The series goes to great lengths to tell us (but never really show us) how sexism, elitism, and inequality are barriers that keep regular folks from ever becoming rich. Inventing Anna wants that same result, but with half the work. Hustlers, which was also written by Pressler for New York magazine, operated as a critique against capitalism and the hollowness of the American Dream, showing how a particular group of seemingly powerless women maneuvered through the 2008 financial crisis that threatened to swallow them whole. The show almost seems to be capitalizing on the Robin Hood spirit of Hustlers, the 2019 hit movie about a cabal of strippers who, with the aid of some illicit drugs, roofied their banker clients and maxed out their credit cards. Delvey does the things she does, we’re told, because she’s a product shaped by society’s ills - narcissism, sexism, capitalism, all the -isms - coupled with the knowledge that the game of wealth is rigged, stacked against all of us. Its failure is in the framing of Delvey’s story: It’s depicted as a quasi-feminist, girlboss-adjacent revenge fantasy. The show certainly provides indulgence (if maybe not enough for my taste). Sadly, though, Inventing Anna, isn’t as good as its poster. While carrying home my overpriced salads, I’d fantasize about indulging in the show, watching someone scam their way into luxury and guzzle down all that champagne. The poster tactic was downright ingenious, as far as I was concerned, since it was located directly on my daily lunchtime walk. It was a well-chosen marketing tool Delvey’s story, which was first reported in New York magazine in 2018 by journalist Jessica Pressler, focuses heavily on the ways Delvey financially terrorized New York’s most stylish hotels and socialites. Next to it was an equally large poster of star Julia Garner as Delvey, with a line proclaiming in all caps: “SPENT $36,000 ON A SINGLE DINNER. The bill included, among other things, three bottles of Dom Perignon totaling $6,300, five bottles of Domaine Ponsot at $9,750, 12 orders of a dozen oysters each which cost $288, and four orders of foie gras at $240. In the weeks leading up to the premiere of Inventing Anna, a nine-part series about the ersatz heiress Anna Delvey, Netflix’s marketing team posted a giant receipt on one of the perimeter walls of the Gansevoort Hotel.
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