It was Kieran Culkin that most aptly surmised the sheer magnitude of wealth that the Roy family has. It’s not linked to their designer labels or the luxury locations we see on screen. Instead, the devil is in the finer details of HBO’s mammoth hit series, Succession.
‘You don’t duck when getting out a helicopter,’ Culkin, who plays Roman Roy, said in a 2019 interview. ‘Because we grew up getting out of helicopters, you just walk right the f*** out.’
Succession is an exploration of the lives of the super wealthy – the one percent of the one percent, who find it as normal to hail a helicopter in the same way the rest of us order an Uber. Essentially King Lear meets the Murdochs, the richly written, darkly comic drama sees brattish siblings battling it out to control their family’s media empire, Waystar Royco, due to their father’s increasingly ailing health. Hailed as one of the best television programmes of the 21st century, the series has swept the board across awards ceremonies, scooping 13 Emmys alongside numerous other accolades.
While Succession has received outstanding critical and commercial success, it is far from being an outlier, with numerous dramas documenting the lives of the super-rich cropping up in the schedules. From the unpalatable guests at the luxury White Lotus resort, to the backstabbing junior bankers playing with billions in Industry – even the seedy figures wearing gold animal masks and bidding on the poor to fight to the death in Squid Game – there’s no shortage in shows seeing the highly moneyed misbehave on TV, and audiences are flocking to watch them.
It seems contradictory that there’s a glut of programming about the super-rich during a time where most people are struggling to make ends meet. A recent report has shown 7.2 million households in the UK are currently forgoing necessities in order to get by, while 4.7 million of us are behind on bills.
But in the same way lipstick sales rise during a recession, audiences turn to television for luxury during economic hardship. It’s something Finola Doyle O’Neill, a broadcast historian at University College Cork, has seen during previous financial cycles.
‘When there was a recession in the early 80s, shows like Dallas and Dynasty proved hugely popular,’ she tells Metro. ‘They were luxe and opulent. They were a form of escapism.
‘There were fewer of those shows in the 90s and noughties, and more of a focus on gritty realism. The economy was performing better, so there wasn’t such a chasm between the wealthy and the less wealthy – there was more of a sense that wealth could be achievable.’
Lucy Mapstone, Entertainment Editor at Metro.co.uk, also recognises this viewing trend.
‘We’re a society based on capitalism and the need for more, more, more,’ she explains. ‘In the case of Succession, we see the Roy family flying around in private jets and helicopters and drinking the finest champagnes at the most breathtaking locations around the world, and having such exploits on a whim. That makes for stunning TV and allows us to briefly imagine a lifestyle most of us will probably never have.
‘Aside from that, people just love to judge others. Especially those ‘above’ them in society, and of course, I use the term above very loosely. These people aren’t better than anyone – they just think they are, and watching them fall apart is delectable.’
However, the lens in which audiences view wealth in more recent programming is far from deferential – rather, they are all uniquely contemptible. Instead of the clear distinction of heroes and villains, the vast majority of wealthy characters in these shows are fundamentally unpleasant and while their bank balances are healthy, as people they are essentially morally bankrupt – awful humans who viewers enjoy seeing them revel in their hideousness.
Succession sees the ensemble of Roys regularly throw each other under the bus without even flinching, while Industry sees the junior bankers scheme and manipulate those around them to succeed. In 2022 satirical horror The Menu, a slightly less subtle reading of the uber wealthy, director Mike Mylod takes this ‘eat the rich’ view almost literally, with the obnoxiously moneyed patrons of the exclusive dining experience becoming increasingly exposed to increasingly horrific (and somewhat deserved) violence.
‘We look at the wealthy with a more jaundiced eye now,’ Doyle O’Neill explains. ‘There’s a great deal more cynicism there about rich people’s motivations, and that’s reflected in how they’re portrayed on screen.
‘We’re certainly not being encouraged to aspire to the rich we see on TV. They’re being lampooned and caricatured, with characteristics being exaggerated to underscore how awful they are.’
These newer ‘eat the rich’ narratives may be borne out of relatively recent world events that have shaped and altered our perception of wealth. The 2008 financial crisis and the ongoing economic turmoil exemplified how the greed of the one percent left ordinary people destitute.
Dr Ian Goode, Senior Lecturer in Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, adds the political climate could have fuelled these more disparaging perceptions of the wealthy.
‘We’ve lived through Trumpian politics,’ he explains. ‘We’re yet to see any retribution from that era. It’s somewhat satisfying to see the upper echelons of the wealthy receiving some sort of comeuppance. There’s certainly a sense of schadenfreude in watching these sorts of shows.
‘Seeing the wealthy suffer gives a suggestion of social retribution about the continued unequal distribution of wealth.’
This new iteration of programming essentially shows that having unimaginable levels of wealth is a poisoned chalice. As much as viewers can covet the luxury and opportunities families such as the Roys have on offer, none of the clan are particularly happy.
‘Not only are the Roys ludicrously out of touch with reality, but to have that sort of money is a headache of proportions most of us wouldn’t want to touch,’ Lucy Mapstone explains. ‘There’s something delicious about watching the rich struggle to keep their wealth and seeing what it does to a personality, or lack thereof.
‘The Roys are so far removed from reality and are generally tedious because of it, but if you dig a little deeper, you can see they’re all just needy, damaged souls who have been made this way because of their lifestyles and experiences.’
So why do we keep returning to watch these shows about what effectively empty husks of human beings, broken by the sheer amount of wealth they carry on their backs?
The very best and most applauded of these sorts of shows, such as Succession and White Lotus, emphasise the humanity of their characters, regardless of their appalling ethics or substantial bank balances.
‘Succession is more than a show about wealth,’ Doyle O’Neill explains, ‘At its heart, it’s a family drama. There’s a lot of love between those characters, who are effectively all just seeking approval from an aloof father.’
‘They’re disarmingly human,’ Mapstone agrees. ‘We see this in the more personal moments, such as when Kendall has a lip wobble and a breakdown over his substance abuse and confidence issues, when we see Shiv try and try and still gets beaten down by Logan, and when Roman has a very visible inner battle over his father versus his siblings. There’s something relatable there that most of us can understand and emphathise with.’
The humanity of the Roy siblings was seen in the recent Connor’s Wedding episode, where patriarch Logan Roy has heart failure and dies on a private plane, far away from his four children who are left blindsided and rudderless at the unexpected loss of their father.
Having been hailed by viewers as one of the greatest episodes of television of all time, thanks to Jesse Armstrong’s razor-sharp writing and some phenomenal performances by the cast, the siblings’ contemptible behaviour was almost largely forgotten as viewers honed in on seeing a fragmented family united by grief.
‘The pandemic was a leveller in that it showed no amount of money could protect us from the very worst things happening,’ Doyle O’Neill explains. ‘It provided us with a more sobering view of what it means to be wealthy.
‘Blatant, in your face, loud wealth just isn’t as compelling as it once was for audience. There will always be shows about the rich, but how they are packaged to us will continue to change as audiences tastes become more sophisticated.’
Mapstone agrees that it’s a fundamental part of the human condition to want to watch how the other half live, and that we will always see programmes exploring a lifestyle the majority of us will never be privy to.
But instead of trying to keep up with the Kardashians and their ilk, viewers are now seeing these narratives as cautionary tales, giving reassurance to ordinary folk when they see rich people’s lives start to crumble.
‘Succession is certainly not a new concept,’ she says. ‘For decades, viewers have lapped up content about the upper echelons of society, from Dynasty to Downton Abbey, Gossip Girl to the brilliantly underappreciated mid-noughties drama Dirty Sexy Money, a real forerunner for Succession that showed the utter gruesomeness of the painfully affluent.
‘Personally, I like knowing that being rich is actually a nightmare, too much effort and not worth having because it can make you a monster.’
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Kimberley.Bond@metro.co.uk
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