On September 9, 2021, Shayoni Mitra, a senior lecturer in the department of theater, published an article in 逆杂志名为 “Decolonizing Space: What 白莲花 and 这把椅子 Get Wrong about Student Politics.” In it, she analyzes how two popular TV series, Netflix’s 这把椅子 HBO的 白莲花, examine decolonization and the ways college students grapple with it. 这把椅子, 一个喜剧, follows the story of a newly appointed English department chair at the fictional Pembroke University while scrutinizing the decolonization of Ivy League syllabi. 白莲花, 社会讽刺, focuses on the lives of staff members and guests at a tropical resort in Hawaii while exploring the decolonization of land.
While Mitra praises these series for the accuracy with which they portray certain aspects of contemporary politics and academia, she criticizes the ways in which both shows, even in their attempts to highlight decolonization, continue to center whiteness in their examinations.