There's a critique of capitalism in there and, spoiler alert, capitalism doesn't come off looking great. If one cared to argue that Holmes needed the money she embezzled to continue developing the technology that she claimed to have but didn't, you'd just have to look at the ostentatious offices that Theranos inhabited to see that this wasn't the case. It was the appearance of success, not success itself, that Holmes coveted.
I wouldn't say the series empathises with its subject but it does acknowledge that before she became embroiled in the biggest scam in medical tech history she was just a very bright teenager with a delusional level of ambition. Once, when I was a teenager, I had a delusional belief in my driving skills and rear-ended another vehicle in Mt Eden village while on my restricted licence. When the insurance company asked if I had passengers in the car, I lied. I felt sick about it for days and ended up returning to their office and telling the truth. The Dropout is riveting viewing, but no number of bedroom dancing scenes or mirror pep-talks could make me understand how Holmes could live with herself through the fraudulent rise of Theranos.
HE SAW
Should Elizabeth Holmes ever have time to watch The Dropout - on top of reading, listening to and watching the hundreds of other media depictions and representations of her bizarre, sociopathic and fraudulent efforts to build a billion-dollar empire by taking blood from people's fingers instead of their arms - it would be nice to think she would be embarrassed, but if the show is at all accurate, she won't be. "I don't feel things the way other people feel things," she says in an early episode, which, if true, goes some way to explaining how and why she screwed over so many of those close to her in pursuit of her goal, which, apparently, was to resemble, as closely as possible, Steve Jobs.
We're halfway through the series before we see her wearing the black turtleneck that Jobs made famous as his uniform and she subsequently adopted as hers but by then we've also heard her talk about wanting to be Jobs and seen her jumping up and down punching the air while waiting in line to buy her first iPhone. We've seen her desperation to have a world-changing idea like Jobs and to drop out of college like Jobs.
We immediately and justifiably have some concerns about this because we understand that imitating famous megalomaniacs is no way to build a worthwhile life. Still, Jobs got things done and so does she, even though what he got done was the creation of the smartphone and what she gets done is the destruction of many relationships and the ruination of many livelihoods.
After we'd watched the first four episodes, I told Zanna I thought the show was cartoonish, which she said was unfair, and we had a little argument about it until I realised she thought I meant "hammy" when what I actually meant was "funny".
When we like a person, and when we invest in them large amounts of feeling or cash, we are prepared to ignore or overlook things about them that would otherwise annoy us, like their tendency to start arguments unnecessarily or their willingness to exploit us to build a billion-dollar business despite not having a working product. Sometimes this pays off for us, sometimes it leaves us embarrassed. Nobody wants to be made to look like a sucker. Holmes' sentencing is set down for September. My marriage to Zanna continues.
The Dropout is now streaming on Disney+.
