The Riches: Using Symbols to Create Identity

The Riches is an FX original American television series that focuses on a family of Irish Traveller con artists. The family consists of the parents, Dahlia and Wayne Malloy, and their children, Di Di, Cael, and Sam. At the beginning of the series, the Malloy family is escaping from a botched Traveller clan reunion in an RV. While on the road, the Malloy family gets into an altercation and RV chase with another Traveller family. During the chase, the Malloys accidentally kill another family travelling on the road: the eponymous Riches.

It turns out that the Riches were just on their way to move into a new neighborhood in Baton Rouge, LA. They also happen to have all their personal items with them, including identification documents. Wayne convinces the family to assume the identity of the Riches. The shows follow their attempts to blend in in an extremely wealthy community and keep their stolen identities a secret 

The Malloys went from this...

...to this

The family pick up the semiotic codes of the wealthy in order to create a new identity for themselves in their new environment. Owning "a beautiful wife", "a multi-million dollar home" and "a fancy car" are outward signs of wealth. However, semiotic codes are manifested in subtle things as well, such as hobbies. For example, when Dahlia tests her daughter on her hobbies, her daughter's "hobbies" include fencing, skiing, racquetball  and sex/chess. The semiotics codes are a conduit through which differences in power and hierarchy are communicated. Travellers in The Riches call everyone who is not a traveller a "buffer", which essentially denotes them as a law-abiding citizen and an easy mark for a con-artist. The difference in hierarchy can be seen in the slang that travellers use and the language the Malloy family encounter in their new lifestyle, among other things.

Their travails show how class differences are socially constructed; their ability to de-construct the wealthy lifestyle and re-incorporate the codes they find into their own behavior show how human efforts can overcome initial structural conditions. Wayne's desire to keep the new, high-class lifestyle he conned his way into symbolizes the desire of the lower class or the middle class to achieve a higher status. Wayne's optimism that "we can make [their con] real" symbolizes the American dream to achieve the class status you want by adopting the semiotic codes of the class position you desire to have.