2023-05-25 11:00:05
In 2021, a profile of the New Yorker about actor Jeremy Strong, who plays Kendall Roy, went viral, in part because a classmate of his from Yale mocked him for having a “career drive.” In response, I wrote about the contempt that wealthy middle-class people often feel for those who try to rise above their position, especially when they make it clear that they, too, are interested in money and power.
In theory, America loves fighters, people who start small and, with hard work and determination, succeed. In practice, it is a country where people who have overcome enormous difficulties to get here are met with hostility, where people who work various minimum-wage jobs are shamed if they also need help from the government, and where the poor tell them to learn to code as if the idea of training for white-collar jobs simply never occurred to them. We Americans think we love brave people who make it on their own. What we really like is money and power, period. In a way, we believe that having them indicates that you deserve them.
That is another fundamental belief that Succession deftly debunks: the idea that the rich are somehow better, smarter, more competent. The Roy kids aren’t particularly competent, and they certainly aren’t any more competent than Tom. They fumble, they do stupid things, and—with the exception of a few witty remarks—they don’t show any special or remarkable intelligence.
It’s a kind of clumsiness we don’t often see in the real world, as money also keeps people from scrutiny, thanks to public relations professionals, lawyers, and luxurious isolation. (Though anyone following Elon Musk on Twitter right now is getting a glimpse of it.) As a society, we have internalized the idea that wealth is largely the product of good decision making and that anyone can become a Logan Roy. We demonize and sometimes criminalize poverty because we imagine it as the result of catastrophic and immoral mistakes.
In Succession there are no true heroes, just a boardroom full of nihilists, emotionally stunted kids who won’t stop screwing up. There is comedy and even catharsis in watching people who think they are better than others prove that they are not, and that they may even have acquired extraordinary dysfunctions as a by-product of their wealth. Tom debunks the idea that hard-working, ambitious people are rewarded with wealth and power. The most common reaction to people who make an effort—as in the case of the party crasher carrying a ridiculously large bag—is to be told they don’t belong there.
Elizabeth Spiers, a columnist for the Opinion section, is a journalist and digital media strategist.
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