Context/Description Paper - Succession Introduction
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Hannah Thompson 2/3 Context/Description Paper - Succession Introduction: The television show Succession shows the intersections of themes like wealth, family ties, trauma, and business, and combines these into an extremely dramatic and comedic show. The combination of drama and comedy creates extremely interesting interactions between the characters and reveals a complex character. For the purpose of this, Tom’s interactions with his wife, Shiv, and his new distant cousin, Greg, will be studied. I will be using ideas like homosocial relationships, performativity, queer theory, and hegemonic masculinity. This research joins a long list of works that dissect these themes in TV shows and movies and how these relationships can shape a character’s masculinity; this research joins a much shorter list of work about Succession. Within this paper, I will provide overall context for Succession, which includes a plot overview, a listing of major characters, an explanation of some of the major plot points, a short summary of the show’s production, and some of the critical reception of Succession. Context/Description: Plot Overview: Succession is an American dark comedy drama television series on Home Box Office (HBO). It centers around the Roy family and their family-owned business Waystar RoyCo, which is best described as a media, entertainment, and hospitality empire. The family’s patriarch and founder of Waystar RoyCo is in declining health and three of his children are fighting for his love and approval while also attempting to characterize themselves as the best option to take over their father’s role after his eventual demise. Throughout the course of the two seasons, Succession demonstrates how the uber-wealthy live, while not making the audience jealous of the Roy family. This is done through the characterization of each person as a terrible human being. The show pulls from heavy themes like wealth, family trauma, and the complexities of running a family-owned business. These dramatic themes are broken up with unbelievably dark comedy, complete with witty comments from all characters and cringe-inducing plot points. Major Characters: There are many characters involved in the Roy family business in Succession. However, the Roy siblings and several extremely close family and friends are the most important to this analysis since the show centers around the Roy family. To start, Brian Cox plays the aggressive patriarch of Logan Roy (VanDerWerff). Jeremy Strong embodies the second-born, yet most likely to run the company after Logan’s demise, Kendall Roy (VanDerWerff). Kendall spends the series trying to convince everyone around him, especially his father, that he is fit to run the company, even though he struggles with substance abuse and an estranged wife. His immature brother, Roman, played by Kieran Culkin, often pushes back on Kendall’s status as the natural successor of the Waystar RoyCo CEO (VanDerWerff). Siobhan Roy, or Shiv, is played by Sarah Snook and is the only daughter of Logan Roy and is less involved in the company than her two brothers. She spends most of the show working for two liberal political candidates, whose politics directly conflict with her father’s media. Logan’s oldest son, Connor Roy, played by Alan Ruck, is from a different marriage than the other three children and is the least involved in the company (VanDerWerff). Outside of the Roy siblings is Shiv’s husband, Tom Wambsgans, who is played by Matthew Macfayden (VanDerWerff). He works within the Roy family company, first in the cruises division and then at ATN, the Waystar RoyCo news division. The last important character is Nicholas Braun’s character of Greg Hirsch, lovingly known as ‘Cousin Greg’ to the show’s characters and fans (VanDerWerff). He is the grandnephew of Logan and weasels his way into the family business to work under Tom Wambsgans. Although there are other characters who play integral roles in the show, the immediate family, as well as Tom and Greg, are most important for this analysis. Major Plot Points: An important aspect of the context of Succession is the multiple plot points that last throughout the course of the show’s two seasons. Arguably the most prevalent of these is deciding who will take over Waystar RoyCo whenever Logan gives up control, if he ever does. The first episode ends with Logan having a stroke and being rushed to a hospital, which sets up the next few episodes to demonstrate the struggle for power within the family. The audience watches three of the Roy siblings continually throw each other under the bus to demonstrate why they would be the best acting CEO, with Kendall and Roman coming out on top as CEO and COO, respectively. Once Logan takes back control of the company, Kendall and other members of the board spend the rest of the first season trying to first vote Logan out and then buy him out with investor money. Logan spends most of the second season trying to buy another media conglomerate to demonstrate that he still has the ability to run the company. Although there are many details that are imperative to understanding the full scope of this, this short summary demonstrates one of the overarching themes for the show’s two seasons, as well as the constant power struggle between the siblings and their father. One of the most important plot points involving Tom and Greg, two of the focuses of this paper, is the coverup of corporate crimes and the eventual public scandal. In the first season, Tom is promoted within the company to the head of the Waystar’s Parks and Cruises Division and is subsequently told about years of sexual assault, murder, and other crimes that occured on Waystar’s cruises, that were then actively covered up and kept out of the media. He decides to tell Greg, which then leads to the two of them working together to shred piles of evidence and keep this to themselves. Tom then tells Shiv, Greg tells Gerri, and Greg makes copies of the documents in the event of future blackmail. Even after both of their promotions to ATN, the Waystar news network, Tom and Greg are deeply involved in the cruises coverup. As the scandal becomes public, Tom, Greg, and all of Waystar are involved in Senate hearings, which hurts the company’s already fragile reputation and places most of the characters in precarious positions. Production: Succession was created by Jesse Armstrong, who has worked on several other shows like The Thick of It, Fresh Meat, and Peep Show (Otterson). The first episode premiered in June 2018 and the show has now two completed seasons (Hill). It was quickly renewed for a third season and production was scheduled to start in March of 2020, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic (Flood). At the time of writing, production has resumed but no release date has been announced for season three (Foussianes). The show has filmed in several locations, most of these being in and around New York City, which helps emphasize the show’s setting (Deehan). Specific scenes in the shows have been filmed on location in exact and recognizable locations, like the Atlantic City-Brigantine tunnel (Person). Locations outside New York include Santa Fe and Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire, England (Deehan) (Goddard). HBO’s success has come from shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld, which helped Succession gain popularity. Critical Reception: The public reception of Succession is generally extremely positive. At the 2020 Emmys, Succession was nominated 17 times in various categories and won seven of those categories (Wright). This added to the two Emmys Succession had won in 2019 (Wright). As with other shows on viewing platforms like Netflix and HBO, the immediate viewing numbers of Succession are relatively low, but total viewership is high. It was reported that the season two finale had 1.1 million viewers but the total viewing for season two was estimated to be 4.3 million viewers (Thorne). One of the most consistent comments about the show from critics is the similarities between the Roy family and families like the Trumps, the Murdochs, and the Redstones. The first season of Succession took place at roughly the same time as the Disney takeover of Rupert Murdoch’s empire (Lee). Jesse Armstrong has even stated that Succession was created based on an old ‘Murdoch’ screenplay that was adapted in Succession once he combined elements from people like Sumner Redstone (Lee). Although the Roys do not embody one specific media mogul, their wealth and the amount of people who despise them is prevalent enough to be noted. Other comments about the show from critics include the discussion about the arguments of the show and how these arguments are made. Several critics have pointed out the similarities between Succession and Shakespeare’s work (Evenson). While Shakespeare is directly quoted throughout the show, some of the show’s aspects are clearly poetic and theatrical, with one of the most prevalent connections being the similarities between King Lear and Succession (Evenson). Critics have made this connection through Brian Cox’s “King Lear type” as he once actually played King Lear before his work on Succession (Holmes). Another argument critics have made is that Succession points out everything that is wrong with extremely wealthy people and how powerful rich people can ultimately traumatize the world around them (Samadder). As pointed out, Succession is careful to not glorify the Roy family’s wealth but instead show them as terrible people (VanDerWerff). This relates to one of the other major aspects of Succession, the abuse and neglect that shapes the Roy family and ultimately shapes Waystar RoyCo (VanDerWerff).