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

Abstract

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.