The girlboss tragedy of Shiv Roy
It’s hard to decide which sibling I feel most sorry for on HBO’s hit show Succession. Having watched the series several times from start to finish, I find my empathy dancing between each character episode-to-episode. It’s easy to pity Kendall, the only kid with enough courage to initiate an uprising, and one of the only male characters who shows any sign of a conscience. But Roman tugs my heartstrings; despite being, at times, an utter dick to those around him, beneath Kieran Culkin’s multi-layered performance lurks the pitiful forlornness of a puppy left out in the rain, a puppy who doesn’t realise everyone is laughing at him. And then we have Connor, the outsider sibling everyone is always forgetting, a lost man clutching for validation anywhere he can find it.
But we must consider the possibility that Shiv, despite her façade of resilience in the face of the patriarchal structure in which she is enmeshed, is the most tragic character because her struggle is so painfully real in its depiction of women in power today.
In this world of corporate hierarchy, the role of women is reinforced over and over, as poker chips in a game of post-MeToo posturing, only granted access to the inner circle so long as they stay compliant. We see this in the character of Gerri, whose willingness to ‘keep her mouth shut’ wins her the crown – even if, as we keep hearing, it’s ‘only on an interim basis’.
In her 2014 book Girlboss, Sophia Amoruso coins the eponymous term as denoting: “a woman whose success is defined in opposition to the masculine business world in which she swims upstream”. Shiv Roy was born swimming upstream. This is the only world she knows; one in which being a woman with opinions places you low on the food chain. When Shiv stands up for what she believes in, or questions Logan’s authority, she is shot down, silenced, shamed. And as if this shaming weren’t enough, she is then made to act in opposition to what she (and, presumably, the audience) believes is ‘right’ – whether she is convincing a sexual assault victim to stay quiet or posing for a family photo alongside an openly fascist presidential candidate.
The emotional impact of this constant barrage of disempowerment is never really explored, because we don’t see as much of Shiv’s inner life as we do, say, Kendall’s. Sarah Snook’s performance is purposefully restrained; with Season 3 taking a particularly harsh toll on her character, we only see her ‘let loose’ once, on the dancefloor, where (as Cousin Greg surmises) she appears to be ‘releasing her demons’. Whether this is a conscious choice the writers are making is unclear – do we see less of Shiv’s emotional journey because women are chastised for expressing emotion in this world? Or is her character less developed because this is a male-dominated story and setting, and Shiv’s proximity to male characters (her father, her brothers, her husband) is what defines her?
Of course, each sibling is motivated by their desire to be Logan’s successor; this is the basis of the show. But for Shiv, this motivation only presents itself when dangled in front of her nose at the beginning of Season 2, a ploy by Logan to use his daughter to boost the company’s credibility. What really motivates Shiv? Does she even know? In an overall bleak third season, we see a glimmer of a goal in the episode ‘Retired Janitors of Idaho’, wherein Shiv negotiates an extra board seat ‘for herself’ while securing a back-corridor deal with Waystar’s adversary. But it’s hard to imagine this actually playing out, or Logan ever allowing his daughter this power-grab. And following Season 3’s ominous finale, a bleak cherry on top of a rotten cake, who knows where Shiv is going to end up?
We got to witness Kendall going full BoJack this season, and so far he is the sibling that has been granted the most emotional development out of the pack. But as the closing frame of Season 3 suggests, Shiv’s world is about to unravel. We can only hope she sustains the courage to break her shackles.