As Adam Kotso puts it in his essay on awkwardness, “it’s difficult to deny that there are people who whom awkwardness is a kind of perverse skill, who bring it with them wherever they go,” defining this awkwardness as an action that is “inappropriate for a given context” (Kotso, 6). As Kotso explains, it’s this “everyday awkwardness” that is defined by a violation of our social conventions. I think I would characterize these moments as times when it’s not clear to move forward after them — if someone engages in something out of convention and one doesn’t know how to react, creating an awkward pause, or a perceived distance between the two.
White Lotus I think is an example of a show that benefits almost entirely from this “everyday awkwardness,” especially in the first season which is riddled with these awkward pauses and defiance of convention, though the conventions themselves are on a different level from reality due to the nature of the show. Tanya is obviously the greatest example of this level of everyday awkwardness because she has no regard for social convention. In this scene in particular, Shane and Rachel have been set up by Murray, the hotel manager, to go on this sunset cruise that Tanya has reserved to scatter her mother’s ashes. The scene has many levels — the emotional speech that Tanya gives to an audience that could not care less, the increasingly uncomfortable details that comes out of said speech, her crying to total strangers, culminate in a complete and utter state of awkwardness, made funnier by the serious manner in which the scene is shot and the music that doesn’t match the ridiculousness of the events played out. Though all the characters in the show are crazy in their own right, the awkwardness Tanya provides is so severe because of this innate disregard of social conventions, which the characters at least attempt to follow.
The context of spreading ashes in this scene reminds Bartuman’s idea that awkwardness is existential and universal. This characteristic makes it especially amusing in dealing with more overtly existential themes like mortality and can be oddly comforting. Cringe can be isolating, but I think there can also be a sort of affection for another we feel in awkward situations. Insofar as these situations are inherently social, we are reminded of the presence of community and perhaps the vulnerability and preciousness of humans as a whole with all our quirks and flaws as we each try and fail to navigate life. Awkward moments like these can be more tender than grating, and more about empathy than judgement.