A sequel to the celebrated Knives Out film, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery has found steady and growing popularity on Netflix. The film peaked at number one among the most watched movies on the platform, for the week of January 1, despite notably low promotional efforts and a minimal theatrical run. Daniel Craig reprises his role as detective Benoit Blanc, alongside Kate Hudson, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Jannelle Monáe, and more. This film is written less like a classic whodunnit than the way the first film was, and more so like a dramedy/thriller. Monáe stars as both of the Bland twins, Helen and Cassandra, as Helen searches to uncover Cassandra’s killer among her obnoxious former possé.
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She elicits the help of renowned sleuth Benoit Blanc, and the two set off to Greece to begin their investigation. Like Knives Out, Glass Onion gives us humorous but layered characters with amusing storylines that double as societal commentary. In Knives Out, the Thrombey family served as a representation of greed among the “one percent”, and the sort of performative love that the liberal wealthy can dote on marginalized communities, such as the immigrant family of Marta Cabrera, until it is no longer in their best interests to do so. Glass Onion also tackles the dark side of wealth in its characterization of Miles Bron, a controversial and manipulative billionaire orchestrating the lives of his entourage. Though the commentary on modern billionaires was intentional, the similarities between Miles Bron and real-life billionaire Elon Musk apparently were not. Let’s dive into some of the parallels between the fictional and real-life tycoons.
They Love Kanye
Lionsgate
Though it is never openly mentioned in the film, Glass Onion features a huge mural of Kanye West depicted in a Christ-like fashion in the Greek home of Miles Bron. The now disgraced rapper looms over the cast within the same walls that are housing the arguably unethically acquired original MonaLisa. Of course, the writers of Glass Onion could never have predicted at the time of filming that West would go on to publicly defend Adolf Hitler, spew anti-Semitic rhetoric, and hand out racially and politically controversial t-shirts to the homeless (thus putting these individuals at greater risk). Nevertheless, the rapper has a long history of abrasive takes, problematic philosophies, and dangerous actions, such as his bizarre 2020 presidential campaign after years of sporting a MAGA hat. The mural is decidedly fitting for the characterization of Miles Bron as a nonconforming contrarian who isn’t really as revolutionary or outside-the-box as he thinks he is.
Elon Musk is something of a contrarian himself. The tech mogul never shies away from making his opinions known. For instance, at the onset of the 2020 pandemic, he tweeted “Coronavirus panic is dumb”. Coming from anyone else, this un-elegant declaration would be just another forgotten, if at all noticed, hot take in the endless vortex of online opinions; because it is coming from an accomplished businessman in the world of science and technology, however, his word holds weight as millions of followers and fans latch onto his ideas as objective truth. Musk’s controversial stances are inclusive of, but not limited to, support of Kanye West—among others. Following his over forty-billion dollar acquisition of Twitter and subsequent tenure as CEO, Musk reinstated the Twitter accounts of various notorious public figures that had previously been banned for spreading harmful and/or false information. Kanye West was among the reinstated accounts, with Musk furthermore extending an invitation to former President Donald Trump, who declined to re-join the social media platform. In fact, extending an invitation to Trump was a surprising gesture considering what the former president had to say about Musk:
“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, “drop to your knees and beg,” and he would have done it…”
Nevertheless, Musk was eager to reinstate these figures in accordance with his “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” approach to the platform, allowing users to vote on these decisions. Despite his initial laissez-faire approach to content regulation, even Musk had to eventually reign the controversial rapper in. After West tweeted out a Swastika, Elon Musk decided to once again strip the musician of his account access.
Champions of Controversial Ideologies
In Glass Onion, Miles Bron is the proud sponsor of Duke Cody, a men’s rights mouthpiece and NRA champion Twitch Streamer and YouTuber. Upon the group’s arrival to Greece, we get to know Miles Bron’s motivations through a monologue in which he touts his crew as a band of “disrupters”, boasting that this is a group of people who are unafraid to shake things up by saying the unpopular truth. As Helen (then posing as her sister Cassandra) points out, this “red pill” ideology is all smoke in mirrors, and the billionaire’s inner circle is really a flagrantly ignorant band of opportunists.
If Elon Musk was a part of the fictional world of Glass Onion, he would likely identify with the self-proclaimed disrupters. Musk has long been known to proudly declare his views, often on Twitter, which have often been criticized as misogynistic rhetoric or downright bullying. Some such instances include:
“In case u need to lose a b*ner fast”, as a caption to a photo he tweeted of Bill Gates.
“Pronouns suck”.
“Take the red pill”.
Last but not least, he infamously called the divers in the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue “pedos” because they pointed out that his idea to send a submarine to fetch the trapped boys would not work.
A look at Elon Musk’s Twitter replies further highlights the dangerous subcultures that thrive under his wing. Far right extremists, Andrew Tate aficionados, climate change deniers, blatant misogynists, transphobes, and incels are just a few of the communities that tend to set up camp beneath any Elon Musk— often replying with the Pepe the Frog and stick figure iFunny-style memes that have become synonymous with far right meme culture.
Frivolous Spending
Netflix
What billionaires should do with their money is a debated issue. Some strongly believe that what anyone does with their money, even if it is sums that exceed the GDP of small nations, is entirely up to the individual’s discretion. Supporters of this idea argue that it comes down to a matter of personal freedom. Contrastingly, many feel that not only should the mega-wealthy pay their fair share in taxes relative to their net worths, but that the hoarding of mass amounts of wealth is a fundamentally unethical practice. Subscribers to the latter ideas have long criticized billionaires such as Elon Musk for what they perceive to be unethical and unjust wealth. Many argue that Musk’s vast net worth could enable him to solve global issues such as world hunger while still having enough money leftover to be tremendously wealthy, thus making the absence of such donations and efforts an affront to humanity. Should we feed the hungry, or make rockets to take humans to Mars?
Should we even bother trying to go to Mars when our own planet stands at the brink of a climate disaster and a possible mass extinction event? These questions remain hotly debated. The fictional Miles Bron is similarly subject to this sort of criticism. The very setting of the film is an egregious display of massive wealth, with the Glass Onion structure Bron calls home serving as a vain exhibit of excess. Bron even boasts that he is wealthy enough to have acquired the MonaLisa during the pandemic as collateral for a large loan. The artificial sanctuary of the billionaire is entirely out of touch with and removed from the realities of everyday life for common people.
Debates on Qualifications
As the film comes to a close, detective Benoit Blanc scathingly exposes Miles Bron for the fraud that he is. Bron was not the mastermind behind Alpha, but rather Cassandra Bland was. He repeatedly speaks on topics he is not educated in and misuses big words in attempts to sound intellectual. Most importantly, his new hydrogen fuel technology is dangerously volatile. In his desperation to disrupt the global order and be lauded as a global hero and leader, Bron ignores multiple warnings and insists on releasing the new technology to the public.
Similarly, Musk has been accused of not providing the quality of products and services he claims to. Tesla vehicles have caused a stir on account of fire hazards and significant trouble with their self-driving features. Upon his acquisition of Twitter, tech experts began to point out the flaws in his plans to restructure the company, claiming that the new software and coding for the platform will inevitably lead to the app and website’s collapse.
Twitter may be spared from this erroneous re-engineering effort, as Musk’s time as CEO is allegedly coming to a close. After running a Twitter poll asking users if he should step down as CEO, promising to abide by the results of the poll, the majority voted “yes”. Musk has stated that he will resign upon finding a suitable replacement, furthermore clarifying that in the future, only Twitter Blue subscribers will be eligible to vote in such polls.
