A Theology of Money and Power vs. a Theology of Kindness
The religious worldviews of Succession and Ted Lasso
The Summer is upon us, and some of the most talked about TV shows of the last few years, Succession and Ted Lasso, are ending their runs. I am traveling for work these days and I have had to figure out how to watch the last few episodes of these shows while abroad: I watched Season 3 of Ted Lasso while flying to Taiwan (that’s how long the flight was!), and watched the last episode of Succession with a very glitchy cable connection at my hotel in Tokyo. It sounds like I am one of the Roy siblings, jet-setting all over the world, although I have to fly coach everywhere, and my hotel rooms (I kid you not) did not have windows, so it is much less glamorous. Anyway, that’s not the point of this post. What I wanted to talk about here is the very different religious worlds presented by those shows which, by extension, offer radically different views about humanity, morality, and society. The Roys, in Succession, live in a world in which God does not exist or does not matter. Ted Lasso presents a theology of belief where the object of faith is less important than the act of believing itself.
God Can Fuck Off: The Godless World of Succession
Over four seasons, we have seen the Roy siblings fight, skim, deal, and lie in order to take over the media empire of their father, the bigger-than-life (and Rupert Murdoch-inspired) Logan Roy. Logan is the formidable patriarch of the Roy family, a self-made man who possesses a worldview shaped by the relentless pursuit of power, wealth, and self-interest. His ethics and morals, if any, are single-mindedly focused on maintaining control over his media empire at any cost, often disregarding the well-being of others, including his own children. Logan's primary concern lies in preserving his dominance, which leads him to engage in manipulative tactics and display a callous disregard for the consequences of his actions because, ultimately, he knows that there are no consequences, particularly to people who have amassed enough wealth and power (here we see parallels to the Murdochs and Trumps of the world).
If the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree and realized that the world and the self are ultimately impermanent, and Jesus came to teach us that God is Love, Logan Roy took a cold look at the world and realized that nothing matters, that everything is a deal, and that all the things people hold dear and important, family, society, politics, the economy, it’s all a construct, a lie we’ve been told to keep us submissive. Once you realize that, you are free to do as you please. And that’s what he does. In some ways, Logan is the most authentic character in the show. True to himself and to his view of the world until the end, everything for Logan Roy is a deal: the way he sees his business, but also the way he sees his family. Everything has an upside and a downside, and the yardstick with which to measure those is himself. Logan Roy’s view of the world is profoundly nihilistic. I know it is easy to mention Nietzsche when the word nihilism is mentioned. Still, there is some resonance in Logan’s worldview to Nietzche’s idea (in his book Beyond Good and Evil, 1886) of “master-morality,” which values power and independence, and it stands “beyond good and evil,” and slave-morality, which values sympathy, humility, and kindness, but that he also portrays as herd-morality designed for the masses to stay enslaved.
The characters in the show never talk about their faith or their views on God. There is only a hint as to Logan being raised Catholic (at some point he says that he is “a Catholic boy, too shy to take off his undershirt in front of his wife”). There is a very telling scene as to how religion and faith play no role in the Roys's worldview. In Logan’s funeral scene, the Roy children do not talk about their faith, or about their father being in a better place. They can only talk about themselves, and about the fact that they never understood or felt loved by their father. There is no redemption for Logan or for their children. There is also a funny and revealing detail about the mausoleum in which Logan’s remains will be buried. When the kids see it, they find it impressive even though a bit grandiose, but there is no thought put into it since it was not designed by Logan. The mausoleum is just another deal he found when he bought it from a mogul who lost everything in the 2000 dotcom crisis. Once inside, the kids look around puzzled and perplexed, as if they have never thought about death, or if as death is something that will never affect them (as if their wealth would make them immune to death and its effects). And here is when Connor tells us something revealing, which is that “pops did not want to touch the ground.” This comment seems to reveal that Logan did search for some sort of transcendence, albeit a very superficial one: he doesn’t aim for heaven, which he probably does not believe in, but he doesn’t want to touch the ground, which would mean that he is just another material body. He thought that by accumulating wealth and power he would transcend his humble origins, only to discover that all he achieved was alienating himself from everything and everyone. Ultimately, the world or Logan Roy is a world without God, or one in which God, as Logan did with everyone else, was told to fuck off.
Just Be Nice: The Theology of Kindness and Belief of Ted Lasso
Ted Lasso was an interesting counter to Logan Roy and the world of Succession. If the Roys were like Greek gods living on Mount Olympus, distant, powerful, and kind of messed up, the characters of Ted Lasso are mostly grounded and down to earth. The characters also face the world in different ways. While the Roys are mostly unaffected by the vagaries of the world and are only consumed with the issue of the succession of their father’s empire (and fighting for Logan’s impossible-to-reach affection), the characters in Ted Lasso are dealing with issues we all have to deal with: love, life, sex, insecurities, etc. While the characters of Succession act (and fail) as if they are detached from emotions, Ted Lasso is teaching their characters to embrace them. If Succession is a ruthless world where only ruthless people can and should survive, Ted Lasso is a ruthless world where the only way to survive and be happy is to be kind and embrace all the little things and imperfections that life has to offer. Logan Roy is the embodiment of nihilism (everything and everyone can fuck off!), Ted Lasso, in its unique and idiosyncratic way, is a Prophet of Kindness, a Midwestern Taoist master that hides under his lack of knowledge (of soccer in particular!) a way of looking at the world that is simple yet profound. Just. Be. Kind.
Like many people, I discovered Ted Lasso when it was released in August of 2020, when the world was reeling from a worldwide pandemic, and the United States had a president who constantly used his platform to spread lies and be mean… to pretty much everyone! It was an exhausting time, and Ted Lasso came up as this warm and kind show. It was such a relief to be able to watch a show with my children where people had issues (Ted Lasso can be dark too), but they approached them with kindness while trying to be nice to each other. It looks so easy, and the world seems to tell us that it is so hard if not impossible. We loved watching that first season as a family. It was a show that made me feel good and gave me hope for humanity. At the heart of it, there was a simple but powerful theology, what I would call a theology of belief. Just have faith and believe that good things are possible.
At the same time, after the initial feel-good feeling (I know, that’s redundant), I also found this particular theology slightly problematic since it also seemed empty and superficial. There is a lot of talk of belief and one of the most iconic elements of the show is the little sign with the word “believe” that Ted Lasso puts in the locker room and becomes a lucky charm of sorts for the A.F.C. Richmond team. But we are never really told what to believe in. There is a hint of it in the speech linked below (S3 Ep4). It is moving, and it sounds like a nice theology, but it also feels like an empty one.
That emptiness is revealed in that same episode when after a motivational speech by new superstar signing Zava (based on the Swedish player Zlatan Ibrahimović, sorry I do love soccer), one of the players follows up by saying “we need to believe in belief.” That sort of sums up Ted Lasso’s (the character and the show) theology. It is not about a faith in God, or Gods, or a particular religion, it is about the power of faith itself, devoided of any particular content. It is about the belief in belief. That’s the charm of the show, but also my main issue with it. Ted Lasso’s simplicity and kindness are refreshing, a welcome reminder that there is power in being nice and kind to people. But the message is also sentimental and ultimately empty. I actually don’t like writing this, because I do like the show (even though the third season has its issues). It celebrates all the highs and lows of being a human. The show might not reach what it ultimately is aiming for, but it does try, and sometimes that’s all we can ask for.
Despite their very different worldviews, I will miss watching both shows. They became compelling explorations of very basic aspects of what it means to be human, from the selfish instincts of the Roys, to the kind and compassionate attitude of Ted Lasso.