Entertainment against alternatives

The Subversive Narrative of "Steal"

The Tehran Times article dissects the miniseries "Steal," asserting that its seemingly anti-capitalist premise—a crime-thriller focused on financial corruption and inequality—is a deceptive veneer. The author, Kurosh Alyani, contends that the show's ultimate message is to shore up the very "war-driven capitalist order" it purports to critique. This is achieved through specific narrative choices that manipulate audience perception and moral judgment.

The analysis points to the rapid production and release of "Steal," noting its announcement and filming in May 2024, followed by its premiere in January 2026. This timeline is deemed significant, especially when juxtaposed with the fictional "Israel’s war against Iran" and subsequent US involvement, which the article states began in June 2025. The author suggests this temporal alignment indicates a deliberate political messaging embedded within the series' construction.

The "Epstein Class" and Moral Absolution

A central argument of the critique revolves around the concept of the "Epstein class," which the article defines not as a small circle around Jeffrey Epstein, but as a transnational network of politicians, capitalists, bankers, war brokers, military figures, media operators, and celebrities. This class, according to Alyani, is linked by money, power, war, and entertainment. The series is accused of using the character Milo Carter-Walsh as a sacrificial figure to embody this class.

Milo, despite being the most developed representation of this powerful elite, is ultimately killed off and presented as a middle-ranking mastermind. His death, the article argues, serves to absorb the audience's moral outrage, thereby allowing the true financial, political, security, and war-making network behind him to remain intact and recede from scrutiny. This narrative device effectively absolves the broader "Epstein class" by focusing blame on an individual, whose demise then closes the moral ledger.

Caricaturing Resistance and Alternatives

The article reserves its sharpest criticism for the portrayal of Darren Yoshida, a character intended to represent radical thinkers and leaders of resistance. Yoshida, who speaks of inequality, tax havens, and systemic failures, is depicted as a "sloganistic, fleshless" figure, lacking human presence or developed personality. His methods, reminiscent of clandestine networks and long-term planning, are likened to "Gaza’s tunnel-based sovereignty," symbolizing an alternative, hidden order.

However, the series, according to the critique, combines these revolutionary ideals and figures into Yoshida only to condemn him. He is dismissed as "juvenile, naïve, and responsible for the deaths of others," without being given the narrative depth necessary for the audience to take his ideas seriously. This caricaturing, the article concludes, effectively discredits and delegitimizes genuine resistance movements and intellectual alternatives, leaving individual theft as the only perceived rational response to systemic injustice.