The Succession finale was brilliant. Time to end the series.

There's no need for another season after an ending like that

Succession.
(Image credit: Illustrated | HBO, iStock)

It's hard for visual media like film and TV to depict certain subjects without glorifying them. "Some films claim to be antiwar," director François Truffaut noted in a 1973 interview, "but I don't think I've ever really seen an antiwar film." Because screen violence is inherently aestheticized, no matter how gory the images, "[e]very film about war ends up being pro-war."

The ambiguous quality Truffaut found in war films also applies to depictions of great wealth. No matter how vicious or unhappy the rich appear, it's hard not to admire their luxurious possessions and beautiful surroundings. In the last decade of the Cold War, Communist authorities in Romania decided to permit broadcasts of Dallas, believing its depiction of capitalist corruption would remind viewers of the benefits of socialism. The effect, of course, was the opposite: For many Romanians as much as for Americans, to see the Ewings was to wish to be the Ewings.

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Samuel Goldman

Samuel Goldman is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and was a postdoctoral fellow in Religion, Ethics, & Politics at Princeton University. His books include God's Country: Christian Zionism in America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018) and After Nationalism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021). In addition to academic research, Goldman's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.