Abigail Disney, granddaughter of one of the founders of the Walt Disney Company, is a filmmaker and iconoclast. The latter description suits her because she is an active member of a group called “Patriotic Millionaires” which lobbies for higher taxes on the rich and warns against the dangers to society of dynastic wealth and the concentration of capital. (It’s a position that is counterintuitive to most wealthy clans.)
Evidently such wealth is dangerous not only to society, but also to those who possess it. That’s the inevitable conclusion a viewer of the enormous TV hit “Succession” must draw. According to Ms. Disney, the Roys — the fictional clan at the heart of the drama — come very close to reality.
Disney, who knows more than a bit about dynastic wealth, privilege, and, well, succession, has a unique vantage point from which to offer such a review.
Wow, Succession was bru-TAL tonight. But it confirms my own experience of people at the top. Most of them tend to be overselling everything: themselves, their numbers, their ideas, the future. Throw just a handful of truth serum into the mix and everything collapses.
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) May 8, 2023
Brutal as the narrative drive of “Succession” has been this season, Disney revealed that it matches what she’s seen with her own eyes in her time among the rich and powerful. She writes that the “Succession” plotlines and character exposition “confirms my own experience of people at the top. Most of them tend to be overselling everything: themselves, their numbers, their ideas, the future. Throw just a handful of truth serum into the mix and everything collapses.”
Disney doesn’t reveal whether her other “Succession” observation matches her own experience, but she clearly sees on the show how successive generations can’t use the same motivation and ire to succeed — that diluted and passed down anger more likely results in frustration, not satisfaction.
The best illustration of the diff between Logan and his kids is how anger works for Roman vs how it worked for Logan. In Logan, anger always resulted in an outcome he wanted. But Roman's anger is pure flailing and complete self-destruction. #Succession
— Abigail Disney (@abigaildisney) May 8, 2023
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