquaintances and misleading appearances, has been her best friend all along.
I wish it could have been that easy for Francesca Lentini, the assistant of Lydia Tár (IRL composer, who’s checking) played by Noémie Merlant. Francesca is ready at all times to weather the unpredictability of her volatile boss, one of the world’s greatest artists and most terrifying forces to reckon with. Francesca is the person who irons out the kinks, who ensures people only see Lydia’s brilliance and the demons stay hidden in the corner.
But Francesca is the one who keeps Lydia afloat, demons and all, literally silencing those trying to throw her off in ways much more lethal than that term has suggested in online use over the years. The threat grows, aimed at Lydia but intercepted by Francesca, who, like any person in that position would, finds it more than difficult to shoulder. She’ll try and share her opinion with her boss but she is fundamentally there to deal with all the things, and people, Lydia just can’t be bothered to add to her busy schedule. Which would be fine, if it wasn’t a matter of life or death. Just imagine if Portia really had this kind of problem.
It matters that these young women are working for women of a certain status, where the stakes completely change – there’s no power imbalance in terms of personal implication, in the way men in such positions can tend to demand, leading to situations of sexual misconduct that we now know all too much about. But there’s something insidious, still, in these dynamics, precisely because they are ever-shifting.
It’s a puzzle to figure out: are the assistants learning anything? Do the bosses really need their work, or do they just want the company? In most cases it can be a mutually beneficial situation where status, companionship, loyalty and reassurance are all wrapped up in one. But sometimes it really is dangerous. A job well done is always the highest priority – the only thing that changes is the definition of what that job really is.
Season two of The White Lotus is now streaming. Tár is coming to UK cinemas in January 23. Glass Onion will be on Netflix on December 23.
