Succession was a slow burn for me. I started watching and fell into the "Why would I watch a show about terrible people?" camp. Art is subjective and I just assumed it wasn't made for someone like me. I was missing the appeal. A curious mind asks why. So I gave it a chance week after week. Spoilers ahead. Go no further if you have not finished the series.
It was around the middle of season one when I uncovered my own reason for hating it: I live in that world. Where white supremacy and toxic masculinity collide. I live in a world that second guesses me, my talent and my abilities. That would sooner chew me up and spit me out to maintain the status quo. I have access to all the privilege that my white skin affords me but my womanhood has barriers to achieving them. Historically, I prized my ability to play in the "boys club." Slinging insults, being one step ahead of them and plotting my revenge. I was and still am a version of Shiv.
That's when I started to understand. Shiv embodies white feminism and its alignment to power. She is a barrier to change. A tragic churning. A beacon of warning. She trades her femininity for power suits. Slings her quippy comebacks and meanness. Fights aimlessly to outsmart her brothers while they gaslight her into thinking she isn't as cunning. With money and access to political systems, she's dangerous. She's a mean girl with all the resources of an empire. Men are too attracted and terrified to work next to her and that complication, where she wielded flirting to get ahead, screws her over in the end. Her character is the most hotly debated right now. Whether she is a victim of misogyny or a bitch. Surely she can't be both or have any nuance *sarcasm*. That's excellent writing.
Succession is modern Shakespeare. It's Hamlet. It's Macbeth. The characters are not glorified. They are warnings. Each one a characterization of the tragic ends of power. Of aristocracy. It's Game of Thrones but in bland corporate offices and private jets. It's Survivor. Full of social blindsides. Each character scheming for its social climb at the expense of the other. Outwit, Outsmart, Outlast. The insults are brilliant: “Do you bite your thumb at me sir?” Shakespearian.
The weight of Shibon's predictable end is HEAVY. As an Ophelia who chose a proselytizing social climber as a mate; her father, she's accepted her fate. THAT ending was *chef's kiss* perfect. THIS shot:
In one single shot, with that perfect wet fish hand hold, she slides herself back into power proximity and the cycle repeats. Tossing herself into the river and drowning in the toxic masculinity flow. It is every white woman who's ever stood in the way of progress. Choosing a crown and safety over a shakeup.
Growing up in a community where men were prized over women, I was often beat down by the male authority figures in my life for being an "insufferable know it all and having opinions." The audacity at which I sought to be treated as equal often shot down by calling me a: "bitch, bossy, pushy, opinionated, emotional, stuck up and smarmy cunt." The men in my life were allowed to throw tantrums and make mistakes only to be seen as leaders and celebrated. I was not. I am still called all those things. They just don't hurt anymore.
As a female director, I often walk onto a set and am confused for the hair and make up crew. AV crews at the events I work would dismiss me and then take my solutions for problems and pass them off as their own. I am talked over a lot in meetings. I've lost opportunities for not being able to "bro-it" with a crew. I've watched less talented peers be promoted or hired for jobs while I danced circles around them. It didn't matter how hard I worked to fit in. I never would. That is not a "poor me," statement. I have been blessed with the courage to forge my own paths.
The glorious midlife maturity hit me and I let that all go. I divorced myself from trying to be masculine “to win,” and decided to not care. I began undoing the doing of our society. One that sought to keep me in a binary box. Doing so coincided with my untangling from the power structures that are entrenched in our world. A decolonization. A realization of what living in capitalism really means. I began experimenting with shifting my alignment from male power to my alignment to community. To heal the abrasive teenage girl who experienced misogyny at every turn. I am by no means perfect at this but I now fully understand that for me to be free - the most marginalized among us need to be free. Sign me up for team abolition. I saw clearly how many of my personal hang-ups were actually systems ingrained to maintain power and I have much to learn. My internal struggles to matter, didn't, I already mattered. It was the world that was backwards, so fuck 'em. Perhaps that is my purpose. To live a gloriously untangled life free from the trappings my grandmother's experienced. To travel freely, own my own business, choose not to have kids, to set down those privileges and dig into my community. To choose men who uplift me and dismiss those who don’t. That is an ongoing project that never stops.
Shiv did no such internal work and she doesn't have to. She has money. Our society often confuses the “having of money,” as also being intelligent and smart. But out of all the children, she's the smartest, the most in-tune with her audiences at the media company and the best at working the politics needed to be successful. She could walk away and have all the skills to build whatever she wants. That can not be said for any other character. They all fall apart without their alignment to power. Shiv could have the world. But that's not what she chose.
In the boardroom, when she runs before the vote I thought " this is it!," this is the moment she blows it up. Fight Club style. Cue the Pixie's, Where is my Mind. Blow it up! When Tom whispers to "meet him in the car," after being crowned king, I wanted to see her in the rear view mirror. Waving with glee as he drives off. I wanted to see her turn around and walk away.
And then, there she was. Sitting. Waiting for Tom. That felt right for the show. Shiv can't stand watching her brothers win after a lifetime of playing third fiddle but she is unwilling to leave the toxic soup and start over.
Succession was not coy about rooting the narrative in real life. That's the scariest part of it all. If you've ever worked in a fortune 500 company with a CEO, you'd know. It’s VERY real. The Murdoch family went as far as legally requiring NDA’s for anyone that comes in contact with them, so that their real lives stopped showing up on Succession. As an artist, I have access to these rooms. Through vanity projects, city events and philanthropy. I've sat in meetings with high-society Shibons. That's the rub of making money at this time in history. We all need to be plugged in somewhere to survive. That's why it takes so long to change things. I too want to blow up philanthropy and it's toxicity - the place where I have rooted my career. I'm currently wrestling with the ethics of my participation. Questioning how much I am also holding up the status quo but ultimately being reminded that my meager earnings are a hairpin in the larger machine. I am no Roy, Murdoch, Rothschild, Gates, Musk or Bezos. I'm a flea on the window to them. The inequity of our society is perpetuated by such glorification of the wealthy. Which is why I was so easy to dismiss the show at first. I too worried that celebrating the series added to that collective consciousness of billionaire deities. Where nothing changes and we rinse, cycle and repeat. That's the cost of western societies.
Murdoch Family
I just started this great book called Becoming Kin. I am starting to understand why I struggle with imagining anything different. I don't know the histories or an alternative way of life. I only know white power, colonization, slavery and capitalism because those systems wiped out any other way of life. I've only ever existed in a world with the kings and queens of Succession. People who didn't earn their leadership but were born into it and propped up with all the resources that access provides. I've witnessed the men in my childhood build empires and behave just like these characters. Celebrated for their mastery of the system but not held accountable for the expense at others.
I can only hope to be waving at them in the rearview mirror. Choosing carefully who I spend my time with. It's worth noting that the corporate giants who profit from this show are currently holding the writers hostage by not negotiating a fair contract. This great show that stirred me up and got me to write an entire blog post, the people who invented it, who dreamed it up and put words to a page won't see the wealth it creates. What great tragic Shakespearian irony that is. And that is where I leave you. The tug of war at inequity continues.
HBO - give the writers what they want. They earned it.