The hidden meaning behind the ‘White Lotus’ opening credits: “A theme that no one seems to have really picked up on yet”
Set aside, for a moment, the crushing disappointment of the new White Lotus theme song and consider the title sequence of the new season. Dark panels of paintings move across the screen, featuring various tableaus – Animals with human heads, a man being saved from a sea creature, and women running away from men lurking behind trees. It’s just the latest version of the show’s stunning title design.
Season one, which was set in Hawaii, featured images painted on wallpaper of hibiscus flowers, tropical animals, and canoers rowing into an oncoming wave. Season two, which was set in Sicily, was made to look like an Italian fresco and featured images of nude statues, a monkey with a chain around its neck, and goats having sex. Each opening sequence is intricately designed to draw the viewer into the story, and each holds its own clues about the themes of its particular season.
The duo behind every White Lotus title sequence is Mark Bashore and Katrina Crawford, who own the creative studio Plains of Yonder. In an interview with Print, they discussed how they devise each season’s design and some of the details that viewers might be missing. It takes about ten months to create them, and their research is extensive. For the most recent season, Crawford and her team went to Thailand to take pictures of temples and nature to recreate in the studio. They also break down the script and each of its characters to figure out the tone they need to establish.
“This season is a little bit more about religion, enlightenment, and the various ways people escape their inner demons,” Crawford explained. “Season two was a little bit more about sexual things, and season one was more about colonisation.”
They also create a psychological profile of each character to decide how to portray them in the title sequence when the actors’ names arise. “We tried to build in fun little clues, but there’s also an openness to it so that each person brings in their own experience and interpretation of the show,” Crawford continued.
Indeed, you could easily watch the title sequence and not register that there are hidden meanings behind each actor’s name, and even if you did, you’d probably have a completely different interpretation from the person you’re watching it with. In season three, for example, the image for Aimee Lou Wood, who plays Chelsea, is a tiger feasting on a bloody carcass and looking back over its shoulder at a cub. Make of that what you will.
Although every title sequence is geared specifically toward its respective season, Crawford revealed that there is one commonality. “There’s a theme that no one seems to have really picked up on yet,” she said. “All three titles end with water.” In season one, the credits end with the canoers rowing straight into a wave. The credits in season two end with fountains overflowing into lotus ponds. And the season three credits end with a collage of characters being capsized as sea and preyed upon by monsters.
“Everything’s floating and washed to sea, for better or for worse,” she said. Bashore agreed. “It’s that vulnerability,” he said. “There is human behaviour in the show and in our titles about the ego and lust and all this stuff, but then there’s something about the water that brings everything back down to size.”
You might not learn who lives and who dies in the show based on the title sequence, but the closer you pay attention, the more you’ll see and the better you’ll understand the characters and themes of the episode ahead. You might even get so lost in the imagery that you forget about the music.
