Duke University may not be keen on its portrayal in season three of The White Lotus, but its students seem to share a different sentiment about the show.
On Feb. 16, HBO viewers were introduced to the Ratliff family, a quintet of dramatized North Carolinians who seem plagued by a century-long rivalry — that of Duke versus its neighboring school, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As matriarch Victoria Ratliff (Parker Posey) explains in the premiere, “I was also a [UNC] Tar Heel, but [husband] Timothy went to Duke. [Son] Saxon graduated Duke. [Son] Lachlan, our youngest, just got accepted to both. So, you can imagine it’s a whole thing.” While the resort staff and vacationers were actually unaware of the competitiveness lying between Duke and UNC, it’s a theme that remained a prominent storyline for the Ratliffs, and one that their students know all too well.
Nayeli Chowdhury, a Duke doctoral physical therapy student, told The Hollywood Reporter that “there was definitely a level of excitement with my friends and people in the program” when her school was introduced in the HBO show’s first episode. “I was excited to hear about it, and it was nice to hear about the Duke [and] UNC rivalry, since I know it so well,” she added.
As the episodes released, Blue Devil sophomore Olivia Prusky found it “super interesting” that her school’s “image was splashed across the show so controversially,” specifically when Jason Isaacs’ character, Timothy Ratliff, a fictional Duke alumni, contemplates suicide and holds a gun to his head while wearing a T-shirt with the school’s logo.
The moment birthed a slew of memes, mostly centered around Duke’s fate in the NCAA basketball championship this year. One X post elicited a grave response, garnering more than 3 million views, prompting Duke to release an official statement in a direct reply to a social post condemning the use of the imagery in jest.
In a statement shared with THR, Frank Tramble, Duke’s vp communications, marketing and public affairs, said “Duke University did not approve the use of its marks in The White Lotus” while condemning the show’s “imagery that is troubling, does not reflect our values or who we are, and simply goes too far.”
After watching episode six, Duke sophomore Alex Berkman said, he immediately knew the image would be repurposed into an online joke.
“My first reaction, outside of it being a pretty horrifying scene, was, ‘Well, this is going to turn into a pretty funny meme,’” he admitted. “This is going to be used as a number of memes, let’s say, if Duke goes on to lose in the Final Four,” which is exactly what happened Saturday night.
After Duke lost its Final Four game against the Houston Cougars, a slew of memes of the graphic scene circulated online — a move both Chowdhury and Berkman saw coming. “We knew we would see that picture a bunch of times,” Chowdhury added. “We just knew it would be talked about.”
Just as the White Lotus guests misunderstood the weight of the rivalry between Duke and UNC to North Carolina natives, the series creator’s likely didn’t mean to birth a problematic meme. Still, Prusky doesn’t think the show taints her school’s image.
“I think that our reputation stands on its own,” she said. “I think Duke is known for being intellectually [and] culturally diverse, and I think that reputation we’ve built over time has its own foundations and legs.”
While seeing your university represented in one of the most popular TV shows can be jarring, the school’s response to the suicidal ideation scene also took some of the students aback. “It was definitely surprising to see the university’s response,” Prusky said. “It was something I didn’t really expect.” While the college issued a public response opposing the controversial White Lotus scene, Berkman, Chowdhury and Prusky do not recall Duke directly reaching out to students with resources.
Berkman believes that while the show dealt with “very sensitive material,” the university releasing its statement “br[ought] more attention to Duke than they probably would have wanted.” He added, “The statement doesn’t actually do anything. … I think Duke was so concerned that it was going to give us a bad reputation, that’s why they released a statement.”
On the flipside, Duke alum and entertainment lawyer Merlyne Jean-Louis thinks the school “absolutely had to say something” to protect their “very strong brand.” Despite the eyes their response drew, Jean-Louis noted that she doesn’t “think Duke is going to actually take legal action against the producers of White Lotus or HBO” and that they rather put out a public statement “to cover their bases for the brand.”
“People have been saying that Duke could have used [their statement] for different purposes, but I’m sure that the Duke Council spoke to the powers-that-be at Duke and came up with the best strategy for that,” she added.
Even though Duke lost out in its Final Four match and the university isn’t over the moon about its representation in The White Lotus, it certainly hasn’t swayed their loyal Blue Devils.
“To me, it’s never that serious,” Berkman concluded. “It’s television — it’s really high-quality television.”