Even when you have not seen Netflix’s “Inventing Anna” or Hulu’s “The Dropout,” likelihood is you’ve got stumbled onto a podcast dedicated to breaking down Anna Delvey (actual title Anna Sorokin)’s notorious cons or scrolled previous a TikTok or Twitter thread recounting disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes’s fraud case.
For about 4 years, from 2013 to 2017, Sorokin scammed nearly everybody she encountered to take care of the fake lavish life-style of a German heiress, from banks and motels to the buddies she met alongside the way in which. In the meantime, Holmes, the founding father of biotech firm Theranos, deceived buyers and sufferers for over a decade in regards to the viability of her blood-testing machine, the Edison, claiming it may run dozens of assessments on a single drop of blood. She raked in tens of millions in funding figuring out all alongside the know-how merely did not work.
Sorokin and Holmes have been convicted of fraud in 2019 and 2022, respectively, and their TV dramatizations adopted quickly after. Someplace between the discharge of Netflix’s “Inventing Anna” in February 2022 and Hulu’s “The Dropout” in March 2022, the way in which we view high-profile convicted con artists has seemingly been redefined. There’s been a rush to humanize these real-life scammers, and so they’ve someway been rebranded as gutsy and bold underdogs.
With every passing episode of “Inventing Anna” and “The Dropout,” we as viewers turn into increasingly obsessive about Sorokin and Holmes’s schemes, and much more so with seeing simply how far they might go earlier than getting caught. However the true fascinating side for me was how confidently the ladies believed they might get away with all of it. It is a confidence unfamiliar to me.
As a Black lady, I grew up being informed I would want to work twice as exhausting as anybody else simply to get my foot within the door professionally. Whereas ladies like Sorokin and Holmes are welcomed into areas primarily based on unrealized large concepts and hole charisma, 49 p.c of Black ladies really feel their race or ethnicity makes it more durable for them to get a elevate, promotion, or probability to get forward in comparison with simply three p.c of white ladies and 11 p.c of ladies general, in response to McKinsey & Firm’s 2020 report “The State of Black Girls in Company America.” The report additionally discovered that in comparison with white ladies, Black ladies are much less prone to have managers showcase their work, advocate for brand new alternatives for them, or give them alternatives to handle individuals and tasks. In “The Dropout,” Holmes’s rival, Richard Fuisz (William H. Macy), sheds mild on this disparity, explicitly providing a easy rationalization for why Holmes was in a position to get thus far regardless of lack of expertise or precise outcomes: “As a result of she’s fairly and blond.”
For Sorokin, social media and “woman boss” tradition performs an integral function in her schemes, and it is apparent how we as viewers and followers turn into minor characters in her elaborate tales. From the very starting, Sorokin makes use of Instagram to assist craft her false persona, posting pictures of extravagant weekends and journeys abroad with mates. An Instagram account devoted to Sorokin’s lavish courtroom apparel was created even after her indictment. You will discover posts like “Queen” and “Iconic” between fireplace emojis within the feedback part. At present, the influencer-turned-convict has collected a million followers along with the earnings she obtained from the Netflix collection. And though not each remark provides reward, even the important feedback equate to engagement that contributes to her continued relevancy. The extra we dangle on to her each publish, the extra we feed into the scheme.
Fake feminism was an integral a part of Holmes’s schemes. Ana Arriola (Nicky Endres) leaves her function at Apple to affix Theranos after seeing a little bit of herself in Holmes, however when Arriola discovers Holmes’s lies in regards to the Edison and confronts her, Holmes chooses to double down as a substitute of addressing Arriola’s issues. The choice does not coincide with the women-helping-other-women narrative Holmes peddled earlier within the collection, when as a sophomore at Stanford school, she pitches one in every of her concepts to Dr. Phyllis Gardner and pleads together with her to get on board within the title of feminism. Dr. Gardner responds, “As a girl, let me clarify one thing to you: you aren’t getting to skip any steps. You need to do the work.”
It is a highly effective sentiment that finally ends up getting misplaced, nevertheless. Because the present progresses and Holmes makes an attempt to launch Theranos, she is portrayed as an underdog attempting to make it in a cutthroat, male-dominated business. We nearly consider Holmes is simply doing what she must do — faking it till she makes it — as a result of how else would the sexist males on the high take her, a girl, critically? How else may she revolutionize the healthcare business? However in actuality, whereas that is definitely many ladies’s expertise, it wasn’t Holmes’s. It wasn’t her gender that was scaring away buyers, however her empty guarantees and grossly underdeveloped and unrealistic tech. When Dr. Gardner says, “As a girl, I can not work with you,” it isn’t as a result of she’s antifeminist. It is as a result of she is aware of Holmes’s overconfidence and privilege has led her to consider her personal delusions of grandeur and that Holmes would finally find yourself doing ladies in biotech a disservice. By the tip of the collection, we be taught that ladies who come after Holmes have an much more troublesome time rising within the medical business on account of her fraudulent enterprise practices. They’re even inspired to dye their hair a distinct coloration in the event that they resemble her.
All of those elements contribute to why audiences empathize with Sorokin and Holmes and why we discover ourselves believing we’re rooting for the underdog. However it’s essential to recollect Sorokin and Holmes weren’t underdogs. Past their tantalizing scammer tales are the true victims of their crimes and the trustworthy professionals they trampled to get forward. We should take into account why Hollywood is so fast to glamorize these scammers, even rewarding them for his or her crimes with tons of of hundreds of {dollars}.
For the reason that February 2022 launch of “The Tinder Swindler,” Netflix has introduced plans to adapt the documentary into yet one more dramatization of a scammer’s story. Solely time will inform if Hollywood will spend as a lot time humanizing con man Shimon Hayut as they did Sorokin and Holmes, or if the very fact he is an Israeli man who conned white ladies will change the tone. As a result of possibly sympathy just isn’t assured for all scammers, however only for those who’re fairly, white, and blond.
Regardless of the case could also be, after we do not adequately condemn the hurt scammers trigger, we proceed to help within the immortalization and glamorization of their wrongdoings and welcome others in related positions of privilege to do the identical.
