Quinn Mossbacher quotes from The White Lotus

Mark Mossbacher

Being a man, being a young man... in this time right now, can't be easy.

Quinn Mossbacher

Why? 'Cause we can't harass girls anymore?

Mark Mossbacher

No. Well, yeah.

Olivia Mossbacher

Dad, what's wrong with you?

Nicole Mossbacher

Your father got some very upsetting news last night.

Olivia Mossbacher

He does have cancer?

Nicole Mossbacher

No. He doesn't have cancer. He found out something about his father that he never knew before.

Olivia Mossbacher

I'm listening.

Nicole Mossbacher

Your grandfather died of AIDS.

Paula

How did he get AIDS?

Nicole Mossbacher

Apparently, Paula, he was having sex with other men.

Quinn Mossbacher

Who was?

Nicole Mossbacher

Your dad's dad.

Quinn Mossbacher

Why?

Olivia Mossbacher

Because he liked it. Why else? He was probably closeted.

Paula

Or bisexual.

Olivia Mossbacher

Dad, why are you so upset, though? You're like catatonic.

Nicole Mossbacher

Well, it was a secret that was kept from him his entire life, Liv. So now, whatever image he had of his father, of his childhood, has been pulverized.

Olivia Mossbacher

You know, he was probably a bottom. That's how you mostly get it. Receiving. Dad, do you feel like your father was less of a man or something?

Paula

He might have not been gay. A lot of straight guys like ass-play.

Olivia Mossbacher

Yeah! Maybe he was just too embarrassed to ask Grandma to use a dildo on him.

Quinn Mossbacher

Oh, Jesus!

Mark Mossbacher

Can we not, please? Uh...

Olivia Mossbacher

Even if he wasn't a top, it doesn't mean he was femme. He could've still been butch, Dad.

Paula

Maybe he was a bossy bottom.

Olivia Mossbacher

Yeah, maybe Grandpa was a power bottom. [to her dad] Does that make you feel better?

Mark Mossbacher

No. That makes me wanna throw up.

Mark Mossbacher

Are you gay?

Quinn Mossbacher

No.

Mark Mossbacher

Hey. 'Cause if you are, it's okay. Just, like, be real.

Quinn Mossbacher

I am being real.

Mark Mossbacher

What's real is... like, gay, straight, whatever, we're just monkeys, we're just fucking monkeys.

Quinn Mossbacher

Yeah?

Mark Mossbacher

Yeah. Yeah, we're just animals. I mean, you know, we wanna be, like... superheroes and respectable fathers and pillars in our communities, whatever, but, but in fact, we're just monkeys... living in our own little monkey pods, driven by base instincts to create these hierarchies and hump each other. I thought I knew my father, you know? I only knew the part that he wanted me to see. He hid the monkey, and that screwed me up, Quinn.

Quinn Mossbacher

You think that's what did it?

Mark Mossbacher

Yeah, definitely. Hey, I thought... My whole life, I thought I was the flawed child of an icon. Like, I put him on this, like, enormous pedestal. Meanwhile, like, he's off in some bathhouse on the DL, getting manhandled by some... like, random dudes. Wow. Oh, I wish I had known.

Quinn Mossbacher

I'm sorry.

Mark Mossbacher

Yeah. But I get it. I mean, you know, you don't want your kid thinking you're some sex-crazed lunatic.

Nicole Mossbacher

And what's your system of belief, Olivia? Not capitalism. Not socialism. So just cynicism?

Quinn Mossbacher

What does it matter what we think? If we think the right things or the wrong things? We all do the same shit. We're all still parasites on the Earth. There's no virtuous person when we're all eating the last fish and throwing all our plastic crap in the ocean.