Succession: The Show That Excludes Its Audience

For me, Succession began as a wallow in a world of schadenfreude, a world I am part of and yet do not know at all in its rarefied upper reaches. But it ended with a queasy feeling that the show's apparent intent was not its actual effect, that somehow I was the brunt of the joke. And there is a bitter joke at the heart of this saga that makes it more than another "Network" or a high-budget remake of "The Society of the Spectacle" by Guy Debord. What are we to make of this show and its success?

The answer lies in asking what's missing.

"Succession" works its magic by taking us inside a family that is so dysfunctional, calling it "family" seems to stick in the throat. This is what the world of the rich looks like: a permanent first class cabin where all dissenting noises and obstacles are smoothed out by a small army of the faceless. But we see inside them, the unbearable pain they carry around since childhood and inflict on the world around them. We are moved to compassion for this family and the awful pain all of them bear. That makes them like everyone else. Then again: that makes them like everyone else. So what makes them more interesting? What is the point of this morality fable except to reassure us, like People magazine does regularly, that the rich are no different from you and me? Scott Fitzgerald had it right. They are. And the greatest giveaway is in what has been omitted from this family story: us.

The faces of the army are missing. The audience is missing. The core asset that makes the whole show turn - once known as our eyeballs- is mentioned only as a commodity that the rich barter for greater power. That's it. You and me, the HBO subscribers, are missing from this show on a network about a family that barters its ownership of audiences through its ownership of networks for wealth and power. We have been seduced by great storytelling into paying premium fees to watch ourselves being bought and sold by people in high towers.

?And in doing so, it excludes almost everyone else. When was the last time you saw someone distinctive on the show who was not an A-lister, or some sort of assistant to one of the oligarchy, like Logan Roy's driver, Colin? ("You're my best pal" says Logan). The only place where the masses show up are when they are shown their place - in discussions of ratings or as products to be leveraged in a negotiation. Of course this is how all media works but this show excels at taking that to its blood-curdling extreme.?

This is the commodity fetish described in "The Society of the Spectacle" by Guy Debord, the "bewildered herd" of Walter Lippman, who must be herded towards a set of actions, feelings, opinions because we cannot formulate our own, as participants. The less we show up to vote, the more we confirm this unsparing, cynical critique of us- the people watching this show.

In every Shakespearan play, there are many themes but central to his work is an idea of the individual, the human with all her intellect, imagination, soul. This is why one comes away enriched, even uplifted, from his darkest plays. "Succession" on the other hand feels like that brownie I sneaked last night - a momentary indulgence that leaves a hole in the stomach later.