To borrow a Biblical phrase, the rich are always with us. In business, in politics, and quite often on television. HBO's “Succession” won three of its last four Emmy Awards for Best Drama Series before wrapping up its run last year. The small screen is filled with characters who are spoiled, burdened, and pushed to their limits by the excesses of wealth and the power that comes with it. But isn't this a story we've seen too often lately, and one that's too close to reality?
The answer is yes and yes, which means a host of series (limited and otherwise) are finding success in new ways to look at the lifestyles of the rich and awful and expose their tarnished, gilded cages. Examples include “Loot” (Apple TV+), “Mary & George” (Starz), “Griselda” and “The Gentlemen” (Netflix), “The Regime,” “The Gilded Age,” “The Righteous Gemstones” (HBO) and “Feud” (FX). And in the process, creators are reimagining their rich and awful protagonists as not only in need of a makeover, but in need of reckoning.
“'Dynasty' was popular when I was growing up,” recalls Matthew Reid, executive producer of “The Gentlemen,” a show about a landed man newly inheriting a marijuana empire, “but it would be hard for viewers to look up to those characters or enjoy the same kind of flamboyant consumption. [today]”A film like 'Succession' is a film that lets you enjoy how unhappy rich people are.”
Watching the wealthy enjoy privilege used to be a way for those without to get a glimpse into a life they would never have. “People are idolized,” says Gillian Anderson, who, in the Netflix series Scoop, plays the TV journalist whose interview with Prince Andrew leads to him stepping back from public life. “Everyone always imagines that if they're rich and famous, everything will be fine.”
“It's interesting to see what people do with these opportunities,” says Chloe Sevigny, who plays a wealthy heiress in Capote vs. Swans. “What we're all interested in is what they do with the money.”
And as Julian Fellowes (the creator and writer of the class-conscious historical drama The Gilded Age, with Sonia Warfield) points out, not everyone with money needs to be portrayed as a terrible person: “Some people who make a lot of money are really nice people who think it's their job to do their bit. Others think they've done their job and should enjoy it, and everyone else should leave them alone.”
But it's a recent trick to focus on figures with unimaginable wealth. The suggestion is that an abundance of money actually influences how people think. Consider the “affluenza” criminal defense. — Writers are shifting tack: Will Tracy has been in the business for a few years now, having written the screenplay for “Succession,” 2022’s “The Menu” (with Seth Rice) and developing a limited series called “The Regime,” about an unrealistic ruler of a fictional country.
“Madness permeates everything. [those] “She's working on her own project,” Tracy says, “and if you watch The Regime you see that the power and access to material resources that she has allows her to create her own reality, and everyone around this character has to pretend that her reality is real.”
The fantastic, second-hand thrill viewers once got from stories of the rich and powerful takes on a different meaning when TV series about them today: As billionaires proliferate and the real world becomes an ever-widening class divide, watching the super-rich disappear without real consequence makes the shows feel hollow and unaspirational.
Some series have dealt with the issue more directly. “Griselda” invites viewers to identify with the female drug lord. Eric Newman (who co-creates the limited series with Doug Milo, Carlo Bernard and Ingrid Escajeda) says the gender swap puts a new spin on things. Ultimately, retribution is exacted upon her in the form of the deaths of her children, the consequences of which he claimed.
“As a storyteller, I have a duty to show that there is no happy ending to such a traumatic event,” he says. “I have sympathy for the perpetrators, but if you tell a truthful story, these perpetrators cannot get away with it.”
Tracy's new story in “Regime” depicts a political dictator who craves love from his followers but is overly involved in social media recognition. “When shows like Dynasty were on TV, the richest people in the country were ciphers, black boxes,” he says. “Now the richest and most powerful people in the country are visible, and they invite us into their world through social media. They want us to be part of their thought process, and their thought process is largely insane. We want to watch that weird show.”
“Mary” creator DC Moore says that as he was putting together the limited series about a mother and son winning wealth and status from King James I, he noticed echoes of the past in the modern, real world. “It feels like the last 10 or 20 years have brought us back to a time when absolute power and dictatorship have risen and those leaders are everywhere,” he says. “I had that absolutely in mind when I was writing it.”
But not all shows are directly aiming for major endings for their characters. “We live in interesting times, and people are becoming more aware of what goes on behind the scenes. [life] “Money doesn’t solve everything,” says Danny McBride, creator and star of “Gemstones,” a show about a wealthy televangelist family, “but I don’t think it has to be about the outcome. [my] I don't look at storytelling as something that a particular show has to conform to a particular payoff.”
Loot, on the other hand, is all about the concept of billions of dollars being handed to a protagonist who wants to do good deeds rather than launch rockets into the sky or advocate for dictatorship.
Co-creator Alan Yang (with Matt Hubbard) has said about the show, “It's not a polemic. We're not trying to change everyone's mind. … But this show is at the end of the spectrum of where we believe change is possible. There's not just one billionaire, not even all billionaires. We all have to work together to fight social stratification. Ten good, rich people are never going to change the world. But is there any hope that people can change? That's what this show is about. At the end of the day, that's the heart of what we do.”
