At one point early on in the third season of Search Party, District Attorney Polly Danziger (Michaela Watkins) tells her assistant prosecutor, “Everything I hate about young people: rich, beautiful, corrupt. What do they call them? Millellials?” He responds, “Millennials.” She continues to salivate, “This could be good for us though, right? It’s a good angle. People love to hate them.” He does his best to keep her in touch with the world by noting,“I don’t think people really care about millennials anymore. I feel like that kind of talk has died down actually.” And he’s not wrong, the last peak of millennial obsession via bullshit “think pieces” in The New York Times, The Atlantic and every other NY-based publication faded out a while ago, noticeably diminishing when the Orange One took office and there was a new (yet old) generation to hate on: baby boomers (fittingly, the progenitors of the “echo boomers” that are millennials). Of course, in millennials’ minds that never happened. They still hold the spotlight over Gen Z, even if the generation that has followed theirs clearly gets more props for activism, humanity and generally giving a shit (see also: The Politician). Millennials never really had to. Were not conditioned to–at least not until the first major financial crisis of their lifetime in 2008. The incident that not only made them jaded, but completely inclined to live in the alternate reality they could create on the internet, “curating” their experiences on the social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram and Vine–the now defunct OG TikTok (because no, TikTok isn’t their bag).
The indoctrination of constantly “performing” their lives instead of living them undocumented has, indisputably, produced a psychological effect. A sort of deficiency in the ability to have any real emotions. A deficiency that our so-called protagonist, Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat), suffers from just as her peers, Elliott Goss (John Early) and Portia Davenport (Meredith Hagner), all about to be on trial for the murder of Keith Powell (Ron Livingston) that occurred in season two. Then again, “suffering” is a big term for a white girl who went to NYU. In fact, while waiting to be questioned at the police station after her arrest, she encounters an old acquaintance who tells her she’s probably only going to have to wait an hour before being released because her dad knows a judge. It is dialogue exchange after dialogue exchange like this that drives home the point that has become an integral part of the current political conversation: white privilege–most glaringly when it applies to the “justice” system in the United States.
With Dory’s bail being contingent upon accepting the daughter of one of her rich employer’s (Gail [Christine Taylor]) friends as her legal counsel, she suddenly realizes that the reason Cassidy Diamond (Shalita Grant) is so eager to take on her case pro bono is not only because of its high profile nature, but because she’s never even had a case before–and starting with Dory’s is the perfect way to dip her toe in as a means to become famous herself (indeed, “fame whoring” is a big part of being a millennial, ergo a big part of this show). In the black SUV on the way back to Dory’s apartment, the two watch a press conference Polly decides to hold so as to get ahead of the narrative the media will shape about Dory. Wanting to present her as just another “immoral” representative of her generation, Polly goes on about how easy it will be to convict Dory and her boyfriend, Drew (John Reynolds).
Cassidy turns the broadcast off and scoffs, “I feel so bad for her. She grew up in a generation that was like, ‘You gotta be a man to get ahead.’ It’s like, bitch, just admit you like to shop.” Yet another instance of constant generational warfare, and Polly is certainly an annoying symbol of her own, lusting for the blood of a millennial she sees as all-encompassing of anyone who is young–doing the very “lumping in” cliche expected of all “boomers” (anyone older than Gen Z) that has prompted Gen Z to wield “OK Boomer” as a derisive response in the first place. The frozen in 2015 nature of Search Party (which first premiered in November of 2016 on TBS before transitioning to HBO Max) remains evident in the show’s treatment of Brooklyn as a relevant place, and one still unchanged by the aftermath of corona. Examples of such include Dory being called names like “the sphinx of Hipsterville,” and the fact that Elliott’s wedding takes place in the Williamsburg Savings Bank, with such familiar backdrops of the area as Peter Luger being prominently displayed as some sort of “subtle” means to emphasize the “coolness” of it all when Williamsburg hasn’t really been happening in a “hipster” sense since 2012, before the barrage of corporate businesses trickled in, including the Equinox that Dory probably works out at.
The caricature-like showcase of narcissism that millennials are so often accused of is not limited to Dory. Even more minor characters like Chantal (Clare McNulty), the daffy, self-involved girl responsible for the confluence of all these events in the first place, are paraded as egoists. Case in point, as Chantal watches in shock at the news reports about Dory on TV, she’s really only concerned with the same question every millennial (particularly in New York) is: “What does this mean for me?” The theme of this distinct sense of entitlement among white millennials especially is the running “gag,” of sorts, in every episode. Take, for example, “The Rookie Lawyer,” in which Dory has been sent to prison before being bailed out by Gail’s friends. Sitting in the TV room with the other inmates, noticeably not at all like her–a.k.a. not white–they’re gathered around watching Lady Bird (which one inmate insists is about Lady Bird Johnson). It’s a pointed film choice in that it speaks to the privilege so often reserved for white girls rather than their female counterparts of other ethnic backgrounds. Greta Gerwig’s titular character herself has, ultimately, little to complain about other than being born in a beta city she wants desperately to escape, constantly giving her mother shit for, basically, not being as affluent as she wants them to be. That Gerwig was nominated in the director’s category over, say, a female director of color is also poignant.
Dory, assuming any of these women might give a shit about trivia regarding the movie, comments, “It’s insane. I think she’s only the second female director to be nominated for an Oscar in like ten years.” The ringleader is not amused, going off on Dory for using the word “insane.” It’s in that violent moment that Dory understands she cannot go to prison. Has no intention of doing so, no matter the cost. People like her don’t belong in prison, after all. She’s too educated, too clean, too superior for that. So she does what millennials do best: creates the version of herself she wants the media to see. Hell, the one she makes herself see whenever she looks in the mirror.
Yet Dory’s behavior is nothing new in terms of being manifested in pop culture. For if any gaggle of white girls has represented millennial entitlement in general and in the court system, it was already the likes of Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan, each facing their various days in court. Not for murder, granted, but crimes that should have landed them real jail time and didn’t (Richie served eighty-two minutes for a four-day sentence; Hilton got an isolated cell and dipped out soon after in favor of house arrest for her forty-five day sentence… before that, too, was lifted in favor of a correctional “treatment center”; Lohan served eighty-four minutes of a one-day jail sentence thanks to “overcrowding”).
Dory also echoes the deranged shades of faux socialite Anna Delvey (real name: Anna Sorokin)–for both of them so genuinely believe in their lies that it is their ultimate secret weapon in convincing others to believe them as well (on a side note: it bears remarking that self-proclaimed voice of a generation and millennial horror show in her own right Lena Dunham is developing a “project” for HBO about Delvey). When Drew asks Dory, “Why did you say that we were completely innocent?” she responds, “I don’t know. It just felt like the truth to me.” Felt like. The only thing that has ever mattered to the millennial sensibility over facts, immutable science. While, sure, millennials might be more liberal (by sheer virtue of it being “chicer” than conservatism) than their forebears, there can be no denying that this constant leaning upon “feelings” as opposed to objective reality is what has gotten the U.S. to the point it’s presently at.
Created by Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers and Michael Showalter (who recently brought us The Lovebirds), the show is filled with the awkward stamp of the latter despite the majority of the episodes being written by the former two creators. Both, incidentally, alumni of NYU’s Tisch program (so yes, they know something about millennial privilege, which is perhaps why it’s conveyed with such self-deprecation on their part, as was the case with their debut movie together, Fort Tilden–released in, what else, 2015, the year both seem to be trapped in like Search Party and the rest of millennials).
The point as season three wears on with increasing absurdity (though remaining completely in the realm of possibility) is not to make us like Dory, but to make us see something arcanely grotesque about the millennial generation and the privilege it has been so accustomed to despite the fact that it’s been revoked gradually since the advent of the 10s, with their “supremacy” ever-diminished as Gen Z ascends and people continue to lose interest in “narcissism porn.” Something Andy Warhol already mastered anyway via the conduit of Edie Sedgwick. But just because the audience has stopped watching doesn’t mean the millennial will stop performing. By this time, their mind has become so fractured that they can manufacture the existence of onlookers in their head (as Dory sort of does). Either that or just buy the followers to make them believe anyone cares about themselves as much as they do.
