![]() ![]() While LuLaRich tells an adequately compelling story about the predatory, absorbing nature of MLMs, it’s less adept at analyzing the paradoxes of the demographic they successfully lure into their networks-religious, middle-class white women and stay-at-home mothers, particularly military wives and Mormon women in Utah where there are the most MLMs per capita. “By the time we learn that DeAnne was pressuring women to fly to Tijuana to get weight-loss surgery, it feels like the only logical direction the increasingly whacky series could go in.” Do we really need to see a clip of Charlie and Grandpa Joe singing “(I’ve Got A) Golden Ticket” from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory after Schultz uses the metaphor of a golden ticket? I’m not sure the audience needs a pan on a Barbie doll as Jill Filipovic reads from the how-to book DeAnne’s mother authored on being a traditionally feminine woman. Additionally, the series’ visual cues can sometimes feel heavy-handed. By the time we learn that DeAnne was pressuring women to fly to Tijuana to get weight-loss surgery, it feels like the only logical direction the increasingly whacky series could go in. Viewers who aren’t privy to the LuLaRoe story but enjoy the subgenre of scammer documentaries will immediately recognize if not predict many of the series’ farcical beats and devices, particularly in the cartoonishly bro-y character of the company’s former event coordinator Sam Schultz, the celebrity cameos, and the cultish portrayal of the business. Much like their approach to the 2019 documentary Fyre Fraud, LuLaRich’s’ co-directors Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason construct a fascinating but familiar tale utilizing an assortment of baffling testimonies from former LuLaRoe retailers, employees and members of the Stidham family who served in executive roles, insights from cultural and business experts, pop culture clips, deposition footage and a central interview with DeAnne and Mark, whose megachurch-pastor charisma and startling Mormon values (they gleefully share that two of their children, who are not biologically related, are married) will certainly memorialize them alongside the Joe Exotics and Billy McFarlands that have captured the nation’s attention over the past two years. From receiving poorly designed and even moldy clothing they couldn’t return to paying out-of-pocket expenses to attend mandatory conferences, the American dream they bought into for hundreds of thousands of dollars was slipping away, prompting the mobilization of aggrieved employees on Facebook and the company’s inevitable fall from grace. After 20-plus years of re-selling dresses, she and her second husband Mark started a maxi-dress business that went viral on Facebook and connected them with the first woman to buy into their stock, installing the MLM or direct-sales business model and launching LuLaRoe in 2013.Īfter experiencing a few years of high demand, lucrative bonus checks and employee perks, LuLaRoe’s earliest and most senior saleswomen began experiencing the company’s downsides. In 1988, Utah native DeAnne Stidham began selling dresses she bought at the local swap meet, hosting Tupperware-like parties in her home. ![]() Ripe for serialization in our scammer-obsessed times, LuLaRich tells the story of billion-dollar fashion retailer LuLaRoe-not to be confused with Lululemon, Lulus or Laila Rowe-a multi-level marketing company known primarily for its mammoth collection of flashy, patterned leggings and, since 2017, defective clothing, a series of lawsuits, and charges from the state of Washington that they operated as a pyramid scheme. Today, Amazon delivers the latest entry into this canon, a four-part docuseries called LuLaRich that doesn’t so much focus on the rise and fall of one singular girlboss but portrays the ease and effectiveness of selling this empowerment fantasy to a particular subset of millennial women. ![]() Recently, authors, journalists and filmmakers have participated in this exercise to varying results-and sometimes inadvertently-illustrating the universal persuasion of wealth and power and skewering the shallow rewards of representational politics. As a number of female industry leaders exit their roles for perpetuating toxic work environments and some even face trial in federal court for alleged fraud and conspiracy, the liberal assumption that women operating capitalist structures can radically transform corporate culture and enhance the lives of average working women is slowly being put to rest.Īs with any cultural object that’s lost its shine, it’s instinctual to want to retrace the steps that brought us to this unified place of fatigue and skepticism. By now, you’ve heard that the reign of the girlboss is over. ![]()
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