Sophie. Please explain to me why an exchange including the sentence "I'd castrate and marry you" was so. effing. soft. (you know, right before the weird slap fight)
Alex!!!! I have so many Thoughts!!!
Okay, a few years ago, I read Anna Krien's incredible non-fiction book Night Games which is about a lot of things, but in particular it's about the relationship between sports, power and sex. Through those things it talks a lot about the relationship between toxic masculinity and male-to-male intimacy and community, and how violence against 'others' (namely women, but also other perceived outsiders to that male community) as well as each other, is really deeply entwined at the heart of that.
It's a book I think about a lot generally, but I seriously think about it all the time with Succession, because in a lot of ways, it's the same. It's the corporate world of course, not sports, but it's steeped in the same exclusivity, the same machismo, the same perceived excellence and masculine 'ideal' ā god, it's the breadwinner on steroids, right? (A particularly interesting concept for a character like Logan who came from nothing and who's father died when he was a small child, but that's neither here nor there for this question, haha).
One of the concepts though at the heart of the book is that toxic male culture creates an environment where intimacy in male relationships is something that is both deeply and humanly craved, and heavily derided and punished. Men aren't supposed to want intimate relationships with other men, but they do, and how they seek it is through the creation of a sort of 'pack' and male community, which is often forged through a kind of violence ā war, sport, gangs, fights, corporate hostile takeovers, haha.
You can hug a man on your team, but only after you've tackled one on the other team to the ground.
Or worse ā you rape a woman with your friend, to create a deeper closeness to your friend and solidify your 'male community'.
You perform an act of violence to allow an act of intimacy.
Again, Anna's book's pretty specifically about sport (and even more specifically about Australian Rules Football, although she does talk about other sport as well), but the basis is one that feels really realised in Succession.
God, think about the s1 finale where it's through the death of a waiter ā an outsider to the community ā that allows Logan to close the gap between him and Kendall again.
I think Tom and Greg embody that same principle in so many ways, but it's different for them. Many of the characters on this show perform versions of manhood and masculinity, frequently failing in their delivery, but Tom was expressing an act of violence as a request for intimacy because he doesn't know how else to get it.
He can't get either professional support nor personal comfort from his wife, and both are things he's received previously from Greg. They're a relationship that in some ways cemented itself in their 'othering' from the Roy community ā peripheral players to power instead of they themselves wielding it ā and I think it leaves both of them hungry for a community of their own. An intimacy.
The story of Nero and Sporus isn't just about violence and intimacy after all, it's about getting rid of a family to create a new one in that family's image ā kill Shiv and replace her with Greg. Not an imitation exactly, but a relationship that lets Tom feel in control, and grants him what he wants ā someone he can look after, someone he can be intimate with, someone, he feels, is on his team. The story itself is dark, but the reason beneath it isn't ā Tom's seeking a space to be vulnerable with someone he feels connected to, but he has no idea how to do it.
Violence, intimacy and power are all mixed up together for men like these, and I feel like that was such a loaded and honest example of it.
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