Hey now, has this ever happened to you? You are innocently scrolling social media, looking at memes, cute animal videos and the occasional comment on some of your favorite media, when suddenly an opinion crosses your feed that's so unbelievably wrong it seems the OP is posting from a parallel universe. Because surely, surely, if you had both watched the same movie/show, surely, they could not have reached a conclusion this eccentric. It itches in your fingers, you start typing up a reply, you simply have to set the record straight. But then you remember. Starting fights online is generally a huge waste of everyone's time and efforts. People aren't likely to try and see things your way, no matter how clearly and persuasively you explain. The most probable outcome is just huge amounts of frustration on your part. It's simply not worth it. Especially over something as ultimately inconsequential as a media opinion. And still. OP was so wrong on the internet. You cannot let that go unremarked. So what are you to do?
Mostly, I just rant to a friend. We commiserate and pick apart why exactly the opinion was bad and then we congratulate each other on being the only ones with correct ideas. But I realized that I have this blog and I don't utilize it nearly as much as I want to. Thus, without further ado, I'm starting a series where I elaborate on opinions I read on the internet that I heavily disagree with.
Disclaimer: Obviously, obviously, I do not think I have the correct opinions. These are, after all, opinions still. I do believe the statements I will be discussing here to be based at least partially on flawed logic or a misunderstanding of the media, but that doesn't mean I'm right all the time or even about these. Just in case the irony wasn't clear.
No. 1: Not everything that has rich people in it is Succession
The first statement I will be discussing is the following: "The Gentlemen [the show] is Succession if it was bad".
This is fascinating to me, because it would have never occurred to me to compare these two shows whatsoever.
Now, I've watched and liked both shows. And I agree, Succession is the better show by many metrics. So, I understand if OP didn't like The Gentlemen. You can see Guy Ritchie's signature style of storytelling everywhere (even if the show has more than one female character and less homoeroticism than his movies usually have). That's not for everybody. But it makes absolutely no sense, in my opinion, to compare these shows in this way.
In The Gentlemen Eddie Horniman gets called back to England because his father is dying. After his death, Eddie inherits the family estate as well as the title of Duke instead of his irresponsible older brother. The same older brother owes a large sum of money (although, 8 million would be peanuts to anyone in Succession) to a drug dealer and when he causes even more trouble, Eddie is forced to join forces with a cannabis producer who grows her product under his estate.
When in Succession, the patriarch of the Roy family and CEO of a media and entertainment conglomerate, Logan Roy, suffers a stroke, the struggle for the control of the company begins and the characters start to destroy themselves and each other for the money and the power that would bring.
Succession is (despite what some other very wrong people might claim) a scathing critique of capitalism and the people propagating it, specifically the America-brand of hyper-capitalism that sucks everyone participating in it in until there's nothing left. Almost every single one of the characters is awful in one way or another, they cannot escape the draw of their abusive family dynamics that mirror the abusive dynamics of the capitalist system. It is a drama with dark comedic elements.
In The Gentlemen meanwhile you are supposed to think the two main characters are cool and badass. You are supposed to root for them and they are, through narrative decisions, mostly in the right in their actions. It's also not about capitalism at all really. It's not presenting capitalism and the people participating in it in a positive light, it's only concerned about money as a means to an end not and end in itself. The Gentlemen is about keeping your family safe with the cleanest hands possible. It's about the allure of a criminial underbelly and how far you are willing to go. It is an action comedy.
The specific point the post was belaboring had to do with the - excellent - choice of Succession not to have an employee character who works for the Roys and is loyally supportive of them, while The Gentlemen has a gamekeeper that looks after the Horniman estate and is devotedly on their side throughout. Again, it is useless to compare the two because the context is different. On the one hand, the gamekeeper lives on the estate, he's personally invested and connected to the family, and a trusty butler/housekeeper/groundskeeper is a staple in stories about the British nobles; on the other hand everyone in Succession works for the company - some long-standing, some not - and while they also are in part involved with the family, they, as well, are shown to prioritize their own self-interest as is fitting for the thematic through-lines of the show.
Therefore, while it is utterly fair to not want to watch or else not enjoy watching a show that - at least in part - looks at criminal enterprises or British aristocracy with kind eyes, you do have to acknowledge that it has very little in common with the withering insights into US-American capitalism of Succession.
In the end, it's like saying "Game of Thrones is Lord of the Rings if it was bad". Those two things aren't the same.
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