There is something incessantly fascinating about the story of a con artist. In particular a con artist who is also a woman. There are so many questions that are begging to be answered in the stories of both Anna Delvey (depicted in Netflix' drama series, Inventing Anna) and Elizabeth Holmes (depicted in Disney+'s drama series, The Dropout).
How delusional are these women? Are they severely misled and impacted by a series of unfortunate events to get to where they are? How much can we blame those around them for the damage done? Or is that my internalised mysogny not believing that women would be capable of doing these things on their own? There is, I think, a real mysoginist toxicity to society's judgment of women like Delvey and Holmes that I think would not exist if these women were men, and yet they still are both also damnable for their wrongs.
If you haven't seen the shows I'll be talking about, both Inventing Anna and The Dropout are based on the true stories of Anna Delvey and Elizabeth Holmes - two of the most famous female con-artists of recent times. These two women are almost polar opposite in so many ways, and yet their central pillar of lies and deceipt remains the same.
Anna Delvey - endeeringly labelled the 'Soho grifter' - posed as a German heiress in New York despite actually being a penniless Russian emigrant, born as Anna Sorokin. Delvey was the walking definition of the "fake it 'til you make it" catchphrase that so many live by nowadays. The difference with Anna was that she took it further than most would even dare to imagine. Delvey was known to live the high life, but also was known to leave her peers to pay her bills at restaurants and parties. She paid for everything in cash, and continued promising paybacks to her friends which never materialised. By the end of her scamming life, Delvey was charged with a $300,000 theft as well as the attempted theft of $22 million; 10 counts of theft, larceny, attempted theft, and attempted larceny.
The story of the scammer-celebrity is one that really got its claws into the lives of so many people. People waited with baited breath to hear the verdict for Anna, and I think there is something depressingly insidious about that even though I am one of those people. There is a fascination with scammers that makes people wonder 'how did they manage it?' while also condemming them for their actions. The problem with Anna is that the driving motivation behind her scam was, in my opinion, two dimensional.
The crass atmosphere of the Netflix show reflects this, and there is a kind of self-awareness to the glitz and glam of the show that in some ways works perfectly, but also makes it difficult to watch critically. So, now I've put my thoughts out about Inventing Anna and persuaded you that it's not really worth your time, I would like to bring your attention to the story of Elizabeth Holmes, depicted in The Dropout.
Elizabeth Holmes was the founder of the medical-wellness company Theranos, who claimed to have technology that would rewrite what it meant to test blood, and provide medical diagnoses with 'just one drop'. Holmes was a hero, and was heralded as such. But rumours of fraud began circling and she was quickly toppled from her seat at the high table.
The difference here starts with motivation, and the television show's exploration of it. Delvey's motivation is never truly explored in Inventing Anna, while Holmes' motivation to be somebody, to contribute to the bettering of the world, is always the crux of her actions in The Dropout. In many ways, this is perhaps why Holmes story seems to break more hearts than Delvey's. People like people who are trying to do good, and it is perhaps possible to believe that Holmes was a good person trying to do good, but who got caught up in the rollercoaster along the way.
Amanda Seyfried's character study on Holmes is utterly glorious. You can really see her go through the motions of changing herself from the quiet, scruffy scientist girl, to the almost-there CEO woman. It never quite fully works, and Seyfriend's stellar acting job is one of the central reasons that we are able to see the subtleties in Holmes' story. We see Holmes fighting to compete with men throughout her life, and dealing with the tech bros that surround her in Silicon Valley becomes a key component of her battle. These are all things that I desperately want to support. In a lot of ways Holmes' story is a success story - the only thing wrong is that the tech she was selling didn't quite work. In her delusional fight for success she was willing to overlook the vital fact that the technology she was developing had never been proved to work - and the fallout for that was dangerous to everybody.
The Dropout is a show that keeps you in the story, keeps you entertained but also keeps you hooked and needing to find out how and why everything happened the way it did. In comparison, Inventing Anna was a dive into the glamour of being a celebrity, and that's why I think the show is two-dimensional when it's held side by side with the story of Delvey's scammer counterpart, Elizabeth Holmes. Maybe it says more about me than it says about them. Inventing Anna is available to watch now on Netflix, but more importantly The Dropout is available now on Disney +. Choose your fighter, but there is a right answer.
Until next time,
Alice xoxo
Comments