Analysis of 'Eat the Rich' Films and Class Representation in Contemporary Cinema

Recent high-budget films like Triangle of Sadness (2022) and The Menu (2022) present wealthy characters as a biological species rather than products of social systems. These black comedies use culinary metaphors to depict revenge against the rich, with scenes of luxury yachters vomiting excessively and homicidal chefs subjecting guests to gastronomic gore. Activist Kristina Maione clarified in a 2021 viral video that 'eat the rich' critiques unethical wealth accumulation, not jealousy. An Institute of Economic Affairs report found 67% of young Britons desired socialism that same year. Director Luca Guadagnino's cannibal romance Bones and All (2022) portrays poverty as an immutable condition. Writer John Berger's 1976 essay 'The Eaters and the Eaten' argued such representations naturalize wealth and overproduction. Actor Woody Harrelson plays a captain delivering drunken wisdom about monsters, while Ralph Fiennes portrays chef Julian Slowik who declares a working-class diner a 'species traitor.' Amber Husain, a London-based writer, authored Meat Love (2023) and Replace Me (2021).