Why being rich is no longer glamorous
The perspective of those in service to the wealthy is also at the centre of TV’s current reframing of richness and has been key in viewers’ ability to connect with these programmes. Most obviously, that is the case with Squid Game, in which the wealthy VIPs are absurd, mask-wearing caricatures, only briefly glimpsed, and most of our time is spent with their “sport”, while in Maid, everything is seen from the viewpoint of Alex. And in The White Lotus, we get to spend as much time with the hotel workers as we do with the spoiled guests, seeing their frustration and coping mechanisms up close, whether it’s manager Armond struggling to hide his contempt for Shane, or spa manager Belinda pandering to the spaced-out wrecking ball Tanya.
Succession, on the other hand, keeps its focus tight on its super-rich characters – which is possibly why it has itself been accused by some of being wealth porn. But while it can’t escape the media trying to frame it that way, with articles on how to recreate its characters’ wardrobes or rent the properties featured in it, in essence it’s far from it. There is a coldness to creator Jesse Armstrong’s portrayal of the extremely rich that is both emotional and visual. “For the most part,” says Hadadi, “you do not see where these people live. They are consumed by business, exist on private jets or inside private cars. But when we do see their personal lives, they seem very empty. It feels like a conference room that these people live in and sleep in. It’s not appealing by any means.” There’s an ugliness that underscores everything. It’s in the little things: for example, the way in which, when a hostess tries to take Shiv and Roman’s phones at Kendall’s ostentatious 40th birthday party, they don’t even stop, they just laugh at her and say, “You’re gonna have to tase us”; or the disdainful way Caroline laughs at her own husband-to-be for being a “grasping little scholarship boy” and “buying his own furniture”.
Succession also never seems to see much fun in materialism – the private jets and lavish parties – because it sees wealth only as a mechanism of power. The camera on the show moves quickly, careful not to latch on to anything lest it be considered beautiful or desirable. None of the characters seem to really want to be in the lavish apartments and villas that they find themselves in. In fact, none of the Roys actually know how to enjoy being rich, despite their hilariously vulgar attachment to their excesses (when threatened with taking away Waystar’s private jets, Roman earnestly exclaims “Not the PJs! First they came for the PJs, and I said nothing…”). Put simply, their lifestyle is not aspirational – it’s gross. This governing principle explains the see-saw between the emotional brutality and ineptitude of Armstrong’s characters as they coast through a sterile lifestyle drenched in privileges that make them untouchable. Even, notably, by Covid. While the production of the third series was delayed due to the ongoing pandemic, the contents of the series were not rewritten because, as Sarah Snook, who plays Shiv, put it, “none of the world’s really wealthy people were going to be affected by the pandemic”.
Among its many achievements, Succession has shown a new way forward for exploring wealth on TV; it avoids falling into the trappings of wealth porn because it is so avowedly uninterested in the glorification of excess. The Roy’s PJs and ill-fitting Gucci bomber jackets are not what makes them watchable, and while their tacky profligacy is there for our entertainment, their miseries are what keep us emotionally engaged.
Above all, Succession triumphs in zeroing in on the most consequential, and toxic, privileges that wealth can afford. For the Roys, it’s not the PJs, it’s the getting away with murder. It’s the covering up of deadly misdemeanors. It’s their ability to dehumanise anyone who is not “one of them” without a second thought (as embodied in the chilling acronym used by Waystar Royco to refer to crimes involving marginalised victims like migrant and sex workers: NRPI, aka “no real person involved”). It’s the ability to avoid repercussions for decades of covered-up sexual assaults. In last week’s third series finale, with their dad planning to sell Waystar Royco to a new tech company, the Roy siblings panicked as they faced the possibility of being shut out of the power structure that has protected them their entire lives. We don’t feel sorry for them, but we wouldn’t want to be them either.
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