“The White Lotus” is currently airing its most risqué season to date, so it’s no surprise that a prestigious university like Duke wants no part of it.
In episode six, Jason Isaacs‘s gun-stealing, lorazepam popping business mogul, Timothy Ratliff, contemplates killing his wife, played by Parkey Posey, and himself to avoid inevitable jail time for shady business dealings. This was all done while wearing a t-shirt from his alma mater, Duke. After the episode aired, the university’s vice president for communications, marketing and public affairs, Frank Tramble, told The New York Times that the Blue Devils do not want to be associated with “The White Lotus.”
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“Duke appreciates artistic expression and creative storytelling,” Tramble wrote in an email, “but characters prominently wearing apparel bearing Duke’s federally registered trademarks creates confusion and mistakenly suggests an endorsement or affiliation where none exists.”
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Tramble emphasized that the Mike White drama “not only uses our brand without permission, but in our view uses it on imagery that is troubling, does not reflect our values or who we are, and simply goes too far.”
This isn’t the first time Isaacs has drawn controversy surrounding his “White Lotus” role. The actor appeared nude in this season’s third episode, and on March 14, Isaacs was asked whether or not he was using a prosthetic. Isaacs delivered an answer that would quickly be labeled controversial. He said there is a “double standard for men,” and that journalists would never dream about asking “The Substance” star Margaret Qualley about “her genitalia or her nipples or any of those things.”
A few days later, Isaacs took back the comments. He told Variety, “I said the wrong words in the wrong way. I used the phrase ‘double standard,’ which I didn’t mean at all. There is a [different] double standard — women have been monstrously exploited and men haven’t.”
